DanandDalaina.com

We got the news today that it might be a long time before we get water in the village after all. The half of the village on the other side of the soccer field has had running water for several days, and we just learned why our side of the village does not. Apparently, the topographer did a pretty shoddy job, and water does not run uphill without some help. The village leaders are trying to figure out how to resolve the problem. Who knows how much and how long that will take.

Last night was one straight from the pit for this sleep desperate momma. Despite going to bed at 9pm, thinking I would get a good night's sleep, I was still awake at midnight. I am not really sure why. Am I really so old that those 2 chocolate no-bake cookies kept me up for so long? I remember being in college and drinking 2 pots of thick coffee while I stayed up late to study and then passing out as soon as my head hit the pillow. I guess I can chalk this up to yet another thing motherhood has done to my poor body.
At any rate, I finally went to sleep around midnight and woke up at 3am to Moses screaming from yet another nightmare. It's number 4 or 5 in 3 weeks. I ran into his room quickly to try to keep him from disturbing his brothers too badly. A half an hour later I escaped to my bed with the 3 boys sleeping blissfully (yes, that was a note of bitterness). At 4am, I heard something fall off my bookcase. At first I thought I had set the pee bucket too precariously on the shelf when I had used in on the way in from Moses' room, and it had fallen (subject of one of my own nightmares). (FYI, a pee bucket is just that. A sort of chamber pot to keep us from having to go all the way to the outhouse in the middle of the night.) But then I heard scurrying around the bookcase too. I woke Dan up. He grabbed the pellet gun and the maglight, and we went hunting. It was a small bushbaby (i.e. rat with raccoon eyes. It is a little cuter, but still not something I want crawling in my hair while I am (trying to be) asleep). It took a few minutes and a few shots before Dan was able to hit the thing. But it wouldn't die. Instead it wandered around the floor leaving a trail of blood. After giving it a couple of thunks with the butt of the pellet gun, Dan was able to dispose of it in the jungle brush behind our house. It took me another half hour to go to sleep (by this time, I had only slept about 3 ½ hours) because I was disturbed by the violent end of our furry visitor. If only he hadn't knocked my deodorant off the shelf... Ben woke up at 5:30 for some horrid reason, but I staunchly refused to get out of bed. Dan, being the good husband he is, took care of the boys until I crawled out from under the covers at 7:30. Just another night in the jungle...

Last night was a rough one for me. As I laid awake for a long time with back pain, I prayed for my friend/sister Irma. Two months ago today, her 9 month old baby died. She has had a pretty rough time obviously, and it seems like she is becoming more and more withdrawn.
Anyhow, today she came over to the Welsh's to give them her digital camera so that they can take it with them to Pucallpa and have a picture of her baby printed and enlarged. I asked her how she was doing, and she said, “Fine.” I kind of looked at her and she smiled at me. It was an “okay not really” smile. I told her that I had been praying for her last night because I remembered that it was the 2 month anniversary of Evelyn's death. She seemed surprised that I remembered and thanked me for praying. I gave her a little hug before she left. Dan and I also decided that we wanted to pay for the baby's picture and also have it framed. Expressing your sympathy to a parent that has lost a child is so difficult because the reality is that there is no way to understand that kind of pain unless you've experienced it. When do you offer words of hope and when do you keep your mouth shut and let them grieve? It is even more complicated when there are cross-cultural and language barriers. I am praying for wisdom for my relationship with Irma, that I can be the kind of friend she needs at this time.

Yesterday while Dan was at the airstrip, he was approached by a very drunk man who lives a couple of hours outside of the village. The man wanted to know the secret the white people had to growing hair on their face. Dan tried to explain that it was just something that happened to the men of his people, but the drunk guy was not convinced. He told Dan that since they let us land on the airstrip for free and live here, we were required to share such secrets. Trying a different tactic, Dan suggested he glue the hair from his head onto his face, but again, the drunk guy wasn't going for it. Finally, the drunk guy got a little upset and told Dan that if he wouldn't share the whisker growing secret he would have to drag a log out to the airstrip and leave it there so the plane would crash killing us all. Dan agreed and came home. He said that the only thing he could think of was the song from Disney's The Jungle Book, “Oobee doo, I wanna be like you...” He also said that he doubted the guy would have any recollection of the conversation as he was so smashed.
 
Today I heard my current all-time favorite cultural blunder story. A while back Nichole saw a plant down by the river with some pretty white flowers on it and talked Scott into transplanting it back near their house. A couple of days later, seeing the plant in the yard, a group of Caquinte saw started snickering.
“What have you got there?” they asked Scott.
“It's a plant. My wife wanted me to bring it home for her from the river.”
That got an even bigger laugh. “Yeah, I'll bet she does!”
Scott knew that something was up and tried to get them to tell him what was so funny. They wouldn't.
The next day he showed his language helper the plant and told him the story. “What do you use this plant for?” he asked.
At first, the language helper didn't want to tell him, but finally said, “Well, you know when a man gets old and has trouble... performing?...” Congratulations to Scott for planting a Viagra plant in his yard.

The village recently acquired some diesel, and we are ever so grateful because it means that the village generator has been running after dark nearly every night for a week. This has been super helpful because the rain has kept our batteries pretty low most days. We are loving being able to charge our electronics and get a few hours of light before bedtime.
Today Dan and I started a new language project together. We are going through the book of James in Caquinte and translating it. We start off translating the easy words that we know, like God and Jesus, and then using the unfinished Caquinte dictionary work on translating every thing else. After we have figured out what the other words are, we try to figure out what each part of the word means. Caquinte sentences are composed of long words with multiple affixes with a myriad of meaning. So a sentence that takes 10-12 words in English may only take 4 words in Caquinte, but those words can be 30 letters long. Anyhow, it was a long process. We got most of the first verse done in about an hour until our computer battery died. I am a visual tactile learner, so this seems like it might be a good way for me to pick up some language structure. I think Dan enjoys it because it is a puzzle, and he has someone to do it with.
Well, the Dan, Scott, and Nichole are waiting for me to go watch NCIS, so I am outta here.