Monday, March 20, 2006

Culture Club


Lifeline added tile floors to the mission house. It is 80% finished. This morning when Mme Lumen came to do dishes she was so excited about the tile floor. She came to get me and said "tre bon" "belle belle" very good, pretty, pretty ----- at the time it did not occur to me, but now that I am thinking about it I am realizing it is an interesting response.

Here she is, a Lifeline employee who comes to help for about an hour a day with our house chores, she lives in a 12 X 12 house that has a dirt floor; but she is still excited for me to upgrade from cement to ceramic tile. How sweet and sad all at once.

Then ...
The sun was not very strong this morning, it started out overcast. The bread got a late start. Usually we wait for it to have lunch. Today we gave up, nap time was calling out to three cranky kids. When they finally brought the bread up at 2pm, I was on the treadmill. The cook who brought the bread looked at me like I was totally nuts.

I thought about trying to explain it to her ... but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it would just make her think I was even crazier. I contemplated explaining: I am doing this for excercise, your country is depressing and this helps me cope, burns calories, incresease the serotonin in my brain, I pray while I run... and on and on.

Aaahhh, yeah, you can see why I tought better of it and decided to shrug, smile at her, and keep running. I am sure she went downstairs and described the crazy machine she had seen and the crazy white woman who was running in place on it. Oh well.

And...
Does anyone have a small hand-held vaccum they would want to part with? The dust here is amazing ... and almost impossible to keep up with. If you pat the couch arm too heavily a plume of dust rises. We are looking for a small vacuum that could be used to pull dust off the couches. If this is something you might be willing to send down via AGAPE mail, please contact us. Thanks!

~Tara