10 Favorite Books This Week

Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola
The Hardest Word by Jacqueline Jules, Illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn
Fish Eyes, A Book You Can Count On by Lois Ehlert
Sew What, Betsy Ross? by Peter and Connie Roop
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh, Illustrations by Leonard Weisgard
The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, Illustrated by Aliki
A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams
King Midas and the Golden Touch as told by Charlotte Craft, Illustrated by K.Y. Craft
How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz, Pictures by Steven Kellogg
What Happens When I Talk To God? by Stormie Omartian, Artwork by Shari Warren

Well, it's St. Patrick's Day and I have to recommend the kid-friendly bio by Tomie dePaola for you and your friends and family...Saint Patrick pretty much rocked and still does. If more people knew his story, he'd be the most famous superhero out there. Glowing hand? Seriously...it's all in there.
Fish Eyes is another book from my math-book-in-curriculum friend who lovingly reviews these and writes great guides for me, I can't thank her enough! We read on our 'school at the beach day' this week and it was a big hit. Bonus: we saw a puffer fish washed up on the shore, which was a big treat for our treasure walk time.

Sew What, Betsy Ross?, The Courage of Sarah Noble and How Much is a Million? were school books from past weeks that the kids got out to read again. And again. Sometimes that's all I need to really like a book. Sarah Noble is exceptional in its character building, and the kids have been interested in counting to a million lately (Ruby mercifully stopped counting sometime shortly after 2,100 recently in her quest to count to a million).

Saying sorry is something we have been working on, and The Hardest Word takes on that challenge, although the kids are onto it now.

King Midas and the Golden Touch is a favorite that is often chosen by both kids for free time reading. The illustrations are gorgeous and the format is elegant. It just feels special.

A Chair For My Mother - well, you just have to read it. Reading it without a catch in my voice is hard. It's about real life, it's hard, and we keep going. And find joy in everyday life.

The Listening Walk is another favorite of mine - we have always done this, and you probably have too. Take a nature walk, or a walk through town, and just listen...to birds, airplanes, voices, vehicles, trees in the wind, waves against stone...you get the idea. There's a lot out there when we pay attention. Somehow, having a book about a subject just reinforces it as being a good idea in my kids' minds.

I'm a little behind on the book lists - progress, not perfection is the goal around here. Thanks for reading.

(Fun) Week In The Life I

We've been going through a 'quiet' phase lately, just wanting to live and enjoy each day. This is good for productivity, but not blogging.

For a birthday party on Saturday, I wanted to make these coconut-lime sugar cookies, but couldn't find any pre-shredded coconut. We bought a fresh coconut at the local duka and I drained the water out of it while Len readied the chopping block:

I should add that I was hacking at the thing in futility and Len killed it with one swipe. He also zested and juiced a bunch of limes for me, since obtaining shredded coconut took longer than I expected.

A heated discussion erupted Sunday after we found ourselves locked out of the gate and Len refused to let me climb up and rappel in. There is a way, I have planned for this, I was like Rhino the gerbil in Bolt - I was so ready! But he won out and eventually our neighbor, who has a key, came home and all was well. Funny little times.

Another friend asked us to celebrate his birthday with his family on Monday, and for a few hours we enjoyed a small island about 20 minutes' boat ride from where we live.

Len's goal was to introduce the kids to snorkeling. They took right to it! Ruby and Henry each spent over an hour peering into the reef; they can't wait to go again.

Thanks to Neal Stanton for the photos!

 And one of our favorite meals we've had here: fresh fish and calamari, with chips. You order when you arrive on the island, they go catch it and cook it right there. Delicious.

Last summer, our hinged tortoise, Myrtle, went missing. And stayed missing. We have seen NO trace of him for nearly a year. Tuesday morning, he showed up looking for breakfast. It's a miracle! Kill the fatted carrot!

I cannot imagine where he was for these months...we have searched many times and I was sure we would just find bones and a shell one day.

Myrt was hungry - he's eaten two full-size carrots and an apple so far, in addition to whatever he's finding out there.

He is missing a couple of shell scales - good thing there are no other pets around to tease him.

