Back and Forth

I have been at home all day and I like it very much. I have also had Internet all day…which has caused me to not be as productive in other areas as I would have liked…but you know…

A just skipped in from the office and commented on how great it is to work.  He stunk like mutton and onions from lunch but said he wasn’t complaining!  Little t spent the morning jumping on the trampoline with kAkA while I cleaned and caught up on e-mail.  So, we have all done ‘normal’ things today and it feels nice.  The beginning of the week was laughable…in the sense that we didn’t really get anything done.  It went down like this:

Friday:

8:00 pm Friday night our teammate M comes over to tell us that there has “been demonstrations turned bad” (could be the title of a new reality t.v. series…) in the country over the Q’ran being burned in the States.

9:00 pm Friday M returns again to tell us that all projects in the country are closed for the next day and we are essentially on lock-down. Meaning, we all travel to the other side of town to the house of teammates there.  It is closer to the airport and to the military base and farther away from our office and the UN office, etc. We are told to pack our bags and bring evacuation stuff In case things get ugly and we have to get out. 

We spend the rest of the night packing. I pack a ton of food and filtered water, etc. I keep thinking that we will be at the house of team members who are not in country right now and therefore don’t have anything in their house. Turns out we aren’t there and I have WAY overpacked.  We head to bed exhausted…we have stayed up way too late for way too many nights…it will be a long week…

Saturday:

7:30 am – we are lugging our bags to the van and the guard is joking about how much junk we are bringing…it looks ridiculous, but what can you do?  We have never done this before (thankfully) we don’t know how to prepare. 

We notice on the way across town that people are out and about, women are walking in the streets, kids are out, shops are open.  We are fairly certain that nothing exciting is going to happen in M-ville today.

7:40 am – 12 noon  We drink coffee, have breakfast, sit around and talk, read books, chase Little t around and have visits from neighbors before eventually deciding that it is quiet today and we will return home after lunch. Local staff members and friends have been out surveying the situation and say that nothing is happening.  At noon the neighbors bring over lunch which is amazing.  We eat it and then sigh with relief that Little t will get to nap in his own bed. 

12:20 pm – we arrive home, the guards laugh that we have returned...with ALL of our bags. We feed Little t and get him down for his nap.   A goes to the office to try to get some work done.  I sit down with my Bible and a book. I read about God clothing the birds of the air and whisper thanks for the care He takes for my family and team and the people of this place.

For the next two hours I read and look at my workout clothes lying on the floor…trying to motivate myself to get off my butt.  I eat a piece of cake while I look at my clothes.  Finally I realize that I need to sort and repack our bags and do that instead of working out. 

3:00 pm – Little t wakes up an hour before I am expecting him to…the floor is still covered in stuff, I am still watching t.v. and eating cake.  He mixes up my piles and drops crumbs from his own snack all over. 

5:00 pm – A comes home and takes over packing while I take Little t outside to swing…he ends up playing in a giant mud puddle – he is happy, I am too tired to care.  After he gets cleaned up, kAkA takes him outside to jump on the trampoline while I make supper. 

As I watch them out the window in the yard bathed in golden/orange evening light I choke back tears.  The excitement of getting out of here that I felt earlier in the day is pushed down by the reality of the beauty of life here…our necessity to be here at this time. We are so blessed with simple treasures in this place.

The rest of the evening is spent doing the supper thing, getting Little t to bed and making sure bags are packed for the next time we need to split.  We catch up on laundry – washing stuff we would want to have ready for wearing if we have to leave.  Fall into bed exhausted.

Sunday:

7:55 am – we have all been up for a while (some of us longer than others) and Little t and I make our way to the bedroom to finally change out of our pajamas while A finishes getting ready for the day.  A walks out of the house and I hear him say “I am ready to go now”. I know then that we are repeating the drill… He reenters the house with E, M’s wife and tells us that we have to go now. Demonstrations have been planned for that morning and we need to be on the other side of town before they happen.

8:05 am – we are in the yard and packing the car (we are later given an unofficial award for being the quickest to go from pajamas to out the door). We are taking a local staff member’s car and he very proudly tells us to get in.  E, Little t and I get in the backseat. He reassures us that he will bring our husbands and the rest of our bags (which we have trimmed from 7 to 4) on the next trip. He turns the ignition and there is nothing. He smiles nervously and says “Yak problem” (one problem). He tries again, nothing. The men yell at him to hurry up and go, but we are not going to go anywhere in his fancy little car!  We get out and throw the bags into the back of the pickup. Our husbands join us and we make it to the other side of town. 

