August Newsletter
August newsletter is here: click here
August newsletter is here: click here
"I'm getting the word frantic for someone in the room," she said.
Oh sure, that could be anyone. Whose life isn't frantic these days?
"Frantic and a complete lack of peace. Somehow it's connected to allergies. This person may not have even put these two together yet."
How could she possibly know that? I'd been trying to put up such a brave front - showing the world I had it all together. I was trying to show I knew what I was doing, full of confidence. Inside, I was falling apart. And physically, I was in more pain that I could remember being in for a very long time - maybe ever. So much pain. Some days my eyes were hot with tears that I was trying to hide. The pain on the outside matched the intensity of the pain on the inside. It had been getting progressively worse for weeks.
"Frantic....allergies."
How could she know? I know she has the gift of knowledge, but still. How could she know that?
I tried to become invisible in my chair. No one could know. People I knew were in the room. What would they think? Would they feel sorry for me in my weakness? Would they mock me for it? Believe it was real?
"Come forward. Let us pray for you. Let us pray for peace in your heart and healing in your body."
I've requested prayer for healing for my body more times than I can count. What was the use? How would this be any different? I willed myself to be glued into my chair.
"Come forward. If you have pain we want to pray for you."
My body left the chair. I felt compelled. It certainly wasn't of my own volition.
"How can we pray for you?" her husband asked.
I first met Kennedy after another long day in the city where I had once again been unsuccessful in most of my endeavors. And I was in a foul mood.
I was on my way home and peeved that I had to make yet another stop. Why couldn't there be fast food drive-thrus like the "civilized" country I had come from? As I gathered my purse, cell phone, and list, Kennedy approached my car. I had already shooed away the men selling socket wrenches, DVDs and talk time. I didn't have time to deal with this kid too. I'd always managed to dodge him before. This time though, he was there before I even got out of the car.
"Madam, ground nuts?" he asked in a nearly inaudible voice.
"No, I don't want any."
"Only 5000, madam." I did the math in my head. That was about a buck for what looked like 3-4 pounds of peanuts.
"No, I don't want any," I repeated a bit more sternly.
"Madam. Please." He said it with such a sad, pathetic look on his face.
"No, I'm allergic to ground nuts." That wasn't really true. Just intolerant, not allergic. And I don't really like them anyway. Thinking I was safe, I stormed off into the Castle Supermarket.
It was nearly dark when I reemerged loaded down with groceries. In a country where the average worker earns 10,000 ZMK per day, I'm sure I had just spent 100,000 ZMK ($20) without a second thought.
I had already reversed my car out of the parking space when he showed up at my open window.
"Please, madam, I need money to buy notebooks for school."
OK, this is really more of an electronics lesson, but also a PSA.
Do not plug a 110V surge protector into a 220V outlet.
It explodes.
Everything else attached to that outlet shuts down and the fuse requires replacing.
Running errands in town is terribly time-consuming and often very frustrating. I'll use last Thursday and Friday as an example.
Our director Bryan made reservations to fly back to Arizona for a brief visit. Airline reservations cannot be made on the internet in much of Africa. My understanding is that it is due to the high number of fraudulent uses of credit cards. So after finally getting ahold of someone in the British Airways office and securing a reservation, I had to go out to pay for it at a local bank. Only 2 branches in Lusaka accept those payments (of course, they're on the other side of town). On Thursday morning, Bryan's wife wanted to pay with a credit card, but they only accept cash. On Thursday afternoon, I went to one of those branches with US Dollars. I stood in line for 15-20 minutes, filled out the deposit form (with 5 carbon copies), handed over my $100 bills and found out that they did not have the $26 in change that I would require. They told me I could go to the other branch which was very nearby.
I stood in line again for another 20 minutes. Filled out another deposit slip (5 carbon copies again), and handed over my $100 bills. They did have the change. But one of my bills had a small tear in it so they wouldn't accept it. I tried to reason with the teller. No. I asked to speak to the manager and went round and round with her. The response was still no. She explained that they would have to sell it for a lower value on the foreign exchange market. I tried to reason, I argued, but all to no avail. After more than an hour of trying to pay for the ticket, I went home empty handed.
The next morning, I picked up Bryan and we went back to the bank with a new $100 bill. After another 20 minutes, we had finally paid for the ticket. The teller said he would fax the deposit slip to the airlines which would confirm the reservation. I got a call the following Tuesday from the airline requesting that I fax them a copy of the receipt. Things simply move at a different pace here and expectations of customers are much different than those in the US. I'll get used to it.
Feel free to pray for me.
I've found traditional family roles in Africa to be very interesting. Keep in mind that I'm looking at all of this through a Western filter.
Women are pretty much the glue that hold family and society together in much of Africa. The same seemed to be true for the Mwaanga family. Andrew has a job as a security guard at the Ubuntu school campus. He often has to work nights. During the day, as most men here do, he goes out visiting. Africans are very relational people. Much of their time is spent maintaining relationships with family and friends.
On Sunday morning, we woke up early (with the light) around 5:30 or so. We were planning on going to church, and I knew that we would need to walk. Grace told me that it normally takes her and her girls 30-40 minutes to walk it. The church is about 4km away or so. She thought it might take me nearly an hour and a half to walk. Most whites/non-blacks tend to own vehicles and drive everywhere, so the common belief is that we simply couldn't manage. So I told Grace that I'm sure it wouldn't take nearly as long as she thought and that I would be ok. We ended up planning for about an hour and made it there in about 45 - 50 minutes. I think she was quite surprised.
Their church has been unable to afford a roof yet. So they've got this little shelter made of branches which covers the first few pews in the church. However, in a pouring down rain, that wouldn't be enough to keep everyone dry. So we ended up in a very small building next door. There were an awful lot of us crammed into that tiny space. As soon as the service was over, it stopped raining.
We walked back home and Grace and the girls started fixing lunch. All of the sudden, I had the most terrible homesickness. I wasn't even sure why. The entire family was being extremely nice to me. At first it was just a few tears here and there that I could surreptitiously wipe away. After a while, the youngest girl noticed some of the tears. I went inside and wiped them away and tried to pull myself together. But really, it just kept getting worse. I continued to try to talk myself out of the homesickness. It didn't work.
Lusaka |