An impressively bad day

When my alarm clock went off this morning after only 5 hours of tormented sleep, I should have just turned it off and kept sleeping. In fact, if I’d known what the day might hold I may have done just so.
I’m too exhausted to write beautiful sentences so I’ll just make this blog entry in point form and you can construct your own story of my day.

1. Lay in bed too long and got up late with a kink in my neck making it impossible to turn to the right.
2. Had an argument with Burton at breakfast that ended up making us both late for school.
3. The power went out halfway through my first morning class. I hung around with some classmates until we were sure it wasn’t coming back on. I had to pee and decided to feel my way into the pitch black ladies room. I found the toilet fine but as I squatted over it suddenly felt myself getting sprayed all over and realized that the lid was down and I was peeing all over the toilet, the floor and myself. Washed my arms and legs and just walked right out of the bathroom.
4. Discovered that Burton had left without me and I could not find him anywhere or get hold of him on the phone.
5. Hitched a ride to my house on the back of Vem’s motorbike, very nearly crashing into a goat on the way.
6. Arrived at home to realize Burton was not there and he had the house keys.
7. Went back to school and still could not find him. Power was still off, air conditioning was off, and internet was off.
8. Got another ride back home on the back of Vem’s bike and almost crashed in a large pothole and then into an oncoming van.
9. Managed to dislodge a screen off one of the ground-floor windows, and after standing on top of stacked cinder blocks, attempted to slide between the horizontal panes of glass. Amazingly it worked and I broke into my own house for the second time, landing on my housemate’s bed.
10. Burton arrived home from having been at the beach. Had another large argument. He wisely decided to pacify me by driving me back to the beach for half an hour before our next class.
11. At the beach I decided to climb out on some rocks jutting out onto the water. While standing there, a massive wave came and threw me up in the air and down against the rocks. I got gashes all over both legs and feet, right thigh and butt, right arm and hand and the kink in the neck got way worse. Drove home very quickly but since we had class, did not have time to suture them up and just covered everything with bandages and went to school.
12. During a break was told by a classmate that I could never make it as a model.
13. Sat in class on my left hip with blood pooling all over my feet and suddenly felt my stomach begin to cramp. (I’ve had a stomach problem for a few years- my stomach will suddenly start having excruciating pain that is so bad it usually makes me throw up. I’ve been for tests and nothing turned up. Sometimes it lasts a few hours, sometimes a day or two.)
14. Left class early, came home and washed my war wounds and realized it was too late to put stitches in as they had already started to coagulate a bit. Realized both sinks were full of dishes. Lay down on the couch but couldn't sleep.
    
15. Did I mention I have pms? And that I haven’t slept a full night since I got to Antigua?
16. God, are you trying to say something to me? Whatever it is, I’m listening.

The fast and the furious

Saturday night Burton and I had a disagreement. We had planned to go the beach on Sunday, and were trying to decide what beach to go to. By a long shot my favorite beach on the island is Half moon Bay. It is a wide empty beach without a reef to break the waves, so they roll into shore about 6 or 8 feet high and when they crash the spray goes forever. The wind is so strong it kicks up the sand and its impossible to read or sleep. The wind howls. If you venture into the water you will be turned upside down by the waves and thrown into the ground like a matchstick. I had climbed onto rocks on the sides of the beach and when the waves hit the bottom and spray up 10 meters or so, you get soaked. It is wild and glorious and fierce and it’s like standing in the middle of a hurricane.
Burton likes Turner beach. It is in a little bay and is calm with gentle waves lapping at the shore. The water is clear and you can snorkel, or lay in the sun with palm trees above you and read or sleep. It is peaceful and still and is like sitting in a quiet garden.
We had a fundamental clash of personalities and the argument finally ended with me agreeing to go to Turner beach.
The beach was so beautiful it took my breath away. I lay in the sun and read, and swam in the clear water, and tried snorkeling for the first time. Under the water it was like a whole new world. I saw little blue and yellow fish, striped clown fish, long skinny silver ones, fat white ones, crabs and corals and beautiful seaweed. I could have stayed under there all day.
Then I was walking along the beach and saw a little gaff-rigged sailboat. I found the owner and offered him $10 to let me take it out. We pushed it out with Burton at the rudder. Out from shore it was gusty and there was a stiff breeze and pretty soon we were scooting along the waves with a spray coming up. Burton hadn’t really sailed before and was a bit nervous and was trying to keep the boat flat and kept steering into the wind to slow down. I think the best part of sailing is at the fastest speed, getting soaked by the spray and hiked out as far as possible. So I was pulling in the sail as tight as it would go and shouting for Burton to steer right. To make a long story short, the sail ended with us shouting at each other and turning on a jibe and the boat capsizing and Burton falling off and electing to swim back to shore rather than sail with me.

