Saturday - Hot and sticky and hot

Saturday, the 22^nd , 2 AM & Sticky

That is the only way to describe how Saturday started.

Michael had fallen asleep again Friday night very painlessly.  They call this the adoption honeymoon phase – when the child starts to bond, and is obeying out of a slight fear that he would lose the attention of the adopters.  I will take just about anything though.  Anyhow – it was particularly hot and stifling this night, and in the middle of writing Friday’s blog I had fallen asleep to the sounds of what had been an Islamic graduation party from a British University in town that had been taking place In the Maria Flo courtyard.  Their little party of 50 had started around 2, and when I had laid my head down, the beat lulled me to sleep.

 

Anyone who was in Masaka, Uganda might have been puzzled about how this happened.  You see, starting at 9 PM, there was a GIGANTIC party on the base of the hill we were on, and I kid you not, it lasted all night long.  They are using a huge speaker system, and there is a beat line in the background and a few people talking and saying different things in Llugandan which I can’t understand, and the massive crowd erupts in laughter, screaming and cheering every other second.  Maybe like a huge comedy club for 20 somethings with random songs thrown in.  Or, you could picture the battling between Eminem and his competitors during 8 Mie – catchy beat line, and the mic is being passed around, with the crowd encouraging changes and voting, etc.  Or if you went to college with me, you could imagine an outdoor or Back-to-School Festival of Praise, shouts and chants and screams and a beat echoing off of our little hills, and shaking our dorm room windows, with 10 times the amount of people.

This, was the exact same introduction that Jeff, Nap and I got to a Maria Flo Friday night in November 2012.  Except then, the Maria Flo was the one hosting the event, and people were smoking pot, at least there was a breeze to keep it cool, and the beat line lulled me to sleep around 4 – in fact I woke up because the noise had stopped around 6 AM and I mentally was trying to figure out what had happened to cause it to stop.  And this is so common in Uganda. 

When you drive around at night, starting around 6 PM, there are just people everywhere – they come out of their homes, out of the woodwork, and just fill the streets.  Pick-up trucks with sound systems on the back drive around with people shouting about just about everything, “Jesus Saves” to “Homosexuality Spreads AIDs and kills our children” to “I sell pesticide – kill  rats, cockroaches, spiders – come and get it.” There are street vendors with tiny propane tanks or wood barbeques set up selling whatever meat was left over at the market, the noise of music, and whatever soccer game played recently coming from cars, tv sets, stereos.  This happens every night, but it is as though on Friday and Saturday nights, the whole country relieves its angst, and congregates in the streets to just celebrate life.

Back to sticky.

On this particular Friday night, I had put in ear drops for the ear that started hurting on Thursday morning – probably because I had gotten water in it accidently on Wednesday when I had tried to wash my hair under the hose.  I then fell asleep at a really awkward angle on the bed with my hands and part of my face pressed against the cool plastic of the laptop, to cheers and screams.

I awoke with a puddle of something really sticky all over my arm, and to the sounds of the current “Ee-Yay, Ee-Yay, Ee-Yay Yo” banging in the rooms.  The mosquito net was plastered to the back of my neck, and the digital alarm clock read both a time and a temperature that was too ridiculous to handle.  It took me a minute to realize where I was, and even longer in the pitch black to realize what was all of my arm and cheek (ear medication had apparently drained out, mixed with the sticky lollipop arm that Benny Michael had left on me before he too had fallen asleep to the chants and cries, and of course sweat.)  I would say that there was sweat mixed in, but I am not hydrated enough to sweat THAT much. 

I turned around to find Paul still watching the first season of Breaking Bad on his tablet with his Beats firmly in place, completely ignoring what was going on outside of our room.  The one thing you cannot ignore here is the oppressive heat though.  Without any air circulation it is positively oppressing – especially at night.  The mosquito net, although definitely mandatory, hangs on your outer extremities, bonding to the tiny hairs on your arm and your pores that are mass producing, slowly choking your body.  It is so hot that you cannot breathe through your nose because you feel like you are not sucking in enough oxygen but when you breathe through your mouth, you just lose more moisture and it becomes even more thick and sticky than your skin. And one of the grossest parts is that when you turn your head towards the side, you are met with the smell of a mosquito net that has protected a thousand bodies living in the exact same situation that you are currently in. (Don’t worry Marla, if you are reading this, I did bring a can of Lysol and my own mosquito net so I will be fixing the situation soon.)

