Quickly, Slowly

Walking through puddled streets under a beautiful sky

Life is slow, but fast here. I am meaning that life takes a long time – filtering water, washing clothes, preparing meals, getting anywhere, cleaning bodies and homes, meeting people, shopping, and the list goes on. Life goes quickly, slowly. I am eager to develop some type of routine and systems for all of these ways of life, but we have little control over routine these days. One night we went out for dinner and didn't to get the children in bed until 11pm and then “A Delight” was so wound up excited that she was up until 12:30am! We look forward to having a place to call home thinking that may give us some opportunity to develop a schedule, but it looks like that is probably another 4 or so weeks away.

Rain pouring down on the guest house compound

The rain could be a whole new post, but it also has many quick slows. It now is the rainy season, which means it will rain every 2-3 days. The rain comes quickly, the skies get very dark and everyone starts running to get home before the rain. One day we were out in a vehicle when the rain was about to come. We like others wanted to get home before the rain. But we were stuck in a large traffic jam before the intersection. Well, it turns out that the police person (essentially the light) left their post because the rain was coming. Not ethical or logical for us, but here it is the way of life. During the rain people don't go anywhere. And if you would see the rain, you know why – it rains hard! And not many people have vehicles to move around in the rain. Not only do the people run, but I have also seen insects flying around quickly to prepare for the rain. And the goats all line up by the wall outside our compound to try to stay dry. It often gets very windy and any loose windows or doors bang. During the storm the power will go out a couple of times. Afterwards there are puddles or more aptly called lakes everywhere. The lakes dry up quickly in most places. There are just a few areas where they stay all the time (I wonder if the ground is more clayish in that area?) – thus the plethora of mosquitoes. Sometimes all the preparations are made for rain and then the rain passes us over. The rain is very spotty and different parts of the city have a varying amount of rain from the same storm. So this is another way that life moves quickly, slowly. Life hurries before the storms come and then shuts down during the storm.