One foot in each world

This weekend I took time to relax, finally. I had been looking forward to it for so long. After classes on Saturday I helped Dr. Rust was organize a BBQ for all the students. She lit 20 lbs of coals in a brick fire pit she’d built, and we lay chicken and burgers on it and I fanned the flames. We had to take refuge in her house during a brief thunder shower but then kept cooking.
All the students and professors came together and we ate dinner and then watched a Tom Cruise movie projected onto the powerpoint screen on the wall. I snuck out of the film after half an hour and went over to Dr. Torres’s house to sing Karaoke.
I sat on the couch with him and Vem and Burton and Leera and Dr. Gilbert and Asa and drank rum and beer and sang Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you”.
When we’d sung our hearts out we drove to English Harbor to a club called ‘Life’ that was open-walled to let the breezes through. I danced with Dr. Gilbert and my classmate Sabina and then sat and talked with Dr. Torres, who the more he drank, the more open he became. He told me that my class was the worst class he’d ever taught before. Then him and I fox-trotted together to some crazy Antiguan rap. The rain came down all around us and sounded like thunder on the tin roof.
Burton took me home at 1 or 2, I don’t remember, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and wishing my stomach would settle.
In the morning I cooked bacon and eggs and pancakes. At 11:00 our friend Arnold came and picked us up for church and we sat and stood, sat and stood, throughout the Lutheran service. The power went out towards the end but the girl on the steel drums kept playing and we kept singing. Afterwards I went outside and snuck over to the bell tower and pulled the rope and listened to it clang. (Seriously, those things are loud!)
Later we went to Half Moon Bay, my favorite beach on the island. On the way we stopped at a gas station and Burton accidentally backed up into another car that suddenly appeared behind us. Asa suggested offering the guy some money and Burton suddenly remembered he hadn’t got a driver’s license yet. The owner of the other car looked at his dented car and our broken bumper and shrugged and said, ‘no problem’ and drove away. Only in Antigua, Asa said, only in Antigua do you hit someone’s car and they say ‘no problem’.
At half moon bay we played in the waves for a bit and then I went for a long walk along the shore to the next bay and looked at the stunning wild beauty of it all. Dr. Gilbert eventually joined me and we sat in the next bay together, completely alone on the beach, talking and studying pharmacology. We took turns snorkeling and looking at the schools of fish, jellyfish and eels under the surface. It was incredible. I lay in the waves and it rained for a bit and then cleared up and when the sun went down we walked back to Half moon bay. I drove back home with Dr. Rust and Dr. Gilbert, getting attacked on the way by a cloud of mosquitoes. In a few short minutes as I ran to the car I was bitten 17 times on the back and legs. I look like I have chickenpox.
Today I had an exam and then I came home and was by myself and I walked over to my neighbor’s house to ask him about fixing our car. Mr. Reynolds is an old man with twinkling eyes and more stories than anyone else I’ve ever met. I sat on his porch for an hour and we talked about everything, including him telling me all the sordid details of his multiple relationships over the years. (I certainly learned more than I needed to know!) He told me, Heather, if I was 40 years younger, I would definitely pursue you. Thank you, I said, I’m flattered. You can come and stay here anytime, he said, my door is always open. I will miss you when you go back to Canada.
He gave me four pomegranates from his tree and I fed his dog for him. I had to go back to school where we practiced examining a newborn infant and then inserting a vaginal speculum. Back home I lay by the pool with my pathology textbook and then cooked dinner and now I’m sitting studying and drinking diet coke out of a wineglass.
I will miss it here too. I can hardly believe that I only have a week left here. I told Mr. Reynolds that I will come back on vacation some day. When will that be? He asked.
I don’t know. I don’t much about anything these days.
Do you notice what children do? I asked Burton when we were talking after dinner. When they see something beautiful, they’re all over it. When they want to say something, they say it. They are so filled with joy. They don’t try to keep everything inside and be something they’re not.
If this all sounds disjointed it’s because I am a little bit disjointed these days. There is no continuity between my adventures that helps me organize them in my mind. I have no camera to record the special moments, there is no normalcy here.
Do I want a normal life? Tonight I am feeling that the answer might be yes. Maybe just for a while. But I was not blessed with any semblance of normalcy here in Antigua; I have just been blessed with a serious of unfortunate events, or exciting adventures, depending on how you look at it. And I am learning to respond like a little child and embrace the threads of joy and beauty that are woven through it all.

