the Newleyweds

Grandma returned last week with her son and new daughter-in-law. Although the wedding and festivities occurred in the bride's hometown off the island, there were some celebrations held next door a few days after their arrival. Being considered family, and being next door, there was no escaping the activity. Our living room became an overflow "dining room" for about 20 men, and all the cooking occured behind our house. We had front-row seats since our kitchen is screened-in like a florida-room. :)

Starting from the top left photo and moving clockwise:
creative island-style shade from the intense sun while grating/shaving up gobs of coconuts for the ladies' cooking; me and the ladies preparing napkins for guests; the couple, dressed up again for the occasion of the bride meeting the groom's village; friends observing a blessing ceremony from the window; a procession of family members and friends speaking words of blessing and sprinkling the couple with water and yellow rice (uncooked); gift-wrapping station in our kitchen; outdoor cooking station created in the space between our house, the neighbor's house and the well (a temporary shelter was set up that became a hangout for the ladies); friends stirring a big veggie dish.

Center photo: a close-up of greeting the bride and groom. Note the painted fingernails of both bride and groom. They use some sort of thick paste (henna-like?) that leaves the nails dyed when removed. It stays on until the fingernails grow out again.

More on Waiting

Another Streams in the Desert.
Meant to post this sooner (click to enlarge).

New baby

A friend just had her baby, so we went to visit.

Transformation

New battery = new computer.

At least that is what it feels like. The last few weeks were pretty stressful, as my laptop battery zeroed out. Electricity was rarely on, and when it did come on, it wasn't steady. It would go off and on. I would be booting up my computer, all excited to have electricity, then the electric would die for a few minutes. But the instant it died, so did my laptop. Then I coudn't be bothered to reboot. I can't count how many "unexpected shutdowns" it endured.

And then, I ordered a new battery, and someone brought it to me this week. Now when the electric dies, I have over 7 hours of battery life! My stress level dropped, and I feel like I have a brand new computer. :) And I say to myself: what a wonderful world.

W.C.

Tried a new toilet this morning. I was recently informed that they built a WC behind the mosque next door to us. I trotted/ trekked through the jungle behind Mindy (my 7-yr-old buddy who lives next door on the other side) to try it out.


She hopped in the first "stall" with a torn curtain, so I went round to the next one. Turns out a torn curtain is better than no curtain, which was the fate of stall #2. I stood there, considering for a moment whether or not to go. I decided to risk it. After all, there was a fair amount of jungle foliage near the "doorway," and I was wearing a sarong.



After a few moments Mindy called out, "Kak" [term for older sister], "you finished yet?"

"No, go on ahead of me."

She appeared in the doorway. "Are you done?" she asked again.

"No, go away! I can't poop with you standing there!"

As she stood there observing my squat, I tried not to die a thousand deaths and made sure my sarong had my behind covered. Sarahjoy, let go of your privacy. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Don't let her know you're mortified. Die, mortification, die. Perspective, SJ. Keep it in the balance. This is no big deal to her.

"Do you have water?"


"Yes, now go away so I can poop!!!
I'll be along in a minute. You go on home ahead of me," I tried to reason with a firm voice.

She stepped inside to look in the bak [water storage] and assess my water situation for herself and then stepped back.


After looking at me for another moment, she said, "Kak, I'm gonna go on home first, ok?"

"OK!" Great idea. Who thought of it? :)

I took care of my "reporting" in grateful solitude and trekked the 10 yards/meters or so back home, deciding, I think I prefer less adventure for my morning constitutional. I'd rather walk 3 doors down the other direction and tell eveyone I pass where I'm going and what I'm going to do and then have a secure door to hide my behind behind.

*** By way of a disclaimer, I have used the word "poop" freely here to give you a taste of conversational life here (not saying life tastes like poop--maybe poor word choice?). People talk about it as casually as we might talk about brushing our teeth in the U.S.

The Road Again

So, it's great to have a paved road, but now when I need to send the aqua jug to town for refilling, I have to sit by the road and wait for the trucks to go by, because they go way too fast to yell at them and make them stop!

Mmmm...

Sorry if you wish I would post something other than clips from Streams in the Desert. I just can't help myself.

Do you know how to... pray prevailingly? Let sight give as discouraging reports as it may, but pay no attention to these. The Living God is still in the heavens and even to delay is part of his goodness.

- Arthur T. Pierson

It is nearly 3:30 a.m. The electric has been horrible lately. Apparently the island has 5 generators, and 4 are broken. To top things off, my computer battery is now non-existent. As soon as the electricity dies, my computer dies with it. What happens to a computer after many repeated, unexpected shutdowns? Anyway, I got up to go to the bathroom at 2:30 am, and since the electric was on, I plugged in the laptop to try and order a new computer battery, to be hand-carried here next week. Fortunately I succeeded. I think I am about to shut down my computer myself for the first time in a week (rather than having it die with the electric).

Good night, all.

Waiting

I once thought that, too.... Wait a minute... Really? Am I not supposed to think that? Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?... Hello. What a wake-up call. Waiting is so hard for me. Call me Madame Precipitancy.










Since February 1, there is not an ounce of physical productivity I could hand to anyone to show for my time over the last 3 months. We collected local stories for the cultural handbook at the end of January. We did print certificates and pictures of our story-collecting weekend and deliver them to the men, along with CDs of the stories (those CDs were the bane of my existence for 2 months—I could NOT figure out how to make a CD that would work on their players here), but other than that, nothing.

After the workshop, our plan was to transcribe the stories with people in our village. However, they said the stories had too much of the national language mixed in and that it was weird to hear men telling the stories—“Grandmas are the ones who tell stories” they said. So, plan modified. We would ask the older ladies in our village if they could help us by retelling the stories using the cultural experts’ recordings as a resource. With each request, we were denied—“I am not a good story teller;” or “I am not good enough in the local language;” or “Your neighbor needs to do it.”

We call our next-door-neighbor “Grandma Charley.” She is a middle-aged-woman, twelve years a widow, who adopted us as her own daughters from the day she met us, and we love her dearly. She has 6 grandchildren with another on the way. After listening to some of the recordings, Grandma Charley said, “These are good stories. I didn’t know all the details before. I’ll help you with them, but I’m busy right now.” It has been 3 months. After asking and poking and trying other people, we are always directed back to this woman, and here we sit, obstructed by her busy schedule. Today she left the island for her son’s wedding....

I feel like I’ve been on a very steep learning curve. Most days I feel I am tumbling backwards. Character work is so much harder than physical labor. A couple months ago, a friend sent me a questionnaire that included the question, What do you fear most?. I have given it a lot of thought since then, and have come to the conclusion that one of the things I most fear (if not the most) is man's disapproval. God’s disapproval probably seems like it ought to concern me more, but—depending on the day—I have a fair amount of security in that arena, knowing His Word says I am accepted because of the work of His Son. While I say that, I must admit I am concurrently dealing with the question, Do I really believe that God is pleased with me? I can’t really distinguish lines between who I am trying to please/who I am trying to please more—God, or man? All I know is that these questions are ever before me as of late. I pray I am making progress in understanding and believing God more--even if He is the only one who can see it.