A different kind of problem

The wonderful and crazy thing about Antigua is the kind of problems I have here. Back home my problems seemed fairly mundane: I'm worried about money. It's raining so I can't forget my umbrella. I'm sick of studying by myself. I wish we weren't having fish for dinner.

But there is such a different set of problems here. For example, I think I just sat on a pile of goat poop when I lay down in the grass. Uh oh, I forgot to filter a jug of rainwater for tomorrow morning. Can I recall the 20 essential amino acids for my test tomorrow? Oh no, I locked my keys in my room and there are no spares and the maintenance guy is gone for the weekend. (Thankfully one of my housemates is an expert lock picker.)
Last night I had a funny sort of problem. After classes, which ended at 6:30, I went with my classmate Burton to go get some groceries. By the time we got back it was dark and I was hot and sticky and tired. While I put my rice cooker on to boil, I hopped in the shower. I was in the shower, enjoying the cold trickle, when suddenly the water doubled in velocity and just shot out the nozzle. I tried to turn it off. No such luck. I rinsed off and got off, turning the handle as far as I could. That old shower was still going. I knocked on the wall to the room next to me.
"Excuse me Burton, could you come help me turn off my shower?"
"Sure, ma'am."
(These Americans all say ma'am and sir all the time like it's a proper name.)
Burton used to be a football player and he's got guns that would make Chuck Norris jealous. He squeezed into the little 2x2 bathroom and wrestled with the shower fixture for a minute.
"That's about as far as I can get it, ma'am."
The darned shower was still on. How on earth does that happen? So far here in Antigua I've only had the problem of the water not turning on.
Oh well. i lay in bed last night listening to it trickle, but only for a moment. Between the little frog who lives outside my door, the long classes, the heat and a bit of jetlag, I haven't slept a full night since I got here. Which is not necessarily a bad thing- if I don't sleep well for long enough, pretty soon I sleep like a baby cause wherever I put my head down I'm just gone.
Sort of like in Biochemistry class yesterday. Except there I wasn't lying down, I was just sitting there with my mouth hanging open.

Antiguan Randomness

Well, this is just a quick update on how things are going here.

1. I finally found a tarantula (the biggest, hairiest thing I've ever seen) and actually touched it, but did not catch it to bring home (sorry Alpha).
2. I did get heatstroke but am over it now
3. The reason I am over it is because I decided to pay the extra $200 and get an airconditioned room
4. There are 2 other christians here and one of them has a car and wants to drive to church with me. Yayyyyy!!!
5. The walls between our rooms are so thin I can hear my housemate listen to his ipod, plug in his computer, go pee and get into bed. (and his cellphone ringing at 2:30 in the morning)
6. I was showing off for the class the other day with my little 'I can drop a lightbulb and not break it' trick, and the lightbulb actually broke.
7. I started my running again at 6:30 this morning
8. We have no hot water, but we do finally have electricity, so I'm not complaining.
9. I am officially living in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

lots of love Heather

Ahhhh, Antigua

I forgot how wonderful it is here. Somehow in the interval of the last few months, my mind had been occupied with the hard things- the hurricanes and ant infestations and sunburns and long days studying and sleep deprivation and feeling all alone as the only Christian, all those things.

But when I got off the plane- actually, after I'd made it through the 2 hour line-up in customs, and I got in a taxi headed towards the university, I suddenly remembered.
The evening sun was streaking the horizon with pink and orange and it was warm and beautiful. We came over the crest of a hill near the university and suddenly there was the ocean, blue-green and dotted with sailboats. The hibiscus and oleanders are all in bloom and I feel as if I've walked back into paradise, leaving cold, rainy Vancouver behind. I felt like I'd come home.
Last night I unpacked my bags and sat on the verandah talking with some of my classmates by the light of the stars and a mosquito coil. When I tumbled into bed, it was listening to the sounds of birds and crickets and the breeze in the trees.
This morning the sun woke me up and after we'd done a few things I took my red umbrella and walked to the beach. Halfway there we stopped under an overhang to wait for a temporary shower to pass by, and then we kept on our way. What can I say about the beach? Magnificent. I am pink from head to toe (almost), but it was so worth it.
I feel a little guilty saying it, but it seems easier to worship and praise God when I am surrounded by such stunning beauty. I can look at the crashing waves and say, wow, God, in wisdom you made all this. I can look at the brilliant pink of the oleanders and bouganvilia and say, wow, God, this is such an amazing expression of your love for us.
It is in times of difficulty that our love for God is really tested, but for now I am content to bask in the glory of the paradise around me and just say thank you to him.