Later Tuesday, we went to support the Salasala ministry our friends lead, where kids living in one of the very poverty-stricken areas get to come and be kids once a week. One of the things I love love love about this ministry is that the only motive is to love others with the love of Christ. And the two couples who quaterback it are immensely gifted and educated and could be gaining accolades in other places, but they choose to serve the poorest of the poor here. Beautiful.

Yes, that's not even a week...more to come as the week gets more fun! :)

This Week's Favorite Books: Week 1

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays by Judith Gross, Illustrated by Bari Weissman
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Brave Cloelia by Jane Louise Curry, Illustrated by Jeff Crosby
The Oak Inside the Acorn by Max Lucado, Illustrated by George Angelini
Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems
The Story of Queen Esther by Jenny Koralek, Illustrated by Grizelda Holderness
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Illustrated by Ted Rand
Anansi The Spider adapted and illustrated by Gerald McDermott
Echoes For The Eye: Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature by Barbara Juster Esbensen, Illustrated by Helen K. Davie

Choosing only ten books to feature here was difficult, but these are our ten favorites from the last week. Each is superb in its own way and I hope you have a chance to read all of them. The links are to Amazon, only to let you know what the cover looks like. I encourage you to check for them at your local library or a reseller like www.betterworldbooks.com before you buy a new copy.

We celebrated Purim this week, so I pulled out Celebrate and Esther and worked them into our reading . Both kids helped me make Hamenstachen cookies, filled with my favorite Paradise jam made from local papaya, carrots, passionfruit and pineapple. Esther is one of the kids' favorite books ever, with gorgeous illustrations and ample opportunities to vilify Haman while celebrating Mordecai. Celebrate is a great book that takes Jewish holidays and makes the traditions and history easy to understand. Ruby read the Purim section to us, and Henry really enjoys the kid-centric illustrations.

Ruby's love of all things girly is reflected in Miss Rumphius, Chrysanthemum, Brave Cloelia and Edwina. Miss Rumphius is a book I would love to be able to buy cases of and give them away to every child I meet. It's a beautiful tale of being courageous and fulfilling your dreams and purpose in life.

Cloelia's determination and courage wins me over every time, and has enough army action to satisfy Henry as well. He also likes the maps on the endpages, and will sometimes go get the book to refer to these maps when we are reading other books about Rome or Italy.

Chrysanthemum's crisis resolution and happy ending always leaves me with a happy smile, too. If we had another girl, I would consider both Chrysanthemum and Delphinium as fine names.

The Oak Inside the Acorn is another great story (a little longer) about becoming who you were made to be, and learning to accept change when it comes.

Paul Revere's Ride is one of our school books this week, although we've been reading it for months. I remember my parents reading the poem to me as a child, and the fantastic illustrations in this edition keep everyone's imagination flying along with the horses' hoofbeats.

Echoes for the Eye is a book a good friend gave us when we were home; we've been reading it for a few weeks as the topics come up. It's a great way to help kids see patterns in nature and begin to think mathematically. We read it this week at the beach as well as a local cafe, and the kids enjoyed finding shapes and patterns wherever they looked.

Anansi's colorful wood-block illustrations and story of cooperation made this a great choice by Henry for bedtime one night.

Edwina is one of my all-time favorite reads and I hope it becomes one of yours, too.

We've been plowing through school lately; I try to let the kids set the pace and they've been hungry to learn, but I sense a natural break coming in the next couple of weeks. Our biggest challenge with Ruby has been getting her enough new material to read!

Life Goes On

Yes, it has been so long since the last post here. Nearly three shameful months of not making time to write things down here. But life has been happing. Supersonic. Fast. Some of it heavy and requiring extra processing.

Here are snippets from today, just today...a day like many other days. Full of life and fun and stories that fuel a soundtrack in my mind that includes "Nobody Told Me (There'd Be Days Like This)" and "People are Strange".

Today started out with school in the banda; the kids and I usually lay in the hammock and read there at least once a day. In the last couple of weeks, we've been checking for bees before we get in (after I sat on a big wood bee and earned a huge welt) and also since yesterday, I've been double checking the straps holding the hammock after someone apparently re-rigged it, causing me to painfully crash to the tile floor.

