Well we have officially been in Tirana, Albania for a little over a week. We have had so much fun, but we have had many struggles in this little time, some personal struggles, which I will write about soon, but some have just been flat out funny. I am going to call them “What had happened was moments,” that one phrase that many people have heard, especially those teachers! But it’s for those moments when kids are trying to explain what happened when they did something (or maybe they didn’t do it) to their parents, or teacher, or just any adult in general. Here are some of them we have experienced in the first couple of days!
- We may have pushed down some kids, but what had happened was, we were playing soccer, and the boys were a lot smaller than us, so they fell when we ran into them a couple of times. All on accident though! No one was seriously injured, nothing a Band-Aid couldn’t fix! This does include me, I cut my toe, because I was playing in Chacos, so I had a little boo boo!
- We ran out of water after day 4! We decided that 9 girls taking a shower, washing dishes, and doing a load of laundry in a day was a good idea. But, we are not in America and water is limited, so we ran out. But what had actually happened was, the pipe broke, and needed to be fixed, but it took 4 days for us, and by us, I mean Andi to realize that it wasn’t that we just ran out of water, so we got everything fixed and ready to go today, after 5 days! (Don’t worry, we went to the store and bought water, so we put our bucket shower training in to use)
- The same night that we lost water, our power went out! On this night, it finally rained and with that came a huge thunder storm. Well the storm knocked out all our power for a couple of hours, which then caused the power to go out three more times the following day! But, don’t worry, everything is on and working again! The rain also brought cooler weather with it, which was amazing!
- With all the rain, our roof began to leak, and our house began to flood a little bit! So the storm came, and that was uncontrollable, but what had happened with the flooding was, we didn’t know there was a drain outside that was closed, but luckily Andi came by, in the middle of the storm, at 2am, to open the drain so our whole house wouldn’t get water inside!
- Don’t worry, the moments continue to happen! The day after we ran out of water and the power went out, we got stuck in our little house. So what had happened here was, the door was being very stubborn and we would have to slam it to get it shut. Well at 8:30am one of my squad mates walked out into our sun room, to grab her stuff, and she closed the door behind her, well when my team mate went to get out, the door was stuck. 5 people then tried to get the door open, and they were unsuccessful. We began to panic because all 10 of us were inside and our one squad mate was locked out. She eventually went to the church, where she found Andi (Clearly, he has been the saving grace for all of these situations)! He came over with some tools and he pretty much broke the door, open, so now we have learned our lesson and we just don’t close the door to our main rooms. (We do have a different door that leads out that stays locked when we are not home)
- Well, like I said earlier, our water just got fixed today, but when we got home from ministry today, we realized that our toilet was leaking all over the bathroom floor. So we are still trying to figure out the what had happened was for this, but I’m sure one will come to mind eventually!
I think that is all the what had happened moments for now, but then again, it’s only been a week and we have already had this many. I am sure there are many more to come, but I can say with confidence, our good moments, bonding, serving, and adventures far outweigh these crazy things that have happened. We are so grateful for our host, and for all the things we do have this month, such as warm water for showers, a bed to sleep on, wifi, electricity, and the amazing relationships we have already built. Big shout out to Andi for coming to the rescue in pretty much all of these situations we found ourselves stuck in! So here’s to many more “what had happened was” moments that we all love!
I will be writing another blog soon, about my personal struggle with missing things that are happening at home while I am gone, so stay tuned!