But I had a scripture shared with me on Sunday. I Kings 19:11-13 is the story of Elijah hearing God speak.
“The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Last night I was lying in bed and outside was a terrific storm pounding against my windows and the wind howling. I felt my heart racing and I wanted to get out of bed and go be part of the storm. I kept thinking about the story of Elijah. He was listening to hear God, and he expected God to be in a wild storm or an earthquake or a fire. But God actually waited for silence and calm before he spoke to Elijah. It’s probably partly due to the way I was raised and the way my family is, but I’ve always looked for the wildest and most exciting and fastest things. I want to climb to the very top or go to the very edge. I love storms and I love competing and fighting.
But God was not in the wild, fierce, angry storm. He came in the silence, when there was nothing to hear but him. He spoke when Elijah stopped trying so hard.
In many ways our lives are completely chaotic. Yet somewhere in the middle, if we still and quiet our hearts like little children, when we listen to the silence instead of trying to fill it with shouting, God speaks to us.
So who knows. I was looking for the wildness at Half moon bay to grab hold of my heart and fight with me. Yet in the quiet at Turner beach I heard God speak to me. I would’ve missed seeing little blue and yellow fish and sleeping under a palm tree and sailing on a little boat. I would have missed learning how to hear God in the silence.

Down in the depths

The last few days have been an exhausting mixture of studying, adventure, surprising new developments and a very steep learning curve. Sometimes that learning curve is exponential.
Several days ago I paid another visit to the bat cave. Dr. Gilbert, one of my professors, had met a man who is one of the owners of St. James Club, the most exclusive resort in the Caribbean. They got to talking about historical sites and Dr. Gilbert invited to take Arnold to the bat cave. Then in a panic Dr. Gilbert came to me for help, since I was the only person he knew who had actually been there.
I got flashlights and face masks and we met late one afternoon and headed for the bat cave. Dr. Koepsell, my ethics professor, and Burton also came with us. We waded down the overgrown trail and it was the funniest thing ever to see Dr. Gilbert, Dr. Koepsell and Arnold in their white slacks and shirts, mopping their foreheads and struggling to pick through the thorn bushes.
We got to the cave, put on our masks and began to ascend. Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Koepsell stayed at the entrance to the cave, but Arnold was intrepid and wanted to go in farther. Him and Burton and I picked our way through the mounds of bat waste and goat skeletons and took pictures, shining our weak lights into the inky blackness. There were too many thousands of bats to count and they hung in rows on the roof of the cave, fluttering up and screeching when we shone light on them. I picked my way through the cave, trying to step on rocks and not sink a foot into the bat poop. Arnold was entranced by the cave and wanted to go farther, which of course meant Burton and I had to follow. We went deep into the darkness….. Finally we found our way to a narrow crevasse in the rocks, and shining our flashlights down the crevasse I could see that it opened up into another large space. The tunnel itself looked about 15 feet long and I thought I could make it.
Our entire bodies were slippery with sweat and caked in filth. Burton and Arnold shone their lights and I slid down the rocks into the crevasse and began to go down the tunnel. It was hard to breathe through my mask. Ahead of me I could hear bats screaming and there was a waver of a breeze. I made it through the tunnel and it opened up into a large cavern. I shone my dim flashlight and as far as I could see the cave went on, and there were hundreds of thousands of bats hanging off the ceiling and fluttering around. I felt like I was in a horror movie.