Ruby enjoys telling me how old I am (not in a mean way, she's just in awe that she knows someone this ancient), I'm sure that shouting out in pain over a bee sting is impressive to her.

So, school, a couple of meetings, swim lesson and library time with the kids, going to pick up the kids after these things, spending time with friends, then going to SalaSala, a service learning part of our week.

One boy at SalaSala was too old to be there, although I couldn't tell it by his size. There is another day for boys his age to come and play sports, and he would like to come on that day, but he has to work at the local stone quarry smashing rocks on that day. He is nine years old.

Our friend Shaun led a short message for the children, talking about how God is the tree and we are the branches. Among other activities, the kids had drawn their own branches on a huge tree drawing, and he talked about what makes a good branch good or a bad branch bad. Good branches bear fruit, while branches that don't are pruned. He and Grace, a Tanzanian teacher, did a great job.

SalaSala was good, even great, but after the children left, we heard singing coming from the house next door, a typical local African house. It sounded joyful and happy, but friends told me it was a song announcing to the whole area that a child had wet the bed. In this ritual, the neighbor kids all come around and sing a simple song, while the wayward child is made to carry the matress on her head around the yard. In this case, they dragged her about 50 yards to the road, sobbing the entire way. My friend's daughter was pleading with her Mom to do something to stop it, and so they went out to politely engage the other children in conversation, just to get them to stop singing. Then one daughter put her arm around the shamed girl's shoulders and walked her, still crying, back to her house. My friend has good daughters (and son!).

It's the first time I've seen this particular ritual here. Shaming children really bothers me. Not just in this culture; it happens in every culture and country, but that doesn't make it less ugly.

At bedtime tonight, I answered a pretty normal array of eclectic questions such as, "Why did God make sharks?" and, "How did God know to put me in this family?" and, "Why are boogers sticky?"

These guys are always keeping me on my toes.

It seems like 300 little other things happened today, but it's late and I'll spare you those details.

Just wanted to update you on what's been happening here. Life, and lots of it.

America, Volume 1

I have a lot of catching up to do about Africa on here, but let me update you on where we are. We're already almost two weeks into this whirlwind visit to see friends and family, and to attend the Young Life conference held every four  years. It's flying by.

One observation: we are blessed beyond our comprehension by the exceptional people God has put in our lives both here and in Africa. We've had many visits with friends and family already, and every one of them ended with us wishing we had longer to visit, and thanking God for the time we had.

Much of the first week was spent getting physicals and touching base with family; seeing friends and hitting some favorite spots around town. The kids have been having a blast with all their friends:

Ok, maybe today we exceeded Ruby's limit on socializing:

We've visited the Indianapolis Children's Museum twice, between doctor's visits. They have a great permanent exhibit about Ruby Bridges and we liked the good words/bad words board:

And the Yule Slide. When we last visited (the day we moved to Africa!!), the kids were too young to go down alone.

And hey, when in Indianapolis, you must observe Indy Car racing.

Here is Masaai Princess Barbie at the Museum, a good effort at Barbieizing this beautiful culture.

We spent tonight at Baker Chapel Church, where Len and I served in ministry together many years ago, and caught up with some of the finest people on earth.

Sometimes I feel like Forrest Gump or like we're getting away with something by doing life with so many amazing people. But it's just God's grace that weaves our lives together into a lovely, beautiful road.

Field Trip: Tide Pools

 Our little co-op has been having great fun learning our way through history this year. Ruby and Henry have made great progress; Ruby is reading chapter books as fast as we can give them to her it seems, and Henry is reading his first sight words. They both love learning, and for that I'm thankful!

This month's field trip was to the local beach, where a European couple who teach science here generously offered to take our kiddos for a guided tour of tide pools near their house. Our family loves exploring these constantly changing treasures wherever we go here, and it was an extra special treat to have the Smits along to answer our many questions.

Capturing creatures isn't my thing, as I prefer to observe (and teach my kids to observe) animals in their environments. However, the kids each had a small net and were encouraged to see what they could discover. Ruby was pleased to find a large sea cucumber.

