Living Without.......(and surviving)

Week without Internet! And we survived !! This will get posted when we have internet again.:)) It is interesting to note what we get used to, and then take for granted. We so often do not give thanks for, or even recognize, the many luxuries that we enjoy until they are taken away for a time. This last few days we have not had access to internet service, and it feels like an imposition. (Well actually, Julie did get a chance to go down and log on via Claudia's ethernet cable on Saturday, and connect for a few minutes, but the wireless access is down.) We were reminded that just a few years ago we did not even have such a thing! ! ...and wonder of wonders, we survived!! Then and now! Claudia tells us that this lapse of wi-fi happens about once a year, but usually is quickly attended to by 'Orange', the Malian phone and internet provider. She still has service to her main computer But there is no wi-fi. I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either!) In any case, Paul went to the Orange office in person and reported the problem on Friday, and we have called every day since then, but have received no service yet. Sunday we were told that we were not even 'on the list', and yesterday morning they said they would so everything in their power to come out and get it going for us “today”. As of 10pm last night (their quitting time, we are told) they had not come. It got me thinking about some of the other things that we have gotten used to not having here in Mali that we used to take for granted. Here's a list to start you thinking as well. -No hot water from the faucet. We heat a pan of water on the stove for washing dishes (at least when we have meat or eggs and want to do a more thorough cleansing.) And we have learned to take our showers in the afternoon, when the sun has warmed the wall and therefore the water in the pipes. (that works for one shower at a time...when the sun shines!) --No reliable refrigeration. We are doing better with electricity right now, thanks to additional solar panels having been installed by Anco and crew, but our little counter-top refrigerator barely chills food to 60*F and food does not keep long. so daily shopping is necessary. --No spare tire. It is really more about living in a city than about Western & 3rd world differences, but it is not safe to leave an unlocked spare tire in the back of your pick-up truck downtown! This truth we proved last Sunday when we were relieved of our spare tire while we were in the English speaking Worship Service downtown. Live and learn! --No air-conditioners. Not even a swamp cooler! Swamp coolers are basically big boxes with a fan that pulls air in thru water saturated filter panels, and blows it into your house. The evaporative cooling that takes place reduces the incoming air temperature by 20 or 30 degrees, and is especially effective in the driest months-- which are also the hottest. One of those is a possibility for next January perhaps. We will see! --No internet. (or S..L....O......W & spor...a..dic In...t.er...n...e....t........)!! Usually we have to go downstairs to the Boys family room to get online via the wifi that we have here at H2tNI base, but it is slow, especially during the business workday, and often goes off entirely for a few minutes or a few hours. Sometimes the “off”” cycle is a few days, like this week. --No language skills! We are slowly learning Bambara—at least it seems slow to us when we are trying to communicate with the boys or our cooks and the neighbors. Fortunately, they are patient with us, and try very hard to understand our halting sentences. --NO family nearby. We do miss our families, both our blood related family (read “grandchildren!”:-)), and our friends and church family. It is hard to be away from them as they are celebrating anniversaries, birthdays and holidays. Ginn and Garrick are celebrating 14 years of marriage TODAY! (Happy Anniversary you two, Im not sure if this will get posted today, but we are thinking about you.) And Heather and Stuart are at the big 10 this year,(Thanks for the fb chronicle of the weekly gifting, Heather. It helps us to celebrate with you. and makes us proud to have such a son and daughter, I might add) We love seeing pictures and the occasional skype date we set up with them but it is not the same as getting hugs from tiny arms and hearing “I love you, Mimi”. There are more things that we have gotten “used to” here, like eating from community dishes while flies are buzzing around you, Running to shut doors and windows when the wind suddenly picks up and a storm pours over the horizon, walking on gritty floors (Cause there is no way to keep the grit out—you notice when the floor is clean and no grit!), trying to converse and not being able to because we speak different languages, living with one bathroom (and counting ourselves lucky to have one all to ourselves), remembering to bite down gently on the rice, because there are sometimes pieces of grit or small stones in it,(they do sort and clean it as thoroughly as they can, but there are still little pieces that get thru.). Tomorrow I want to post the other side-- stay tuned. And meanwhile, ponder and go back and consider the many things that you have that you can be thankful for. Be blessed and count your blessings! Mimin MAli

Tuesday as a Holiday-Swimming, Dinner out...