But while I am living the adventure here, I am still aching for home. Sometimes I think it is in that tumultuous place of joy and sadness that life's most worthwhile experiences lie.

Hanging on

I haven’t written on my blog for a few days, not because there is nothing to write, but because writing takes emotional energy and these days I am sadly depleted.
There have been some amazing things happening, some good days, some bad days. I had two (almost) full nights of sleep this week which bolstered my spirits a bit. We have had some tricky situations with the student association and some difficult people and I have struggled with my feelings towards one particular woman. I caught myself envisioning how I was going to angrily tear her apart during one of our meetings. Then I was shocked and humbled to see my housemate Burton turn the other cheek and demonstrate a gentle response that did far more than my anger would’ve accomplished. He totally pulled the rug out from under her feet and in the end several people came and complemented his Christ-like example.
I sat on the couch in our house this morning and felt too tired to fight anymore. I had left the sink piled with dishes for two days hoping one of the guys would wash them but finally there were no dishes left to cook with and the garbage was overflowing and the counters were filthy and the fridge was empty and I just had to suck it up and do it. There is dirty laundry everywhere and my toilet is leaking and pooling all over the floor and I haven’t had time to call the landlord. As I went out the door this morning I saw a giant cockroach sitting by the table but I just left him and ran out because we were running late for school and the car horn was being honked for me. At school the power went out so we moved into the open-air cafeteria but it started to rain and the mist was soaking my computer and my notes. Asa took the car and went home without me so I guess I’ll have to hitch a ride with another classmate. I am too tired to cry.

‘I have not knowledge, wisdom, insight, thought, nor understanding, fit to justify thee in thy work, O Perfect. Thou hast brought me up to this--and, lo! what thou hast wrought, I cannot call it good. But I can cry-- "O enemy, the maker hath not done; one day thou shalt behold, and from the sight wilt run."’
- George MacDonald

Hallelujah.