 There were also dozens of assorted crabs, including this one I hadn't seen before, with hairy red legs:

 Henry found a starfish, but Ruby put it back in the water (without telling her brother), "so that it could be healthy and live." I love that sensitivity about her. In all fairness, she put her sea cucumber back as well, but we had to have a little family meeting about communicating important life events, like when you put your brother's treasure someplace he can't find it, without his permission. It was a really cool one, school-bus yellow with long, thin legs and grey tips.

Here is our friend Emmett with a cute starfish he found:

 One thing I like about beachcombing is that twice a day, with each tide, you get a totally new set of discoveries. And I like to think we have at least that many new beginnings each day. Each morning bring a new day with no mistakes, only opportunities, right? Still, I need a couple of restarts most days. When I'm near the ocean, I sense that God is big enough to handle all of my 'even though's".

I'll leave you with what was by far the coolest find, a sea turtle washed up on shore...it was over a foot across, dead less than a day. The kids really enjoyed checking it out. Hopefully, it can be cleaned up in a few days and used for older science classes.

Moon Over Mt. Meru

 If my camera could do the northern skyline justice right now, I'd post a picture of the moon high over Mt. Meru for you to enjoy. It's stunning and made me think about all the great moments of today. Let me share a few with you.

 This might not be your idea of a great time, but seeing a black mamba just about made Ruby and Henry's day. We've been studying reptiles in school, and Arusha's Meserani Snake Park provided a great setting for a field trip.

 This Gaboon Viper and its poisonous friends were behind glass and concrete, but they were still pretty intimidating. This guys' head wouldn't have fit in my hand.

The Horned Viper below was also massive:

 There were also several non-poisonous snakes and we got to hold a couple, including this sand snake. Ruby named him Nofeet and Henry asked if we could have him for a pet. I guess he really misses our kittens that disappeared last year.

 Speaking of disappearing, there were also a few large pythons at the park today, accompanied by photos of similar pythons who had eaten sleeping guards. Let this be a warning for anyone tempted to nap on the job!

The park also offered a guided tour of the Masai museum, and camel rides with a view of the local cattle auction. When Ruby and I were on the camel, she said, "Mommy, I love God's creation."

 And really, what's not to love?

There were a variety of crocodiles there, too. Separated from the camels and people, of course...that would be exciting though! This Nile crocodile is about half grown and was around 8 feet long. Our guide said that she was about 20 years old. I thought she looked pretty with the foilage in her skin.

 Loti, our guide, carefully held a young crocodile for the kids to touch. This one is about three years old and was snappy.

 Loti, a Masai warrior, also chatted casually with us about birds, conservation, and how he killed a lion in 1996 to achieve his manhood in the tribe. Later, Jonathan, our guide in the museum, added that Masai men must be circumsized at age 18 before they kill their lion. Immediately after which they drink large amounts of a honey-based alcoholic beverage.

 Several small Masai villages line the road to the park.

We're staying with friends who love Jesus and teenagers in Arusha, and Len had a great time speaking at their camp this weekend. Seriously great fun!

While he was busy at camp, I took the kids to the local Cultural Heritage Center and enjoyed the art gallery immensely.

These look way more real in the photo than in person. Here, my children dramatize a buffalo chasing a child. Good times at the foot of Mt. Meru!

Reminders

This week I was reminded of where we've been with Ruby-girl, and how far we've come.

We were playing a game together, one of a set we play often that helps teach social skills. Each of these game boards has a different focus, and the one we played yesterday focused on idioms.

Usually, Ruby loves these games and begs to play one more time. Usually, she tries to stay ahead of me and finish first. Yesterday, however, she froze up after her first turn. After that, she tried to manipulate the die so that she only landed on the spaces I had just landed on and explained. Tears were in her eyes for much of the game as her chin quivered, a breath away from crying.

What was the source of her pain? You're on cloud nine! Don't spill the beans! You're on thin ice! Cut it out!

These and other sayings that are such a part of our daily life were terrifying to Ruby, because in her literal understanding of the world she has no idea what people mean by saying such things. In our game, players land on a space and explain what people really mean when they say, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" or whatever the idiom.

