Comfort is something that seems so far away from me right now. I’m lying in a room made entirely out of mud and straw. The ceiling is thin bamboo stalks with mud used as cement. Five logs hold up the second floor where the kuye and harvest are kept. I can hear the kuye, large guinea pigs, about 100 of them, squeal from time to time. They must know that they are a delicacy to the people in this area. (see Steph’s blog on the prep process here: http://http://stephaniefisk.theworldrace.org/index.asp?filename=calling-all-cooks)
Today I lay in my bed in tears. My only comforts are the huge wool blankets and my Nalgene full of hot water that acts as a little heater inside my sleeping bag. It’s not quite as comfortable to lay on as a heating pad, but you make due. The fact is any bit of comfort when you’re sick is a blessing.
I’m confined to this room because I’ve come down with what appears to be strep throat or some type of bacterial infection. My mouth pretty much looks like a Petri dish. My left tonsil looks like a huge lump of cottage cheese and I have excruciating pain when I swallow. Just trying to get hot water down is like trying to swallow a huge jagged rock.
I’m missing the comforts of home right now: my mother, my bed, Campbell’s chicken soup, and a bathroom that isn’t just a big hole in the ground. I’m trying to get up enough strength to take a shower but standing behind a threadbare tarp with a bucket doesn’t really sound like much fun to me right now. I only have about a three hour window to bathe today though because the rains will be coming soon and as there is no roof over the “shower”/ bucket I’d best get moving if I want to remain dry. It has been six days now since I’ve smelled evenb close to fresh.
Ugh. I feel so useless. The rest of my team is out meeting the community of Utupampa and here I lay. Alone. …with my tears as my only companion. Okay, okay…perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic here. Yes. I know I am, but I just want to paint a picture of what life is sometimes like here out in the field. It’s not always the time of my life.
Yes, I’ve had bad days at home. Yes, I’ve been sick before too, but it is different here. There are no conveniences. Life here is hard. It’s plain hard all around. Just finding medicine for this ailment was an ordeal. Since it’s Good Friday, a highly respected holy day here, everything is closed. The “clinic” which has no practicing doctor was, of course, closed as well. Our host family banged the door down to get me some amoxicillin after I refused their home remedy of drinking my own urine. I took their advice on the tea with lime in it though and felt a little relief after that and a quick gargle of salt water (ick!). My fever broke last night and I awoke covered in sweat, right through the fleece I was wearing.
Friends, it’s cold here and there’s no heat. In fact, the door to our room which opens to the outside is covered with a saggy garbage bag where the glass was broken. Open electrical wires hang precariously from the ceiling and I don’t even have the comfort of typing this post on a computer. I first must write it out in my journal and then transpose it at a little internet café. I think back about 4 months ago and how I used to search the web from the comfort of my own bed. Technology is definitely not a comfort here.
Everything takes effort. Any small task is a chore. Life is so hard here and we are only experiencing it for one week. Two days ago Margarita, the pastor’s wife, whose home we are staying in, fell about 6 feet from the second floor down to the bottom of the first floor almost completely missing the stairs in between. It was quite a scare as she could have been seriously injured, but she walked away with only a big bruise on her lift hip. Last night Margarita shared with me some of the hardships she and her family go through up here in the mountains and how God has provided for them. I’m amazed at her faith and her perseverance for the Lord.
I’ve been studying Job lately to try to keep my perspectives straight, but even through that I’ve found myself questioning things in my own mind. Who am I to think I deserve anything? I could be the one slaving over an open fire and falling on my back from one floor to the next. I didn’t have to be born in the United States. My fate could have been much worse. Why do I think I deserve to be babied as I go through this sickness? I think about all the things I am missing at home and know that it’s all by God’s grace that I even have these things. Instead of saying “Why, God, why??”, I need to start thanking Him for having such mercy and compassion on me for even giving me these gifts of comfort in the first place.
So today I thank you Lord. As I sit in a beautifully decorated café with American music blaring and munching on the closest thing to American cuisine that I’ve seen in a while, typing this post from the wireless, I know that I am blessed. My hurting throat reminds me of what I could have, but I know that this too shall pass. In the meantime, I thank you for your blessings and for comforting me Lord even through all the discomfort. You are so worthy of all my praise!
