There Is No Place Like Home

5th Grader is fine, no broken bones. Hit a growth plate in his elbow. Of course, it took six hours, X rays and my awesome awesome doctor and nurse who we've used for the last eight years as we shimmy in and out of Washington to find this all out. My secret 'hurrah' that he couldn't play football anymore this year has been shattered. So, tomorrow I still have to attend the school picnic, get 2nd grader to baseball and attend 5th grader's football game all at the same time with two little hangers' on in tow. Ack.

BUT,.. it is better than hubby's living conditions at the moment. It seems that God does know what is best and even He gets annoyed with my whining, so He sent me home in June. Could have been a little less dramatic, what with the 'I think I'm having a miscarriage in the middle of an Indonesian mall in a city I don't know all alone with my four kids, what the hell do I do now." (I'll write up the story this weekend, time heels all wounds and after it all, it is rather hilarious and unbelievable.) Okay, okay, perhaps not fate, maybe I'm looking at the silver lining of all my travails, my 'grace' as I would call it.

Anyway, after my little brood and I left Banda Aceh, they started having power outages ALL DAY LONG since they were upgrading the power grid. All summer. For six hours a day. We don't own a generator. Which means I would have had no lights (house is pretty dark, no windows in the main living area), no water (pump runs off of electricity) and open windows allowing all of God's creatures great and small to enter my pristine living space. Ha. I don't think so.

Then, when hubby returned to Banda after his home leave, he found that the well we used for our water had run dry due to lack of rain fall and no one NO ONE can figure out how to get the city water (is there such a thing there?) to work. The man is an engineer and he employs other engineers and various and sundry intelligent people. The man signs his name to detailed plans promising that bridges won't fall and houses won't tumble. Egads.

They dug another well, still no water. Not that this water is anything to write home about. It smells. It especially smells after it's been sitting in the one hot water heater we have in the house while we cavort in some gorgeous "for the next ten days I'll pretend I don't actually live where I do" R&R destination some where on the earth. Definitely makes you brush your teeth with bottled water.

So, now he has a truck come and fill up the 'mandis', or tiled basins in his bathroom and the kitchen for use in cleaning and showering. He's been taking a cup of life shower now for a few months. He's found that if you start with a slow trickle on top of your head, your body heat warms the water so when it reaches your actually body it isn't quite so damn shocking. Ack.

Then, I get a call to say hello from CRS's fearless leader in Banda, since he is home in the US for his home leave. He has TYPHOID and is having trouble kicking it. Ack. Don't forget that Rob contracted malaria right before he came home for leave.

And to top it all off, Ramadan is in full swing. Nothing wrong with Ramadan, but for the loudspeakers at every mosque that kick in at 2am and go on for the rest of the morning for all in the city to hear. I can attest that a pillow over the head and the rattling air conditioner can't cut out the noise of the Imam. At least there hadn't been the howling dogs like in Cairo.

Only two more weeks and our little adventure will close. Welcom home, hubby!