There are no fans, no breeze, and opening your windows a little bit more only open you up to more noise and more mosquitos.  You are left with no choice but to just lay there, with none of your body parts touching any other of your body parts – your hair as far from your face and neck and chest as you can get it.  You dry mouth screams for water, your lips for chapstick, and your face for the Biore face wipes that you brought ten packs of.  I even resorted to spray down my back and neck with an alcohol based body spray so that the evaporation effect cools me down and dries out my skin a bit.

As I start writing, I can hear Paul begin to move around – “If I could just take a cold shower or bath, I would feel so good, and this noise would not keep me up at all.”  And from there, our conversation turned into one about how, if the zombie apocalypse was to happen here and now, we would be in a pretty safe place – we are already on a compound surrounded by barbed wire, with cinderblock walls covered in broken glass and metal shards.  There are guns everywhere, food grows in abundance on the banana, mango and jack fruit trees, and every window has bars on it.  The only problem would be the lack of water, but even then, we brought a million water filter systems with us so once we found a source, we could make it clean for at least a year.  Oh, the things you think about when you are hot, sticky and tired.

Since I was up, I prayed for a bit – “Pray Continually” we were ordered in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, and I have a lot to pray for. 

The song going through my head was Ginny Owens, “If you want me to.”

Our Saturday

We had planned to spend the day getting some computer work done.  I need to update our website, and Paul needs to check work emails.  But without the power being available, we were stuck in kind of a holding pattern.  The three of us had a very slow start to our morning, which considering that we were up until 7 AM, this seemed ideal.  Once we ate, we headed back to the room to start filling out our Embassy paperwork which was almost futile because most of the answers we really do not know; Benny’s b-day, place of birth, registered county, home address, filed guardian, etc.  I kind of gave up, filed everything back in the binder that I am keeping it safe in, and practiced words and colored with Benny.  He loves to draw, scribble etc.  When he wanted a crayon, I tried to get him to say the words “more” “yes” and “no”.  He is progressing rather quickly and it is nice to have a baseline for communication – simple words or hand motions or grunts that kind of guide us through the day.

When Michael and Paul were laying down resting, I decided to do laundry.  Yep, I took my wash bucket that is provided in each room, and I washed the dishes and tried to wash some clothes.  Because the power was out, which meant there was no hot water, there was no water pressure and water flowed at a very low trickle.  But I was determined, which meant a lot more work on my end in the realm of scrubbing and rinsing and scrubbing again.  I only washed 3 of Benny’s outfits, and a shirt of mine and Paul’s, but it seemingly took forever and five hours later, the things are still not dry.  I can clothes line hung from one end of the hall all the way through the bathroom.  Had I been able to hang things outside, I am sure they would have been dry in an hour, but indoors, without lights or a fan or power, no such luck.

I finished my afternoon trying to catch up on letters to my dear sweet children.  I tried to write each child a letter or card or picture, for at least 3 days of every week that I am gone.  I put all of these in a box called the “Miss You” box, but I only made it to March 11^th.  I knew that I should be able to catch up some before Paul left and I worked diligently trying to get them done.  In order to save some time, I had bought 4 packs of Valentine’s Day kids cards before I left.  It is hard though, filling out cards for your beautiful children that you miss so much.  And when you put the dates on the fronts of the cards, it is hard not to choke at the very thought of being gone until April 25^th or May 5^th or even March 15^th.  I am not sure how I will handle it, but I have no choice, so you just suck it up.  I hung pictures from Anna and Matt above the desk as inspiration, and Benny thought it was great that this clear stuff was sticky and that the metal on scissors is cold.

Our night was an early one – it is pitch black, there is no power anywhere, and you have little options of what to do when it is that dark.  We need to be up early Sunday, Father is picking us up for Mass and a huge celebration in his parish.  That should be really great to watch.

Notes from my prayer journal:  It is hard not to succumb to self-pity, and self-pity is just that – a pit.  Normally, I do not have this problem.  Normally, the tougher things are, the more excited I get.  But this afternoon, I could not get motivated to fight against it.  I could feel it there, “Poor you, our little lovers and in Alabama, suffering because you are a bad mom who left them there with nobody to help them.  I know this is totally not true – my sister is there, my mother and father-in-law can help her.  We have some soccer friends helping.  But good gracious, I good not get over it.  What helped me focus on praying and on the mental path I should be on was:

“Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which easily entangles us and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12: 1-2

Soundtrack song of the day: Stubborn Love, Lumineers

Consecration to Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, DeMontfort's Consecration, part 1, Day 3