Unique Happenings

I spend time each evening washing dishes by hand. After years of being spoiled by an automatic dishwasher, I expected to find this drudgery. Instead, I discovered that washing dishes and looking out my window is a great time for reflecting on my day and on life in general. On Friday night as I washed the dishes I thought about the many unique things that happen here.

For instance, one of my students missed two days of school this week because she was recovering from the bite of a cobra. How many American teachers had that experience this week?

On Tuesday morning as I walked to class I noticed a steer tied to a tree near the boys’ dorm. At midday I saw a cluster of people under the trees near the cafeteria. That afternoon I looked out my classroom window onto that area and saw that the group was busy carving up a beef carcass. One of the college students paid for her tuition with the steer, and the meat will be used in the cafeteria.

Tuesday evening five male students came to our house to get David. They had found an insane man in a classroom and needed David to help them take him to the police station in Kalomo. They managed to coax and push the man into the back of the Land Rover and got him to the police station. The police refused to accept him, saying that he had been brought in from a village two weeks earlier. The villagers had been unable to control him, so they had chained him to a tree until they could manage to bring him into town. The police told David and the guys to take him to the hospital. There was no one at the hospital with the authority to admit the man, so they took him back to the police station. The police agreed to let the man spend the night and take him to the hospital in the morning. David and the guys bought some food to leave with him before they returned to the campus.

Last week as I taught my evening women’s class, a bat came flying into the classroom. He swooped over our heads for ten minutes or so and then flew back out into the night. The ladies hardly seemed to notice, but I’ll admit that I had to work to concentrate on my lesson.

Turning a water faucet or light switch on is always a bit suspenseful, because we never know if we’ll have water or electricity. We had outages of one or the other or both every day this week.

We invited a friend to dinner Friday night. As we visited over our after dinner tea, we heard a group of people walking past the window. It was Richwell, one of our college students, and his eighth grade Bible class. Four of the young men in the class had decided to be baptized in our backyard cistern. We grabbed flashlights and towels and joined the group to witness this happy event. If you’re keeping track, we’ve now had nine baptisms.

I guess as long as these unique happenings continue, I’ll have plenty to reflect on as I wash the dishes. Think of me when you load your dishwasher next time!