“How does it look?” I heard a faint voice.
“It’s fine.” I called. “Come on through.”
Arnold is a little man, about my size, and he slipped through the tunnel into the cavern with me. The bats were stirring. Burton started to come through the tunnel and I shone the flashlight down the tunnel so he could see the way. Burton is a big guy- 6’3”, 200 pounds, wide shoulders. Suddenly he stopped, there was sweat glistening on his face and his eyes had a wild look.
“I think I’m stuck”. He said.
He got down onto his hands and knees. It is amazing what panic will do for you. He got through that tunnel into the cavern and he was coated in bat poop and collapsed on a rock and shone his light into the darkness.
“Good Lord.”
You had to have been there, pictures just aren’t enough. We stayed in the cavern for a while but then figured we’d been in the cave long enough and it was time to get out. The bats were becoming more lively and I was starting to feel nervous. I started back down the tunnel. I was halfway through, hunkered down. Suddenly I felt something hit me on the head. I screamed. Another one hit me. I screamed. A third bat hit me on the head and I started to hyperventilate. My light was dying and all around me was inky blackness. There was no way to tell what was up or down, backwards or forwards. I have never experienced darkness like that before. I had to make it out of that tunnel.
“Are you okay?” Burton shouted.
“Yes!” I shouted back, gasping for breath. I started to scramble through the tunnel and I hauled myself up out of the crevasse into the first cavern. The guys followed. I struggled to find footing on the rocks and suddenly I saw something skittering at my feet. I gave a little squeal and jumped. There were tons of them.
“Cockroaches.” Burton said grimly. “Hundreds of them. Just don’t look.”
We made it out of the cave and climbed up into the daylight and stood there, filthy and soaked with sweat. Arnold looked radiant.
Our trip to the bat cave actually turned out to be quite profitable. Arnold gave Dr. Koepsell a room number at the resort and invited him to take out his sailboats whenever he wanted. Yesterday I got out of class early so I went with Dr. Koepsell and took out a Hobie Catamaran around the bay for an hour, surf spraying up and the wind filling our sail.
I’ve done other adventurous things this week- driving into town on an empty gas tank with six people in the car, the island out of power and a rain storm so bad I couldn’t see three or four feet ahead in the road. Volunteering to take blood pressures at a community outreach and finding myself assigned to the counseling station with a sick patient sitting in front of me, and realizing that I was the doctor and had to interpret their lab results and tell them what to do with themselves. Realizing just before school that my roommate’s car tire was flat, and getting down in the dirt with her and struggling to change the tire on the side of the road with a monkey wrench. Putting my shorts on in the morning and discovering a giant cockroach in them. You better believe those shorts came off real fast.
Actually the cockroaches are getting to me. Yesterday we had a guest over and we were all standing by the door and I opened a cupboard and a huge one came out at me (about 4 inches long, including his antennas). I was hardly aware of what I was doing, but suddenly found myself having literally climbed over two big men and was standing on top of the washing machine. My only consolation was that the cockroach attacked them too and seeing a football player dance is pretty funny.
At any rate, there is plenty of adventure here. I’m thankful it’s Saturday because I desperately need a chance to sleep, think, pray and catch up on homework, and tomorrow we have a day off. I know God does not send things our way without giving us grace to handle it, but sometimes the sum of everything feels overwhelming. At least I’m not bored.

