It is day two back in the village and I am settling back
into life here. Having my own house sure makes for a quieter life, which will
hopefully give me the energy I need to really focus on language learning.
My day starts at 6.30am when I turn on the radio for the
aviation sked (schedule). When the pilot had dropped me off the day before he
had made a comment that alerted me to the fact they had the wrong airstrip
booked for the Jesus Film dedication charter flight. I need to fix that in a
hurry! Listening to the sked I find that indeed it is going to the wrong place.
I thought we had changed that a few months ago. I radio in and request the
change to be made. When I listen in the next morning, I am able to confirm that
the request was followed through on.
7am and it is Wednesday, the regular sked is replaced with
the Director’s sked. The Director of Language Programmes comes on the air to
encourage us all and give us updates about the work going on in different
places around the country. It is good to hear her voice as I eat my breakfast
by the radio. After the Director’s sked we have the regular sked and I’m
finally able to officially open my radio station… having already used it a few
times! Monday and Thursday are my roll call days, when I call in to confirm
that all is well. I can call in any day if I have a message to pass to someone
(‘traffic’), but those are the days I must call in.
8am and I am outside greeting people whom I have not seen
since I arrived the day before, and showing them the DVDs, SD cards, books and
bookmarks I have brought with for the Jesus Film dedication. There is general
excitement that the film really is done and here in their hands. I am told
there is a meeting ‘at 11am, in two hours time’ about the dedication plans. Although
11am is three hours away, the ‘two hours’ is an indicator that the organiser
really would like people to be on time.
8.30am and I’m nailing down the floor of my kitchen. The
boards had been laid but never secured, and their wobbliness is annoying me.
Armed with hammer and nails I set out to fix the problem. Soon enough someone
turns up to do it for me and I hand over my hammer. I’m not sure if this is a
gender thing, a help-the-white-person thing or something else, but I chose to
hand over the tools rather than argue. A village carpenter also comes to fit
out my kitchen with shelves, as until now it is just an open space.
People talk of ‘galley kitchens’ as if they are a real
estate highlight. Having worked on ships, I disagree. My favourite definition
of a galley was the cook who said she had got herself a job cooking ‘in a
wardrobe full of pots and pans that move’. At 2m x 1.2m my kitchen has all the
space of a galley, but the crockery is unlikely to attack me unawares. By then
end of the day, my kitchen is tidily fitted out and has since proved itself
most useful, but only big enough for one.
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| The kitchen before… (H.Schulz) |
Having defeated the stove, but still having workmen in the
house and it not yet being time for the meeting, I have to decide what to do
next. First I review all my language learning flash cards. The vocabulary is
slowly coming back to me, but it is going to take time and effort for me to
both recover what I knew before and learn more. Flash cards done, I move on to
reading a theology book. Reading books like this is professional development
for me. A plumbing book would probably be
more practical as I set up my house, but theology is what I have available.
At 11am the committee chairman arrives and tells me he is
going to go and inform the others that it is time to gather for the meeting. I
do my preparation, by putting together supplies of mugs, hot water, tea,
coffee, sugar, milk powder and crackers. All meetings go better with a cuppa
and a snack. We probably started with the cuppas at about noon, with the
meeting then going till 3pm. Most of the meeting was in Kope, with occasional
changes to English when I needed to be included. Last minute details were
finalised, prices of DVDs and SD cards were negotiated and a second round of
cuppas consumed.
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| …the kitchen after, including the gas bottle (H.Schulz) |
The kitchen got done efficiently under the handy excuse of
‘getting ready for visitors’, with my toilets next on the list to use that
excuse. Indeed, by the time the day was done, the finishing touches
(ventilation pipe) were put to my loos and I could commission them. The luxury
of having an indoor toilet is not fully understood unless one has first slid
through the mud and walked precarious walkways to reach one, or deliberately
dehydrated in the afternoons just to avoid having to go after dark, when an escort
is required to go with you. Now I can pee in comfort and privacy, day or night!
During the afternoon I head down to the riverbank to attempt
to send and receive messages on my phone. With visitors coming in two days,
communication with the outside world is a higher priority than usual. This time
it is a case of win-some and lose-some, as some messages got out, but others
refused to send. Sitting by the river, waiting for messages to send, I chatted
with some village ladies. Apparently I’ve been away too long, as the kids are
all scared of me again.
While sitting with the ladies, two pigs arrived in a canoe.
They were exchanged for two good canoe-making logs and will be dinner for the
dedication feast. One pig seems resigned to its fate, but the other protests
with piercing squeals. The discussion turns to the size of the pigs and if they
are a bit small for the logs exchanged and the people expected at the feast.
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| My solar control panel, for those of you who like such things (H.Schulz) |
As I don’t yet have a gas bottle, dinner is cooked for me by
my neighbour, who also boils hot water for me to put in my thermos and use at
breakfast time. I’m looking forward to being my own cook from tomorrow!
The village quietens down for the night. Crickets and frogs
are the main soundtrack, with the flapping of a bat or a kid in a distant house
joining in at times. I sit in my chair (another luxury item) and enjoy the
quiet after a busy day of preparing for ‘the programme’. I’ve done little
language learning today, but it has been a good day for relationships. Tomorrow the first visitors will arrive, and I
am in bed by 9pm.