More crazy adventures

I’m sitting at my dining room table right now, supposed to be studying. Outside it is pouring so loudly that it sounds like thunder on the tin roof. Every 20-30 seconds there is a massive bolt of heat lightening that lights up the sky, then the thunder that shakes the windows. The wind is blowing through the house and even though I’m nice and dry I feel like I’m in the middle of a hurricane.
Yesterday I paid another visit to the infamous bat cave. We’ve made friends with a really nice man named Arnold who runs the resort down the road; he is an adventuresome type and brought masks and flashlights to go with me. I brought a ball of string and wrapped my hair in a turban and convinced my classmate Vem to come with us. It had been raining a bit and we picked our way down the overgrown trail to the entrance of the cave. We stopped at the entrance to put on our hats and lights; I had a headlamp and I tied the end of the string to the rusted railing at the entrance to the cave.
We hadn’t gone more than a few steps into the cave before I realized something was wrong. I heard a shuffling noise and when I realized there was something in that cave other than bats I just about wet myself.
“Goats.” Vem said grimly.
I shone my light down into the blackness and it reflected off the wild eyes of a goat standing right there. It nervously jumped away from me and then towards me as if it wanted to run up past me out of the cave. Arnold was just outside the cave and Vem and I stood to the side of the entrance and suddenly they came in a rush. There must have been a few dozen and they suddenly all came out in a giant herd, pouring out of the mouth of the cave past us. It was a little eerie.
I shone my light around to make sure they were all gone before we proceeded. The last time we’d been in the cave we’d taken a route to the right; this time we went left, unwinding the string as we went. Arnold and I took turns leading the way with Vem following behind. It was late in the day and Burton had refused to come because apparently at dusk all the bats come out of the cave all at once (several thousand?) and he didn’t want to be stuck down the tunnel when they all emerged. Well, the bats weren’t coming out yet, but they were certainly more agitated than normal and we tried to keep our lights down and not shine them at the ceiling of the cave.
We climbed for ages, the sweat pouring down our faces and clambering over the guano-infested rocks, trying to breathe through our masks and avoiding the odd bat that flew too close. At times we had to duck down for a minute until they calmed a bit. We made it into a second cavern and I shone my light up once and saw the ceiling covered in the furry gray bodies of a million bats. I could feel their guano dropping down on me as I went, but I kept my head down, avoiding the nests of massive cockroaches. We came into a third cavern and then I climbed into another one by sliding on my belly. The passageway was too narrow and I felt the instant release of adrenaline as I suddenly imagined the ceiling collapsing in on me like in the movies I had seen as a child.
“I can’t go any farther.” I told Arnold, who was right behind me. “Let’s try the other direction.”
We came to the end of the string and left Vem, who was almost beside himself, holding the end, while Arnold and I went on. The bats were stirring even more and their screams were a little unnerving.
“I think we should go back.” Vem kept saying. “The bats are really starting to move, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
You only live once, I thought. I was trembling with excitement. Arnold suddenly shone his light at one of the walls.
“Hey! Crystals!”
The walls of the cave were encrusted with sparkling crystals, like you see in those giant rocks that are split open in jeweler’s shops. Arnold used the butt of his flashlight and I cupped my hands and he knocked off some crystals into them. The biggest one he put into his pocket. I wondered if they were worth anything; or more importantly, if anyone would brave the bats to come get them. We took some photos (watch facebook, I’ll try to post them soon!)
We’d gone far enough away from Vem and the end of the string and it was getting late, after all, so we decided to turn back. I turned around and suddenly right in front of me was a huge white rat, staring at me with unblinking red eyes. I gave a squeal and then he started coming straight for me, completely unafraid.
“Go away!” I shouted at him, shining the light at him. I jumped sideways and clambered up on a rock and just about put my hand on a giant cockroach that quickly scuttled away. The rat kept coming and the bats were beginning to get more agitated and I felt the cold rush of air as their wings brushed past my face. I looked back at where we’d come from and in the darkness, the small passageway we’d come from was completely obscured in the craggy rock walls. The only clue to where we’d come from was the white string emerging from the blackness. A bat hit Arnold in the head and he shouted.
“Let’s go!” I said, shining my light at the ceiling and suddenly feeling a small bit of panic.
Vem began to run, with me behind him, and Arnold bringing up the rear. The bats were swarming. We were panting as we rushed through the passageways, pulling up the string, leaping over the cockroach nests. It was like a bad Indiana Jones movie. Arnold dropped one of his flashlights but he didn’t stop. We didn’t stop until we made it to the entrance of the cave and clambered out, breathing heavily. We were covered in slime and sweat and I felt like I was crawling in bugs and it was so wonderful to breath the fresh air and see light. You don’t understand true darkness until you are trapped in it, smothered in it.
We cleaned up a bit with some wet leaves and then Arnold and I went exploring the side of the mountain a bit before heading home. I felt exhilarated, exhausted, and filthy, but it was wonderful.
This morning was Sunday and Burton, Arnold and I drove to a Lutheran church on the other side of the island, which was pretty interesting (the pastor wore a long white dress!). It would have been your typical North American Lutheran service, except instead of a solemn organ there was a steel drum and a guy on a pipe organ playing jazzed-up gospel music, and there were little blue and green lizards skittering over the walls. In the afternoon we studied, and since Asa had the car, I decided to walk to the grocery store with my cue cards (about 6 km). By the time I got to the grocery store I was exhausted; I got what I needed and started back. I had several people stop and offer me rides, but I told them I wanted to walk. Halfway back home I was stopped by an older British man in a car who needed directions. A few minutes later he stopped going the other direction and I talked to him for a while. He was already drunk (had a beer between his legs) and he invited me to come to a party he was singing at that evening in English Harbor. It was hosted by his friend Sam, who was a millionaire, he told me. I didn’t doubt the part about Sam, because there are a lot of extremely wealthy people that hold parties in English Harbor, but I politely declined his offer even after he told me was a true gentleman and kissed my hand to prove it.
I kept walking and about 2 miles from our house I saw three donkeys by the side of the road and decided this was my lucky break. I approached them and started petting them and talking nice. Then I came up beside the biggest donkey and started trying to climb on her. If you can imagine me in a little sundress with a bag of groceries trying to climb on a donkey, you’ll have an idea how funny it was.
I got on the donkey and then suddenly thought, now what? I didn’t have to worry for long; she began to run. Straight towards a thicket of thorn bushes. Not only that, but these donkeys here are a little bony and with each step I was bounced on top of her backbone. I wondered which would be worse: being bucked into the thorn bushes, or breaking my tailbone on the donkey’s spine?
I bailed, groceries and all. Picked myself up and limped to the road.
Well, I made it home, and lay in the swimming pool for awhile to recover and then tried to make some supper. As I was cooking I noticed flies beginning to collect around the stove. By the time we sat down to eat there were more than just a few: there were several thousand termites collecting all over the table, around the lights, all over the walls, falling into our food, all over the beds. We searched in vain for their nest but they are in every room of the house, so it is hard to tell. I stood in Burton’s room while he sprayed OFF all over the walls and tried to shake out his sheets and then I just started to laugh. God, I love this place. It is the adventure of a lifetime.