Gut reactions

I thought I had finished with gross anatomy when we nailed Nellie May into her coffin and burned our lab clothes. Well, I was wrong. For my neuroscience class we have scheduled lab time and yesterday was our first day. 7:30 in the morning found us outside the anatomy lab.
I took off my clothes and put on an old pair of pants and a top, and then suited up with a paper lab coat, shoe covers, gloves and a mask. Inside the lab the air conditioner unit had sprung a leak and half the floor was flooded.
“Ya’ll don’t slip.” Dr. Rust said in her Southern drawl.
Don’t worry, I thought, I have no intention of contacting this floor with any part of my body.
We spread plastic out on one of the lab benches and I opened up the giant bucket of brains. I lifted them out of the formaldehyde one by one and Vem set them on the table. Whole brains, separate lobes, cerebelli, brain stems, etc. They were slimy and soft and we handled them carefully so as not to damage them.
“All right.” Dr. Rust began. “Now this here is the frontal lobe. These are the temporal lobes, and above them, the parietal lobes. They are separated right here by the Sylvian fissure…”
The formaldehyde was 35% and it began to sting my eyes and burn my throat. It was smoking hot in the lab and after a while I fought to open one of the windows. All of our eyes were watering. The smell had kind of settled and wasn’t too bothersome, but the sight of these mushy gray brains sitting on the table was enough to elicit the gag reflex in the strongest of people. I tried to focus.
We went through all sorts of parts of the brain and poked and prodded, but I hardly remember any of it cause my eyes were stinging. We worked as long as we could and then stumbled outside and took off our clothes. It had been raining outside but it was hot and humid. I walked back to Nikki’s room to wash off and we sat on the porch for a minute, feeling depressed about how gross the lab was.
I know it’s called gross anatomy, but somehow a year ago when I was writing my paper on cadaver research and looking at pictures of sterile labs, I imagined it to be a lot different. But pictures on the internet don’t include the smell. They don’t include the gut reaction you experience when you are holding a scalpel over a body and told to cut out their eyes.
And the gut reaction is really unconscious, uncontrolled, and unexpected. It is not something you plan out, but it is something that you have to plan to deal with. So far I haven’t had any problems dissociating my emotions from working with these dead bodies. Instead of the emotional experience I thought it was going to be, it is glaringly clear that they are not persons- they are just a pile of rotting cells. The only reaction that I’ve experienced has been a visceral reflex due to the smell and the grossness of it. It is not moral repugnance; it is a gut reflex.
But the same feeling- the nausea, the horror- connects to a very different emotion as well. Dr. Rust told us about her 10-month old patient who had been sexually abused. I am beginning to understand my emotions more. It’s not appropriate to wimp out of being in the anatomy lab because I’m grossed out by a slimy brain and putrid flesh. But the rage I feel about a baby who was raped is appropriate. And yes, I need to keep it in while I’m looking after the baby, but afterwards, Dr. Rust told me she has a punching bag that hangs on her porch. It keeps you from having a come apart, she told me. Sometimes you have to do it.

Security guards..... again

2 minutes into the movie I knew that I didn’t want to watch it. I felt bad because my classmate Vem had gone to so much work setting up a movie night for all the students and professors; he had brought snacks and set up chairs and projected the movie on one of the big screens in the classroom. But I realized I didn’t want to watch it.
I got up and walked outside into the cool night air. Of course now I had to wait for my housemate Burton before I could go home, so I decided that in the meantime I would go for a walk.
When I had lived on campus last semester I went for a walk by myself almost every evening, talking to God and looking at the stars and having some alone time. But now that I lived off campus on a narrow deserted road without a security presence, I hadn’t had much of a chance to enjoy the night air.
I meandered down a lane that went behind the school to a yard full of broken-down rusted old trucks and buses, crumbling buildings and buzzing orange lights. It had been my hiding place last semester where I disappeared from the stresses of life. I stood in the overgrown grass for a while and looked up at the shape of the big dipper and the shimmering moon. Suddenly I saw a very interesting looking metal and cement table, about 6 feet high, that was situated right in the middle of the grass and loomed up like an altar under the buzzing orange lights.
I suddenly had the irresistible urge to climb on top of it. I pulled myself up and clambered on top of it, feeling like I was on top of the world. Hey, this was a perfect spot to pray! I knelt down on it and stretched my arms up to the sky and talked to the Lord.
I was deep in prayer when I suddenly happened to open my eyes and glance sideways a bit. There coming down the road directly towards me, to my great surprise, was a security guard. He was walking straight towards me. There seemed to be no good way to pretend I was doing something else. After all, who kneels on top of a giant cement table in the middle of a junkyard in the middle of the night with their arms stretched to the sky?
There was nothing to do but sit there as he approached.
“Hi.” I said when he got close.
“Hi.” He said, looking up at me.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” He answered. In the dark I could only see the whites of his eyes. “I was just wondering how you were, sitting up here?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” I said.
“That’s good.” He answered.
There was an awkward silence.
“Well, I was just checking if you were okay.” He said lamely.
“Yes, thank you.” I answered.
I watched him walk down the road again. He was probably thinking, what a strange girl.
Since I have considerable experience with security guards I have decided to come up with rules for dealing with them. First of all, when doing embarrassing things in front of security guards, try not to do it in front of the same one more than once. Rotate, if you like.
Secondly, never explain what you are doing. If you can, run as fast as you can. Especially if they have just watched you pee in front of their pickup or do a rain dance in your underwear. If you are stuck on top of a six foot cement table and can’t run, remain calm, maintain your dignity, and leave them thinking that there is nothing unusual about your behavior.

