Something in the wind

Well, its midnight and I'm sadly overly wired, so you're getting a blog update!

First, this may be TMI, but in this country, each house has a water pump to fill up the water tank on the roof, which then supplies sinks, showers, toilets, etc, with water. My water pump is not working (it might be burned out), and all of our maintenance staff is on vacation. You can see where this might be going. So, I haven't showered in a couple days and to flush, I have to fill up a bucket at the shower in the gate house outside (which has a working water pump), and bring it inside. However, it's midnight and I'm ready to go to bed and I need to make a long visit to the toilet and then make the visit go away. I don't want to go outside and fill the bucket up. What to do? Fortunately, my house has three bathrooms and I am the only one in the house for the next couple days. Therefore, the solution is obvious. I have been avoiding using the bathroom across the hall so that it can be utilized in just such an emergency. And protecting that toilet tank was a wise, wise move.

We're in Summer School season now, and that means that I am being the P.E. teacher again. Or maybe I will just assume the title of P.E. Director, that sounds more awesome, right? Last week, we played with frisbees all week, culminating in Ultimate Frisbee for the older kids. That was pretty fun. This week is soccer, which has also been OK. Next week will be basketball, and I have high hopes for that.

Summer here is nice because the campus empties out and we get to spend more time with people, which this year happily includes some of our favorite people on campus, the school's science teacher and his wife and four kids. They're great and we are really going to miss them next year.

I mention them for a reason. I would like to ask you to take a minute to Remember them, and especially their younger son. Here's an e-mail I sent out to our school staff earlier this week about them.

"On Sunday, J fell and split his lip on the cement. He went to [a local expat run hospital] to get stitches to sew his lip back together, and they put him under general anesthesia for the surgery. While he was on the anesthesia, his heart stopped, and they had to do CPR on him to revive him. He made it out fine, and now [Friday], he is physically fine (albeit with 5 stitches in his lip,) but he has developed what the doctor says is something like PTSD. He’s very scared, says he needs air to breath, is shaking his head constantly, and doesn’t want his parents to leave him. If you could please Ask for comfort for him, and Ask for strength for the rest of the family."

J is a pretty tough little kid, and he usually doesn't show a lot of emotion, so this situation has been really taxing on their whole family. Yesterday (Tuesday) he got the stitches out of his lip, and he's doing a lot better. But he still is really sensitive and gets really scared at night. If you, my faithful readers who I have let down this year by not posting as much, could Remember him, that would be really great.

I'm heading to bed now. D and I get married in 32 days! We're super excited.