Good grief, this week is kicking my butt. People who say if you get up early you’ll be tired at night and able to go to sleep earlier, therefore making it easier to get up early, are BIG FAT LIARS. I got up at 5:30 am four days in a row and I was still having to force myself to fall asleep at ll:30pm the past 2 nights. And getting up at 5:30 makes the day SOOO LONG. I felt like I was ready for dinner and it was only 1:30 pm. Ridiculous. This morning I gave up trying to be a mature adult (by staying up and being productive after bringing Calvin to soccer practice) so I fell back to sleep at 6 until 6:30 when my alarm went off (to make sure Caleb was up and getting ready for school). I fell asleep again while Caleb was in the shower and then a third time after he left on the bus. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 8:20 when my alarm went off for the third time so I could make it to work out class by 8:45 (I was a little bit late and I showed up with puffy sleepy eyes. Oh well.) I think I only have 4.5 more months of this. Woo hoo! I hope I survive . . .
Josh comes home from India tomorrow and as far as I can tell, they are having a great time. Josh said Carter is getting along great with all the kids, working hard, and has been an excellent traveling companion. I haven’t had a lot of contact with them, other than a few texts from Josh and my dad and a fun few minutes on FaceTime.
Carter was thrilled to tell me all about how he was at work burning bags of trash and my dad emphasized that in the trash pile they found bags of medical waste from last year’s trip so what does that tell you about how much trash there was to burn!?!? Ugh! Old medical waste. So many diseases. So gross.
Anyway, they tossed in an empty can of spray paint (to make it pop to try and scare someone) and it exploded, but a few minutes later there was a HUGE explosion that brought everyone running. I guess in one of the bags someone had thrown away unexploded fireworks (who wastes perfectly good fireworks?!) and when they hit the fire they exploded so powerfully it blew cracks in the mortar in-between the bricks in the incinerator wall. So they had to dig through the other bags of trash to make sure there weren’t any other unexploded fireworks. (I hope they weren’t in the same bags as the discarded medical waste.) Of course there were more so Josh had to cut them open before tossing them in the fire. Better them than me . . .
Josh also said that they are having fun, enjoying the food (curry 3 times a day, of course) and that Carter is fitting right in with the kids and the rest of the team. He said it’s crazy how the kids in the home are around the same age, but Carter (our scrawny one) is so much bigger than they are.
My dad said the work projects this trip (in addition to medical/dental care and trash burning) are putting in a garden — these are two of the team volunteers busy planting. Josh said I would like it there because there’s a lot of outdoor space and gardening possibilities.
And building a playground at the local school where the kids from the children’s home attend.
They also brought handmade dresses to give out to the local girls. They may have brought clothes for the boys too, but I know that my mom and some other women were sewing these pillowcase style dresses. The idea is that each dress is one of a kind, just like the children they are given to.
My dad, next to Josh, said this village is called Snake village because the people who live there are the region’s exterminators — they go in and dig up the nests and kill the cobras so the people (who live in houses with dirt floors) are less at risk. Again, I’m glad tracking and killing cobras is not in my job description.
Josh said Carter has been going to school with the kids in the afternoon and helping them with their English. Dr. Perry-Adams (Carter’s English teacher last year) would be amazed. (or horrified?) I guess the girls all think Carter is cute which embarrasses him.
Hopefully I’ll have more to share after being reunited with Josh tomorrow. Carter flies home by himself on Tuesday. I think he’s both nervous and excited. And I know he’s hoping he gets bumped up to 1st Class!