Tuesday Holiday! Tuesday was a special day all around. For starters, we had invited 5 'young men' to the Heisey apartment for an American pancake breakfast. Though really, the only thing American were the pancakes. We served them with Malian honey, mango syrup, and fresh (made the day before) mango-orange jam/marmalade. We also had fresh mango and bananas, of course. :)) Paul, Tierno, Adama, Mattias, and Yakou(Ray) sat at the table while Julie and I kept the pancakes coming. I started the first platter of pancakes with Ray, so that he could show them how we top them with butter and syrup, etc, considering Paul was the only other one who'd eaten pancakes before. The platter got the whole way around, and everyone had two or three to start. The last one to get them was Tierno (our night guard here), and he hardly touched them for a while. I was getting worried that maybe he didn't like them, and what else did I have to feed him?! My fears were short lived however. Towards the end of breakfast, Paul and Adama were teasing him about eating 7 pancakes already...Paul was really counting... and then he took two more. I told them a mom or gramma likes to see boys enjoying her cooking, so that was a good thing! (I found out later that Tierno had gone to bed at 6 o'clock and had just been wakened to come over for breakfast—he was still ½ asleep at the beginning! I think 4 satisfied young men left our house that morning, and I'm hoping to be able to do this for them again soon. The next part of our day was also special. Eva Durst, the young Austrian lady who came to work with the children this summer, returns home July 25th.. She gave the children a special treat as her going-away gift, a day of swimming in the pool at Kangaba Campment. That is a rare treat for our kids. The pool at Kangaba is a lovely L-shaped jewel of refreshingly cool, sapphire blue water wrapped around a restaurant pavillion. It is shaded on 3 sides, including the shallow end, but the foot of the “L” was in full sun, and that ell was deep enough to dive into, much to the boys' delight. One adventurous 15-year-old did a back-flip that earned him a serious scrape and bruise on his lower back. (Whereby the lesson to be careful was learned much better than any lecture from Mimi. LOL) Eva also brought some oranges and a packet of cookies for a snack much to everyone's delight. It was a wonderful 3+ hours of enjoyment for the children, not to mention it was refreshing for us as well. Kangaba is a lovely African safari style resort camp set at the base of a small rocky ridge, and just 20 minutes away from where we live. There are cabins available to rent (think rustic cabins like at Cowans Gap State park--ask the Reynolds or Hance families, if you've not been there). They offer horse riding (at least we saw the small corral:)), an observation tower, open air restaurant, drinks bar and a gift shop. They also have lovely grounds with quite a selection of botanicals; many of the trees and shrubs were nicely labeled for us. I doubt if the boys gave much thought to the setting, but we appreciated its beauty. When we need a get-away, we think that we might plan to make a night or two there a mini vacation. We finished off the day as guests at the home of another missionary family here. When Julie invited us for dinner, she asked if we had any foods allergies or foods we dislike. We said “no, but we would appreciate not having rice and sauce”. She readily understood and chuckled, promising that she could arrange something else. (How much we have learned to appreciate the variety of foods that have been our daily rations in the States. Variety is available here, but not on the budget that we operate under to feed 25 or 26 people everyday. More on that in a later post.) So we had delicious lasagna dinner with chocolate fondue as a finishing touch, accompanied by thought provoking (English) conversation. Wonderful! It was a weekday that felt like a Sunday. Be a blessing to someone today. Mim in Mali

Neighbors house collapsed!

Monday July 18, 2011 House Collapse! Just the other day, we had another one of those horrible Malian thunderstorms we've come to know here. There was a LOT of water running down the mountain and down the end of our wall here. A little while after the storm had subsided, there was a pretty loud noise from outside our wall. At first, we thought it might have been another rock explosion from the men that are chipping away at a large stone slab on the side of the hill just beyond our base. But we could see no residual smoke, and we could see no one out there working. Then we heard a second explosion, or maybe I should say 'implosion'. I saw a little cloud of dust rising just beyond our east wall, and we soon learned what was the cause of the noise. Two walls of the house of one of our nearest neighbors had collapsed. It was made of mud brick and apparently there was a leak that had deteriorated the structure. By the time we'd learned what had happened, there were already several neighbors helping pick out belongings and salvaging what could be saved. A speedy response for a neighbor in distress. No one was seriously injured, thank God, but it is quite a loss to that family, as you can imagine. The man living there owns a grinding mill that was attached to this house, a newer construction but still of mud brick. Our cooks go there to have the millet grain ground into flour for breakfast porridge, or for “ko” for dinner. Ko is the millet version of what we knew as “nsima” in Zambia. It would remind you of (slightly green) cornmeal mush that you might be familiar with in Pennsylvania, or a thick version of grits, for you southerners. Since the incident, I've heard the grinder still working everyday. Thankfully his business wasn't ruined as a result of it, and he still has a means of income. The next day Paul went over to offer the use of our wheelbarrows and man labor to help clean up the debris. They thanked him for offering, but there wasn't much more to do. He, servant that he is, stayed to help by himself, and came back a while later. We will keep our ears open to hear what else we might do to help.