And in case you think all I do is watch movies and scare security guards, I am also doing much more important things here, like having to tow a sailboat to another bay using flippers as paddles; climbing a mountain to go foraging in the wild to collect sugar cane, pomegranates, plums and coconuts, and spelunking in underground bat caves with the owner of the most exclusive resort in the Caribbean. And making sure he got covered in guano from head to toe in the process. But of course, that belongs to another blog entry....

Climbing a wall

Yesterday my last class of the day finished early and since I didn’t want to wait an hour and a half for Burton, I decided to run home. I left my things in the car and put on my runners, taking the house key off the keychain and carrying it with me. Another student, Maria, ran for the first half with me and we talked and wheezed together in the heat.
Cars driving by stirred up choking dust and I gasped as I ran, praying for a bit of a breeze to cool the sweat pouring down from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. I envisioned arriving at the house, lying down in front of the fan until I could breathe again, taking a dip in the pool and then eating something and studying.
I arrived at the house and staggered through the gate, feeling like passing out. Stuck my key in the door. It wouldn’t go in. I tried turning it around, jiggling the door. No luck.
It was then I remembered hearing my landlady explaining that the green key opened the front door and the blue key, which I was holding, opened the French doors on the second story balcony.
I felt a sinking feeling. It was too hot and too far to run the miles back to school. I staggered dizzily around the house. All the windows were closed and locked, thanks to my meticulous housemate. My stomach was hurting, I was so hungry. The thought of waiting in the sun for an hour and a half without something to drink made me want to cry. I stood under the second story balcony and looked up the white stucco wall. There was nothing to stand on or climb on to get up there. Next door there was a half constructed house and I climbed over the brick wall into the yard and looked around for something I could drag over. There was a homemade wooden ladder half-buried in the overgrown grass and I tried to pick it up. It was extremely heavy and I doubted if I could get it over the brick wall or if it was even big enough to reach up to the balcony. I went back over the brick wall and looked up the wall. The only things on the wall were a skinny drainpipe going almost all the way up.
I took off my shoes and socks and dried my sweaty hands on my shirt. If I could get up that drainpipe…… I grabbed a hold of it and hoisted myself up, like a monkey on a pole. The drainpipe pulled away from the wall with a squeak and I held my breath, wondering if it was going to come off. I tried to move up a bit. Suddenly in the background, James Bond theme music began to play.
I was holding the key between my teeth and I hauled myself up a few more inches. My hands were slippery with sweat and I let go in turn and tried to dry them on my shirt. The powder on the stucco walls was coming off and making it hard to hold on. A few more inches…. The drainpipe was shaking and my muscles were burning from holding on. The sun was burning hot and my hands were slippery and I had that quivery feeling in my stomach like I was going to slip and fall and spill my guts on the thorn bushes and crushed cement below. I inched up the wall and after what seemed an eternity I finally got my fingers on the edge of the balcony wall. Then I was hanging off the balcony wall with one hand. Sweat was pouring down my face. I knew I had to let go of the drainpipe and grab for the wall with my other hand, but if I missed, I would probably fall. I clenched that key between my jaws and I let go and launched myself up with my last bit of courage. I got it. My fingers started to slip and I clawed with my feet against the wall and heaved myself up. I hauled myself up onto the railing, and then dragged myself over onto the floor of the porch. I collapsed onto my knees, shaking and gasping for breath. I couldn’t believe I had just scaled a two-story wall. I laughed and then the laugh turned into crying.
Sometimes life feels like I’m scaling a wall. There are things in my life right now that are wonderful and working out well. And there are things that are hard or confusing or terrifying. Sometimes I feel like I am going to slip and fall cause I just can’t hold on any longer or I just don’t have the strength to pull myself up. I may have had the courage to begin, but do I have the courage to keep going?
I knelt there overlooking the ocean and trying to catch my breath, and I talked to God. I told him how I felt I couldn’t go on by myself and that I didn’t know what was going on, and that I wished he would show me what to do.
I unlocked the door and took off my clothes and got my swimsuit and poured a drink and went out the front door to the pool. I lay in the pool, floating like a starfish, with my hair fanning out around me like dark seaweed. The sky was blue and there was a pale shadow of a leftover moon hanging above me. There was a hint of a breeze rustling the bougainvillea bushes in the garden and I stared up at the sky.