Zaza learns about grace

Seriously, I don’t know why I feel so happy this morning. Maybe I’m ill.
There has been lots of stress recently and we had a student council meeting the other day and there was shouting (much of it directed at me from one of my beloved classmates!) and some pretty angry feelings. I started to defend myself, and then thought, what’s the point? And I closed my mouth and waited until she was done and then waited some more and then kept smiling and then after the meeting didn’t say anything to her, just smiled graciously and went home. (And cried, but she didn’t know that!)
Yesterday all our classes were cancelled because the school had arranged a community outreach program. I got up at some ungodly hour and met the other keen students at school (there were only 7 of us because it was bucketing rain and pretty early), and we squished in a van and drove across the island to the Port authority. We had to go through security checks and then we set up a mobile health clinic with several stations and put up a sign. Over the course of the next 5 hours we saw about 150 people: doing basic health screening like blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. I was with another student named Charles, manning the patient counseling station. So after the patients had gone through all their tests, they came and sat down with us and we discussed it with them, made recommendations, etc. A little scary and totally fun!
It was ridiculously busy. All the port employees came and Charles and I talked until our mouths were dry. Most of the people had minor health problems and we ended up just recommended healthy diet and exercise, but there were a few that needed more help. One lady was having an acute angina attack so I spent some time with her impressing the need to go to the hospital! Another woman, when I asked if she had any more questions, shared that she had been having panic attacks since going through menopause and couldn’t handle the stresses of life. Thankfully I’d just learned about medications for anxiety the day before and I was able to give her some helpful counsel. One older man told me how he was the union boss and the job was killing him and he couldn’t handle the stress, his blood pressure was through the roof. He was a Christian and I talked to him about true peace coming from praying and resting in God….it was pretty cool.
There was a tv crew there from the local news and the president of the university was there and she came to me and asked if I would say something in front of the camera. I stood up and gave a spiel about hypertension and what the average Antiguan could do to limit their risks and get treated. The camera man stood in front of me while I interviewed patients and he was standing there while I talked to one lady who had a wandering eye. I wasn’t sure where to look in her face (which eye actually worked?) and the camera was hanging over my shoulder and finally I turned to him and said, “Excuse me, could you go away? This is a private conversation.”
My landlady called me last night to say I was on tv and thankfully they edited out my comment to the camera man. I was pretty excited, though, even though I discovered later that I had been sitting on a piece of gum the whole time.
We are having a series of big storms right now and the wind has blown down one of our clotheslines, so Burton strung lines up across my room and down the hall and I hung the laundry up inside to dry. It looks like a little Laundromat now.
I stayed up late last night studying and then caught a couple hours sleep and then got up early. Asa had an exam this morning and was roaring around the house like an army tank about to blow a gasket. Asa has been chronically late and chronically messy since we moved in and the only thing that has kept me from wanting to kill him is the fact that my classes start after him…. So even if he’s 20 minutes late every day, I’m still on time. He hasn’t slept much the last few days and is worried about his exams, so let’s just say that the tension level is running pretty high.
“HD, we gotta leave in 10 minutes” he came and told me as I was still sitting in bed reading my bible.
5 minutes later, “HD, are you dressed yet? Please tell me you have clothes on. We have to leave! I’m all ready to go!”
I threw my stuff in my bag and jumped into my pants.
“Listen, HD, we gotta go! I’ve got an exam!”
I don’t know if he would’ve heard if I’d pointed out that Burton and I also had exams, but we weren’t yelling and stomping around the house. I thought about the fact that anytime I had needed to be somewhere a certain time I’d told him the night before, then woke him up early enough in the morning, and then reminded him graciously, and then Asa still managed to make me late for everything. Sometimes an hour late. I could feel steam beginning to rise from my ears. There is nothing I hate worse than being made late because someone couldn’t get their act together in time- unless, of course, it is being rushed out the door.
Yes, it’s true. I have done a colossal shift in my mind. One major argument over the years in our house has been the issue of lateness. Lateness is rudeness, Dad always said. I hated being rushed out the door and would balk to the nth degree.
I will publicly go on record today and say that I was wrong and Dad was right: I now agree with him that lateness is rudeness. This morning I had to pray for an extra helping of grace. God, please keep my mouth shut so I don’t say anything to Asa. Please help me to be respectful and gracious and resist the temptation to throw something in his face. And please, please let him remember this next time I want to be on time.
Being able to go through daily life with grace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is one that I want produced in my life: can I be publicly slandered in a meeting, talk with patients, appear in front of a camera, deal with a room full of laundry, get no sleep, interact with my roommates, pass all my classes, and still do it all with grace? Can I respond politely and respectfully and graciously when that is the last thing I want to do?
The answer is yes- but only with the help of the Spirit. It’s one of those things that is impossible in my own strength, but totally possible with God.