A couple of times, her answer was, "it means they don't like you". This broke my heart as I realized how confusing life can still be for my little girl who has worked so hard for each step of progress. Social cues that are effortlessly understood by most children must be studied and learned by others. For these children (and adults!), navigating social situations can feel like an endless test they are constantly on the verge of failing.

So I sat there yesterday, trying to explain simply yet logically why someone would say, "You're in hot water!" to someone who was not actually being burned by hot water. Or why, when someone says, "Time to hit the books!" they really mean it's time to study or read, not that you should hit the books with your hands.

And I remembered other places we've been with Ruby:

• temporary bouts of paralysis
• seizures
• huge regressions in development
• specialists and tests with no answers
• being given a variety of grim labels for our child
• tears and prayers and hurting hearts
• amazing therapists of many kinds
• going on a diet the 'professionals' said wouldn't work
• seeing the diet help our daughter dramatically
• reading research for hundreds of hours
• praying and praying and praying some more
• searching for and finding a homeopath skilled in helping children like Ruby
• being amazed with the progress we saw from said homeopathy
• making great friends who share this journey

By the grace of God, Ruby's made so much progress, and I'm thankful for that. Today was a good reminder that we're not done making progress.

After that round of Idioms, there was no "Just one more game" from Ruby. I left it out, however, hoping she would look at it in her free time.

Tonight, as she and Henry were playing before bed, being silly and pretending to discipline each other, Ruby went to the table where the game board was. After a few seconds, she declared, "Henry, you're in hot water!"

My heart is a little more joyful tonight.

Homeschool: Settling In

Ruby was reading a book to Henry this morning and it struck me that I really love this homeschooling thing. I'm exhausted as I write this, nine hours later, but I'm also appreciating the hidden benefits to teaching our kids at home versus outsourcing.

As we continue into this adventure, several new benefits have presented themselves, but three stand out today:

1) Our children really like each other - because they are learning the same material (at different levels) and sharing more experiences together, they are bonding over history and reading (Ruby reads at least once a day to Henry and once a day to me) and life in general, and I like seeing them be friends like that. They have a lot to talk about and they frequently discuss what they're learning.

Last year they each spent most of their freshest hours in different environments, with people we like and love, but who all scatter at the end of the school day. So they came home tired, having spent their best waking hours away from family, and each told the other about their day. But they weren't really sharing life together other than eating dinner and getting ready for bed, which I'll admit aren't our most peaceful times each day. Now, we usually eat breakfast together after everyone's slept as much as they need to, and it's much better family time.

2) We really like our children - My hypothesis on investing in children is being proven: the more you invest in your children, the greater the returns. I'll admit that I had a lot of fun last year, having more lunches with friends, having more alone time, prayer time, writing time and husband time while the kids were in school.

However, there is a thrill that comes with looking into your child's eyes as they tell you all about Squanto or how to find the answer to three times six or how they just wrote their name. I will admit it is a lot of fun watching Henry learn addition and subtraction by having a war with kanga balls and then seeing how many we each ended up with, how to even our totals, how many to add or subtract to get zero, and so on.

Len has been able to get in on the action, teaching a few hours a week while I volunteer locally. Yes, he works late one extra night a week to make up for that time, but it's great for him and great for the kids to spend that time together.

3) School is flexible, like life - There's been a virus going around the last few weeks, and it would have knocked each of our children out of school for a few days. However, since school is right here, we were able to keep up with our lessons. One night we built compasses out of needles and corks and tried them out at dinner. Once in a while our bedtime story is some component of the curriculum.

When we travel, school comes with us. It takes much less time to teach a concept to fewer children, and so we spend less time in lessons and more time practicing and reinforcing that concept as it occurs throughout daily life. Field trips happen one or two times a year in most schools, only because the logistics of transporting dozens of children with few adults can be burdensome. However, hands-on learning is how most children learn best. The flexibility of this homeschool model of education is showing amazing results so far, and we are only in our first semester. Not the easiest road, but it is lovely! :)

Field Trip: Njiani

Our little homeschool co-op is planning one formal field trip per month (one cool thing about homeschooling is that you get field trips as often as you want!) and this week we went to a local furniture designer's shop to see what she does and try our hands at designing.