"With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall....... It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights." (2 Samuel 22)

The sleeping dragon

There is one thing that I always forget about why it is better to have a job than to be a student. It is the lack of sleep. And the sleep dragon is roaring outside my door, tantalizing me as it dangles the carrot in front of my nose.
The first few nights here I didn’t expect to get much sleep; jet lag, adjusting to a new temperature, excited about everything. But after that all wore off I expected I would be able to sleep well again. Wrong.
My first class starts at 7:30, but I drive with Burton who has a class at 7:00, so we try to leave the house at 10 to. I’ve found that I have to get up at 5:30 in order to have time to read my bible and pray, shower and dress, eat breakfast, prepare lunch, get together all my school supplies and paper work and run out the door.
At school I have half an hour to do emails, download my course notes for the day and do some paperwork. Then classes until 12:30. Then collapse on Nikki’s bed for a 15 minute nap, eat some lunch and do errands and paperwork. Then classes from 1 until 6. Then wait for a ride or just run home and start cooking dinner by 6:45 or 7. Finish dinner and dishes by 8. Talk with my housemates for a few minutes. Have a shower because I’m so hot I can hardly breathe. Start studying by quarter to 9. Study for an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours. Get ready for bed and read my bible. Go to sleep by 11:30. Get up in 5 or 6 hours.
I am slaking the dragon’s thirst with mugs of coffee and diet coke and the 15 minute nap with Nikki and sitting in class trying to tense all my muscles in sequence to keep awake. During one of my 3-hour afternoon classes, Anita (the president of the association of which I’m the secretary) emails me things across the classroom and I read them, type what needs to be done and then email it back to her, all during the boring moments when someone is asking a long complicated question. I know I should be paying attention. But 10.5 hours of mental activity a day after only 5 hours sleep is suicidal. Mental suicide. The dragon will eat me.
Right now I am dreaming of a cold coke and a cool pillow and being able to turn my alarm clock off on the weekend and keep sleeping. It’s kind of a vicious cycle. I have tons of studying to do so I have to stay up late. But because I’m so tired I can’t pay attention in class, so I have more studying to do. I don’t know why I’m taking all this time to write this. I just want my bed.

