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!