Heather Street

As some of you may know, I'm heading back to Antigua this week to continue my studies. The last few days I've been running lots of errands and trying to get organized to go. I found myself, just by chance today, at the very beginning of Heather street.
I've always thought it would be cool to drive down the street that bears my name, from beginning to end. It's on my list of things to do before I die, and I anticipated finding some deep spiritual meaning in the stores and houses that would be found on my street. Well, I looked at the street sign and thought, why not today?
Heather St. begins in Vancouver in a sort of seedy area of town. The first couple of blocks are extremely steep and pass by an auto repair shop, a strip mall and run-down houses. I was surprised how steep it was and how full of potholes. After Broadway it was still uphill, but not quite as much. I'm pleased to announce that Heather st. is a bicycle route almost the whole way, although there were several large detours in the way. I drove past Vancouver General Hospital, a book store, the BC Cancer Agency, and lovely streets with trees drooping over the sidewalk with quaint houses perched behind them.
And it kept going up. I had to take a detour around some construction and nearly got lost in the process, but found Heather st. again and kept going. Speedbumps. School zones. (let me tell you, if I made the road, I would've kept the speed limit at 50 minimum)
I thought about Heather st. as a metaphor for my life. It's amazing how many detours I had to take, and how many potholes there were. So far in my life it has been a series of detours: every time I think I've figured out where I'm going, my plans are changed. And most of the time it seems to be going uphill.
A while ago I complained to my mom, "Does life always go uphill? Is it always this hard, or does it level out?"
It is a strange thing, but as I passed block upon block and was still going up, I began to feel discouraged. Heather St. climbed higher and higher and suddenly at 24th avenue the road leveled a bit and I could see it stretching out as far as the eye could see, gradually climbing upward. I felt tears pooling in my eyes. (Is it a silly thing to cry over a street?)
I guess I always assumed that life would be easy. I thought I would work hard at things and then I'd break through into the 'good life' and everything would be smooth sailing. And yes, there have been days or months or years when it felt like smooth sailing, but a lot of the time I feel like I am fighting to get up a hill that doesn't want to be climbed.
The road climbed until 37th avenue. I passed by two hospitals, the RCMP headquarters, two schools, two lovely parks (one called Heather Park!), beautiful houses and run-down houses, and then finally the road leveled out and even, towards the end, it went down a little.
But the most amazing thing was when I got to the top of the hill. From there, I could see for miles. And it was beautiful.
If life was all downhill, all easy, all fun and games, I would never have a chance to build character. I would never have the opportunity to sit at the top of a hill (with a bunch of cars honking behind me!) and look at how far I've come and see the future stretching before me with so much adventure. Without some difficulty, without some suffering, it is impossible to experience joy. Real joy and real hope and real adventure and real character are all found on the windy, potholed, uphill roads, not the easy ones where you can go as fast as you want. Real beauty is found in the school zones of life- where I'm forced to slow down and wait and in the process my eyes are opened to everything else around me.
At any rate, I'm excited to go back to Antigua, but excited with a certain degree of trepidation. I'm confident that there are some serious challenges awaiting me (Hey, a block of Heather st. was closed and I had to sneak through a construction zone to get by). But also some serious joy awaiting me, just around the corner. And maybe when I get to the top of this hill, maybe I'll be able to see, as far as the eye can see.

Floating in a murky sea

The last couple of weeks have been so busy. I worked a couple of night shifts and a couple of day shifts and between christmas and new year's eve I didn't sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night for a week. Behind on homework. Low on money so still trying to work. Riding my bike to work in the snow cause I didn't have change for the bus.
I felt like I was floating in a murky sea, some silly little things making me cry and other important things just feeling flat and emotionless. I couldn't stop thinking about how nice it would be to put my head on my pillow and close my eyes and not wake up for a long, long time.
On New year's eve at about 5 in the morning I'd finally been able to get to bed and my brother Austin woke me up.
"Kiara is throwing up and her stomach hurts. I can't find the tylenol."
Never mind the fact that you shouldn't give tylenol for a stomachache, I told him in a garbled voice that it was called acetaminophen and he should only give her a half pill, not a whole. I heard him a little while later trying to convince her to swallow the pill and I thought, I should get up and go tell him to crush it with jam. Oh, she'll probably just throw it back up on him again anyway.
At some ungodly hour in the morning I got up and drove to the hospital to see my close friend Anna who had been in a serious car accident. I came home a few hours later and helped clean up the house and went out for dinner with my family for my mom's birthday. Then back to the hospital, with my pajamas.
I washed blood out of Anna's hair and helped her with the toilet and other things until 1:30 in the morning. I finally could hardly stand up any longer and I found a reclining chair and collapsed onto it. At 4:30 in the morning I woke up cause she was crying, the morphine had worn off and two broken legs and a broken arm take their toll. I looked at her in the dark as if staring at some strange sea creature in the murky sea of mine. I don't even remember what I said (did I say anything?) I sat on the bed with her until she went for surgery at 7, and then at 8 I left and drove home. I felt sick. I slept on my bed for an hour or two and then I had errands to run and homework.
Last night I'd finally had enough. I'd taken enough advil and tried long enough to make sense of the open pages of my textbook. Everything was swimming in my brain. I called it a day at 10:30.
The most amazing thing happened. I woke up this morning at 10:30, after having slept for almost 12 hours. (Which I never ever do). Never mind the fact that I was late for my appointments today. I felt human again, as if I'd been dragged out of that murky sea and left to dry on the bank until I woke up alive again.
I'm only in my first year of medical school. How will I do in a couple of years when it really starts to heat up?
Do you not know, have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.