You Can't Always Get What You Want

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes – you might find, you'll get what you need."

We still don't have a kitchen sink, running water, or a drain in the kitchen. So washing dishes, washing rice, draining water require a trip to the bathroom, outside or both. It is tedious, as many parts of life in our country are. But it has given me some great insights into the way the people here live and gratitude for our sometimes inconvenient period of time living in the guest house.

Most people here cook outside. IF they have any running water around their house, it will be outside. So it is very convenient to clean and sort beans outside because the bad beans or dirty water just goes on the ground. Have something you don't want in your soup, get a spoon and toss the undesired onto the ground. You can even burn your dinner garbage in the fire you are using to cook your dinner! No cleaning up after children's spills because the chickens or goats will eat it. It really is convenient.

A young adult cooking outside at the compound where we're staying

I have come across two negatives of cooking outside. The food gets sand in it and is often crunchy (which actually is enough for me to turn back to the tedious kitchen) and what to do when it is raining? My guess is they just go on or change the meal time, but we don't get much rain even during the rainy season, so I haven't observed it yet.


The other morning during our 3.5 hour church service my eyes strayed outside the window to the goat grazing. In the same way I have seen many other tied up animals grazing, he was stretched out as far as possible and trying to reach for that one piece of grass that is just out of his reach. I can see that in my life, maybe you can see it in yours too? I often don't take the time to enjoy what is right in front of me because I am so busy reaching for what is just out of reach that I miss the grass right under my nose.