After a tour of her shop, which included talking about furniture function and materials, we went outside and the kids got to draw their dream furniture. Ruby drew a very ornate throne (above) and Henry drew a series of tables and what looked to me like a wine rack. He said he couldn't tell me what it was because it was a secret.

He is a mysterious little person.

After drawing their furniture, they were given some clay and sculpted their furniture. This is Ariana's drawing and model of a gorgeous room divider Catherine has in her shop right now. The original piece is made of wood and handmade lace.

Then, just for good measure, the kids each got a wooden soap holder to sand, varnish and paint if they wanted to. Ruby got one made from coconut wood:

After a brief clean-up, we all enjoyed lunch at Njiani, prepared by Catherine herself. The kids also enjoyed playing in the large garden there. We look forward to seeing how it develops as play areas are added!

Note: As of October 1, Njiani is open Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

Green Goodness

"You win the man contest today." Len's face contorted as he struggled to finish today's green smoothie.

I guess goodness is in the mouth of the beholder.

Two things happened this summer: I had some health problems, and we had Kindles delivered to us by a great mission team visiting some friends. Since I was unable to be as active as usual, and had the ability to get books instantly instead of waiting several weeks or months, I put the Kindle to work trying to find ways to be more healthy.

Cheese has been almost an addiction for me since I can remember. Friends in high school used to tease me about perpetually having cheese in my hand ready to eat. For most of my life, I've seen other food largely as a vehicle for cheese. Breads, vegetables, meat, pear pie...everything is better with cheese, right? And I justified this by touting the protein and calcium in each ounce.

When Ruby was diagnosed with autism and we decided to try the gluten-free, casein-free diet for her, she could no longer eat cheese, which was one of her favorite foods as well. I gave up eating cheese when she was awake, but went directly for one or two cheese snacks as soon as she was in bed. A nice Stilton on saltines is a great way to end the day. My cheese intake went up again after several months, until we moved to Africa. Good cheese (rennet free, raw milk and hand made) is difficult or impossible to find in Tanzania, and even mediocre cheese is quite expensive here. Still, we've managed to consume a 2-kilo block of cheddar each month or so, cheaply made cheese I wouldn't have touched in America yet we pay three times as much for it here, and are thankful to have it.

All this talk of cheese is to tell you that I realized this summer that my diet had to change if I was going to be healthy again. And a few books from the Kindle have helped direct that change.

First, I downloaded a free book, Raw Food by Erica Palmcrantz and Irmela Lilja. I had read quite a bit about raw food diets over the years, but it seemed extreme and restrictive. However, the more I've learned about how the body metabolizes food, and the more I've started trusting that God knows what he's doing, I've become more and more convinced that what we need is growing right around us, not packaged in boxes or supplements or medicine. My friend Danielle from college always said, "Let food be your medicine," and I wish I had listened to her more then.

So, I made some recipes from Raw Food (Avocado Soup, Hawaiian Breakfast, Beet Soup and smoothies), and was pleasantly surprised when my family liked them. Fresh fruits and vegetables are relatively easy to find here and are more affordable than other food, so we jumped into raw food. Added bonus: these things are all gluten free!

As I was looking at sale books on the Kindle one night, I bought another book: Green for Life, by Victoria Boutenko. In it, she addresses several health benefits of eating fresh greens, and encourages the reader to try one green-based smoothie a day for 30 days. She also discusses pH in the body and how cancer cannot grow in a body with a slightly alkaline balance. I had read about this many years ago when my sister and then my dad were dying of cancer, and was pleased to find so many ties between alkalinity and greens in the diet. The idea of getting greens in a smoothie appeals to me greatly, since it's easy to make and easy to drink, and with a little more fruit, easy to get the kids to drink!

We took Ms. Boutenko up on her green smoothie challenge, and it's been going well, but we missed the last two days. This may explain why I tried to make this morning's smoothie super green. By the look on his face, Len thought celery (stalks and leaves), green pepper, cucumber, lemon and pineapple, with two dried apricots for more sweetness, was green nastiness. When I finished mine and asked him if he was going to put his down the toilet if I left the room, he let me win, and I finished his. For his sake, I hope he brings home some sweet fruit tonight!