Adventure, again

Ahhh, Antigua. I forgot what it was like here. The first day and a half I was so overcome by the beauty and the wonderful house I’m in that I forgot about the little tragedies of life that make it such an adventure here.
The first one came yesterday afternoon. I had seen some mango trees on my way to my house and they were filled with plump ripe fruit. You could almost smell them from the car. I decided to go for a walk, find a mango tree and pick some mangos. To make a long story short, I walked for about 40 minutes in the sweltering heat, got covered in bug bites, scratched by thorns, chased by two giant dogs, forced off the road by a careening bus full of yelling guys, whistled and stared at, got all sweaty and hot and sunburnt and didn’t find a single mango. Sigh. Thankfully there’s always tomorrow.
Then last night I decided to make honey Dijon chicken, roast potatoes and yams and a salad for dinner. I got everything out in the kitchen and started to prepare things. I went to turn on the oven, and guess what? It didn’t turn on.
It was a gas stove. No pilot light inside that I could find. I followed the pipes until I got to a gas tank, and sloshed it a bit to make sure there was something in it. Turned it on. The stove still wouldn’t light. My housemate Burton and I stood over it fiddling around for ages, and he was convinced he could smell gas coming out, but I didn’t smell anything. Maybe it was because it was late and I was too hungry.
And the worst part of it was, I don’t have my rice cooker right now. I’d left it with a friend on the island and haven’t picked it up yet. I called the landlord, but she and our other housemate were out and it was late Sunday night and no stores were open to go buy cold food or more gas or anything.
After a while my stomach was grumbling so loudly it was audible. The sun had gone down. We explored around the house a little and found an old BBQ and some petrified, moldy briquettes. A jar of lighter fluid. Some pieces of scrap wood.
Burton struggled to light the BBQ and I sprayed bug spray everywhere and made sauce for the chicken. I sat in front of the house, in the dark, smoky, bug infested night air and Burton used a flashlight to watch the chicken cooking.
Well, just about anything tastes good when you’re hungry, but especially BBQ’d honey Dijon chicken, salad and microwaved corn. I’m not sure what we’ll eat tonight; I’m hoping we’ll get the stove working cause one can only eat cereal for so many meals.
The little tragedies that permeate our lives can be looked at in more than one way. We can look at them and think, oh no, this is terrible, what am I going to do, this is so depressing, I think I’m going to give up. How could this be happening to me.
Or we can say, hey, this is cool! This is an opportunity for adventure! I wonder what exciting ways God is going to provide for me?
So yes, I am going to go mango hunting again today. And if we have to have BBQ’d honey Dijon mangos and a mango salad for dinner, I’m okay with that.

Sunrise and sunset

For the first time in my life, I had an almost completely uneventful trip. Well, except for the guy in the Antigua airport that harassed me until I threatened him with an imaginary boyfriend who fights in the WWF. He actually looked at me and said "I don't believe you", but when I gave him a cold glare he walked away.
At any rate I arrived safely in Antigua and after waiting for my housemate for an hour, wandering through a huge supermarket for an hour or two getting groceries, and driving for 40 minutes on windy roads, I finally arrived at my house.
Ahhhh, paradise. I can't believe how beautiful it is. I stood on the balcony with a panoramic view of the ocean and my own personal little beach and I felt tears welling up in my eyes at the wonder of how good God has been to me. I don't deserve to live in this beautiful house with great housemates and going to medical school and being so happy. I don't deserve it, at all. When the sun went down the sky was streaked in pink and violet and the fuschia-colored hibiscus and orange bouganvillea around the house melted into the evening hues.
I didn't sleep very well last night, and I'm not sure why, but probably it was due to a combination of jet lag, the heat, the sound of waves crashing outside my window, the frogs and birds in the trees, the wind, and just thinking and praying about everything.
So much of my life is uncertain these days. I am praying about this school and not sure how it is going to work out and wondering if God is going to lead me to a new school or just tell me to keep persevering here.
I got up early (5:00) because I couldn't sleep and I took my bible and walked to the little beach and stood by the waves and watched the sun appear over the distant mountains of Montserrat; first as a tiny sliver of gold, and then a radiant ball of fire that set the entire ocean into a writhing pool of crushed glass as the waves broke on the shore. I stood there with my arms lifted and meditated on a bible verse thanking God for what he had done, as I looked at the breathtaking beauty around me.
The amazing thing is that, as beautiful and wonderful as this all is; it is not the most beautiful and wonderful thing that God has done. That description belongs to what happened 2000 years ago. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ- done by the hand of the father in his great love for us- was and is the ultimate act of beauty and wonder. It seems strange to consider something so horrific as death on a cross to be beautiful. But what the cross demonstrates to us, is the depth of God's passion for us. That's one reason why I think it is appropriate to call Jesus' death the passion of the Christ. Through his suffering he demonstrated his deep passion for us.

Back to Paradise

Yes, it's true: I'm heading back to paradise this week.
Antigua is a strange mix of paradise and purgatory, though: on the one hand it's a stunningly beautiful place and it's so sunny and warm and I've gotten to know some wonderful people there. On the other hand there is the fickle weather, giant tarantulas and cockroaches, fluctuating power and water supplies, and the daily pressure of school and isolation and not enough sleep.
Well, enough whining. I'm extremely excited about going back, and I expect that you will hear some new installments in fairly short order. Adventure. It calls!