Some Things Learned

When we were spending the crazy month of August setting up the preschool, we were also doing some repairs and work in our own house. It was probably too much at one time (okay… it was definitely too much at one time)… but what can you do?!

Here are a few things I learned that month:

1. There is no brown spray paint to be found in the city. Not a single can. Believe me!

2. Washing machine repairmen freely pick up two year old girls and kiss them repeatedly on the lips. And the little girl eats it up. Oh my!

3. ‘Getting something fixed’ (in this case, the electricity in our home) is actually just an invitation for one scary electrical problem after another. And once it is actually ‘fixed’, approximately a half dozen things that used to work in your house now do NOT work. Ugh.

4. Shopkeepers rarely mark prices (I already knew this) and shopkeepers rarely have a ‘checkout counter’ that has more than four square inches on which to place desired purchases down for calculation (I already also knew this). But what I learned is that there is at least ONE store in the city where everything is marked AND there is a large, clean, white counter where I could have placed a good twenty items for purchase.  That shop makes me smile!! I plan to return.

5. It takes 7 men to cut down a bougainvillea vine out of electric lines. Then it takes one man to reattach the cut electrical line with his bare hands while yelling “Did he turn it back on yet?!” Oh my goodness. (No one was harmed in this incident, thank God).

6. It took a full month to get a washing machine properly repaired (broken because of item #3).  In the meantime, we learned how long we can actually survive in a hot dirty country without a washing machine.

7. The locals have a love for lacquer like you have never seen. And now the ‘refinished’ (term used very loosely) table in my office looks like it forever has a big puddle of water on it, even though it’s bone dry.

8. With so many workers around, I suddenly became “madam” for whatever reason. And I learned that I secretly (um, not anymore?!) like this.

9. It takes one man a full week to locate and purchase two child sized table and chairs.  And he will look, literally, in EVERY corner of the city before he succeeds.

10. We learned that we can persevere and survive one of the craziest and stretching months of our lives! But not without God’s grace!