As I was sitting in the Electric Company office this afternoon with Richard, trying to figure out how much money we actually owe the electric company, the electricity went out! Somehow, there's a good, entertaining blog entry into the irony of that... but I'm not feeling so funny tonight. Maybe it's the fact that I'm still thinking about how one of the Dinka translators here told me that I should drink less coffee because I'm getting fat. Or maybe I sat in too many hot and sweaty offices this afternoon... anyways, I can't think of anything funny to say about the fun I had in town today!
After unsuccessfully paying our electricity bill (really, how many people do you know who go and pester the electric company to tell you how much money you owe them, going so far as to sit in their office for over an hour, helping the billing lady figure out how to use her computer program?!), we went over to the immigration department. There we sat for a while again. We waited. And we waited. At least there was a young woman there with her really, really cute baby, also sitting and waiting, and waiting and waiting. So I could make cooing noises at the baby and discuss baby things with the mother.
Richard decided that it was taking too long, and we had a huge list of things that we needed to do, so he left our money with his buddy who also works in the office, and told him that we'd come back in a little while.
So the next stop was the bank. Where we couldn't get any money changed because the bank, get this, ran out of money. Ooops. So we couldn't change any money.
We then tried going to the other bank in town, but unfortunately, by this time, it was closed, even though it was only just after 3pm!
So that being unsuccessful, we headed back to the Immigration office. Still, we waited. And we waited and we waited. Finally, there was some movement of our papers, so Richard went into a different office and left me waiting out on the bench. Of course, by this time, the lady and her cute little baby had left... and I was left alone with a bunch of guys in uniform. It was alright until two of them came up to me with the lovely opening line, "We are here to amuse you.". Um, right. I didn't need any amusing at that very moment, thank you very much. After trying to brush them off when they told me that the one guy would come to Canada with me, I decided that now would be a good time to go find Richard again.
Thankfully, he was just sitting and waiting in a different office, and there happened to be a free chair nearby. So I think my "friends" who were so eager to amuse me got the idea!
Since we were out, we also did a few more errands, just running around trying to find some various bits and pieces in some of the shops. We did manage to find some bug spray for our Kenyan workers who are living in a tent in the yard at the moment. They're getting eaten alive at night by the mossies, so hopefully they can now spray their tent before they go to bed! They're helping a team of Americans who are here put a new roof on our guesthouse! I would hate for any of them to get malaria.
Oh, speaking of those guys who are helping us out here, can ya'll pray for one of them? A few days ago, one of them, Freddy, who has been here a few times before and is quite a good friend of ours now, got some bad news from his wife back in Nairobi. His 11 month daughter suddenly passed away! Of course, we wanted to arrange for him to fly back home to be with his family, but he insisted that he would prefer to stay and work and for us to send the money that we would have spent on his flight back to his wife to help cover the costs.
He's a believer, but quite a new believer. So please pray that he will know God's comfort during this time. It's quite a shock to me that he would prefer to have the money, rather than go to be with his family. It's not because he doens't love his family, or because he doesnt' care, but in his mind, providing the money for all the funeral arrangements, doctors and hospital bills etc. is his way of loving his family. And he doesn't have much choice in how to do that. That's one of the worst things about the poverty that I've seen around here - it just doesn't give people any choice. So when things like the death of a small daughter happen, they have to do whatever they need to do in order to make the ends meet. And for Freddy, that means staying in a foreign country and working to make the money to cover all the extra costs involved in a family member's death. Please pray that he finds some way to grieve and mourn the loss of his daughter, even so far away from his own community.
Sorry to leave you on a little bit of a sad note, but that's just the way life is around here sometimes.
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