8:20 am – 12 noon – we sit around, drink coffee, talk politics, pray, read books, get reports from local staff…notice a pattern here?!? Demonstrations happened but were quiet. We are told that people have “gotten it out of their system” and things will be quiet now. Once again I breathe a sigh of relief when we are going home in time for Little t’s nap. 

1:00 pm – Little t is down, A and I eat some lunch and watch a little t.v.

2:00 -4:15 pm – Little t keeps sleeping while I work in the garden. It is lovely.

We do the evening thing and get a little more rest. We do our dishes again, not knowing what the next day will bring.

Monday:

7:30 am – I lay in bed nursing Little t and as I pray, I wonder what we will actually do if we are at home all morning…only to be interrupted by A telling me that we are heading out again. 

As we change and get ready he explains that local staff had called as they began getting news in their own neighborhoods of more demonstrations trying to be rustled up for the day.  Monday is a ‘bazaar day’ meaning that a lot of people from outlying villages come in to M-ville to shop and sell stuff.

Logic would say that the best way to have a rousing demonstration is to pay villagers who come into town to carry a sign and walk around shouting Death to America.  So so effective, let me tell you…

Effective enough that we believed it and made our way to the other side of town. 

Day three of spending the morning drinking coffee, chatting, praying, chasing Little t (who by day three was a little wigged out by all of the craziness). Reports from local staff said that people were demonstrating (such a weird word useage to me…but I digress) but seemed to be peaceful.  We start to talk about going home at noon. The guard returns to tell us that some shop keepers are closing up shop (ha ha) and that there is a strong military presence in the city.  The bomber plane has been doing low fly-bys all morning long.  So, we decide to sit tight for the day. 

11:30 am or so – the guard returns (and we also get calls from local co-workers) that there has been an ‘accident’ between the military and locals.  We send people out to scout it out.  115 versions of the story later we are no closer to realizing what actually happened, but do realize that we aren’t going home anytime soon.

Each minute closer to naptime…A and I begin to get more and more nervous about what we do with the beast who refuses to sleep if he is not in his own bed. The day becomes slow-motion long…A sets up a make-shift bed for Little t. 

12 noon We eat lunch – the whole time Little t is rubbing his eyes and asking to go to bed.  

1 pm - I nurse Little t and he falls asleep almost instantly like usual. I go to put him down in the bed and his eyes fly open and the hysterics set in.  I sit out of view hoping he will calm down but he only gets more frantic.  I try nursing him to sleep again…he is suspicious now and won’t close his eyes. I lay down with him…he thinks it is a game. I realize that we have the rest of the day with a wild child who has gotten 5 minutes of sleep. Lovely.

1:30 pm - We go play with the big kids, snoop around the yard, walk through the alfalfa patch, chat, drink coffee, laugh and pray.  Neighbors come to say hello and tell us they will be bringing us supper…because that is just what they do. 

4 pm – we get permission to go across town at 5 so we can sleep in our own beds and get some space.  A and I are SO thankful that we won’t have to endure Little t attempting to sleep somewhere else. 

5 pm – we make it home. Little t, the big kids and I jump on the trampoline. A puts Little t in the stroller while I water the garden. After 10 minutes Little t is asleep and stays that way for 40 minutes until A brings him in for supper.

He eats and then snuggles in to nurse before bed. I whisper a prayer of thanks that we have made it through another day.

Tuesday – things were quiet today and we are thankful.  We are lying low, but quite honestly don’t have anywhere to go anyway.  

We are so thankful for the little ways that God was working in this – things that we could so easily take for granted.  We washed diapers on Friday…had just put them in the wash when M came over with the news the first time. So we didn’t have a pile of dirty diaper to potentially leave sitting in our house for an undefined amount of time.  Our team mates were so good to help with Little t, giving us breaks just when we needed them.  Our local staff takes such good care of us – checking in, passing along information, coming to visit, bringing us food, etc.  God’s words have been so simple, but so good for me in these days – such beautiful reminders that He is walking with us through all of this.

And that is our crazy week so far…here’s to praising God for His protection and faithfulness…and also hoping that the rest of the week is quiet!