The best medicine

Stupid power outages. And other things. We had a second flat tire on our car, can you believe it? In an attempt to keep away the mosquitoes at night, Asa has been burning citronella candles while sleeping. He was sleeping in my room last night (because it has ac!) and in the morning I went in to get something and discovered the entire room covered in soot: all the sheets, stacks of towels, the walls, my clothes, my books and papers, everything coated in black soot. Maybe Asa knew how I would react because he had tried to pile up some of the towels on the floor and then just left for school. Tonight we’ll negotiate who gets to wipe down the walls, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be me.
Our coffee pot dropped and broke the other day so we are making coffee in a teapot. The generator keeps running out of gas…. The night before last, the power went out and Burton had to stay up late to study and didn’t want to leave me alone at home (there were 2 strange guys loitering in the shadows outside our house), so he made me come with him to our classmate Anita’s house to study. There ended up being 9 of us studying there and at 2 or 3 a.m. I went to sleep sharing a teeny double bed. We got up at 5 to get ready for school, but by sometime in the afternoon I was a mess. Everyone was stressed and grumpy at school and there were several arguments and it was so hot I felt like passing out in class. At dinner time Burton looked at me across the table when I was falling apart about something stupid and he just said, ‘go take a nap’.
Last night I slept okay except for getting up at 2:00 because the power turned off (and hence my fan) and I heard footsteps outside my window (Burton turning off the generator), and I got at 5:00 because Asa slammed the bathroom door, the bedroom door, the kitchen door, the fridge door, and the toilet seat. (Why can’t he just close things normally?)
At school we were supposed to take an online exam but the internet went down and we had to restart and then our next class was late. Anita and Marina were so frustrated that they haven’t even showed up yet. Dr. Rust is boiling mad but she lost her voice so she can’t yell at anyone. Actually the whole island is suffering….. the source of the power outages is a feud between the company that owns the power plant and the current corrupt government…. And the island is running out of gas and places like the school, which don’t have a functional generator, are not doing so well. (The generator is missing a part…. They sent someone to Puerto Rico to get it… the airline wouldn’t load it because it wasn’t crated….. when they finally got it crated, they didn’t have a forklift to move the crate…. The dean of the university is trying to hire a private plane to get it here….. there is a tropical depression heading this way and gas has gone up to $13/gallon so no-one wants to fly….)
Sometimes it just makes me laugh. It’s the little things, like going to turn on the generator and accidentally putting my hand on a giant lizard…. Stepping out the door and stepping into a fire ant nest….. taking a cold shower by candlelight …. Being halfway through cooking dinner when the power goes out and it is pitch black….. giant cockroaches under the dining room table…. The stray dog that Asa let in the house that had fleas….
I think the trick is to laugh. Proverbs 31 talks about a godly woman, and I’m encouraged by some of her character qualities. She is clothed in strength and dignity, it says, and she can laugh at the days to come.
Laughter reduces stress hormones, increases life expectancy, increases oxygen to the body tissues, burns calories, helps with sleep, improves work performance, and improves over-all well-being. The average adult laughs 4 times a day, the average child laughs 100 times a day.
Laughter helps us survive the tragedies of life by allowing us to view them as comedies. Happy Heather’s Hullaballoo categorically supports the use of laughter as a survival tool and a necessary daily therapy. Think of me this week and have a good laugh over something.