Our Monthly Visit

Usually, we get to see the Dawasco man more than once a month. He comes to the gate every 2-3 weeks on average, demanding to be let in, insisting that we are breaking the law if we refuse him entry. And maybe we are.

It's just that we don't care anymore.

Last month when he came in, I didn't know he was here. We had a new employee whom he bullied into opening the gate, and by the time I saw him outside, he had been at the water connection several minutes. I raced out to intercept him.

One quick note: DAWASCO is the local water company, whose job is to provide us with water in the pipes coming to our house. To have this luxury is expensive, and we pay dearly for it. The water is not drinkable and you don't want to get too much in your mouth in the shower.

The conversation was always the same:

DM (Dawasco Man): You haven't paid your bill and I'm turning off your water.

Me: Oh, but we have paid our bill. We pay it each month. Check with your office.

DM (standing over me and raising his voice): YOU HAVEN'T PAID YOUR BILL. NO WATER.

Me: Oh, please don't turn off our water. I can show you the stamped receipt.

DM (almost nose to nose with me now): I'M TURNING OFF YOUR WATER TODAY!

This conversation usually goes on for about five minutes, until DM wields his power and says he won't shut off the water today, but if I don't pay the bill (which he never has), he will turn it off tomorrow. Or, I can pay him the amount right now and my problems will go away.

For those who know me, you know I'm just playing along with the cultural expectation of being polite and taking abuse from the one perceived to be in power. Because I generally don't ask abusive people to pretty please not harm me.

But back to last month...DM, when I arrived on the scene in our yard, walked through the above script, agreed (after much pleading from me) that he would not disconnect our water that day, and left. However, he had already turned off our water, before I knew he was there. Which meant that two or three days later, when we had gone through our maji storage tanks, we ran out of water.

This upset me in several ways. First, we do pay a lot of money for the luxury of that Dawasco line. And even though it doesn't work half the time, we can fill up our 4000 litres of storage and live on that for a few days, using water sparingly.

My Mama Bear instinct also came into play. Not having water puts my children at risk. It's more difficult to bathe and have water for cleaning food and filtering to drink. Not bathing puts my children at higher risk for illness. DM had lied to my face about leaving the water on and was apparently alright with leaving our water off for a month, despite the fact that we had paid all of our bills on time.

Finally, I spent the whole of that Saturday climbing around the clay tile roof of our house, rigging up a system with our garden hose and our reserve reserve tank to get water into the tanks on our roof, which feed water into our taps. Fundi bomba mama.

So, this morning when he came in and started the same song and dance, I cut him off and told him to get out. He told me I couldn't. I told him our security men could and went to press the call button. And this is when he changed his tone and started calling me Sister, Rafiki....When he reverted to his abusive lines, I told him to get out immediately and he did, handing me a fake bill (with a ridiculous total) as he went. He again offered to take payment immediately to make these problems go away.

Len came screeching around the corner a few minutes later. Racing about 50 yards past our gate, he somehow managed to squeal the tires in the dirt road as he stopped suddenly beside DM. That was actually pretty cool. After telling DM to never to yell at his wife again, Len showed him a current, paid bill with our balance. It turns out Dawasco actually owes us money!

But there is no happy ending to this story...DM couldn't stop lying to me today about whether or not he turned our water off before, he tried to say he turned it on today and we should thank him...I can't help but feel a little sorry for him, because he is clearly struggling with the truth. And he is a guy who is likely making far less than what covers his basic needs, and public servants here of all kinds depend on bribes to break even. And though it's not legal, it's part of the fabric of this society. While we are fortunate to have water today when so many of our friends don't, we know that tomorrow we may well be the ones with empty tanks and no water in the pipes. In this mess of power and water shortages, we feel blessed when we have either, let alone both.

All over the world, this scenario happens in various degrees hourly, only many are not as empowered as we are to stand up for what is right. And this grieves me. Because I know that I am too often the one enjoying all of life's bounty and not taking time to concern myself with those who need help fighting injustice.

In the big picture, this morning's events will fade out, but coming face to face with injustice troubles me tonight. Especially when the injustice seems to be coming from so many directions.

God, help me be patient with your timing, and trust you as the keeper of justice.