A drop of water in the desert

I had a different title for this post in my mind at one time. Maybe I will share it with you later in the post.

There are some days here where living is hard for a Westerner with a Western mindset. Things just don’t work here like you think they should. On any given day, your a/c could go out, or your stove, the toilet might start leaking, or you notice rainwater flowing in to the house due to erosion under the concrete. And when these types of things happen, when something breaks, there usually is not a quick fix. It could be days. It could be weeks. Who can tell?

Or you might be driving along in a predictable pattern on a familiar road when all of a sudden this crazy man comes out of nowhere trying to get past you, speeding up and clipping the bumper guard on your Pajero.

You might discover that your entire dwelling unit has been disconnected from the main power grid for no apparent reason and with no realistic hope for soon repair.

You spend $140 to fix the generator and three weeks later you turn around and spend another $140 to have a different guy fix the same thing because the first guy only appeared to know what he was doing.

I was going to title this post, “Coke, Nescafé, Heinz Ketchup, and Snickers.” The current title, referencing water in the desert, may be a bit extreme. Obviously, in the desert, one drop of water will not go very far. You would need quite a bit more than a drop to make a dent in your thirst. I find here that I need close to twenty or twenty-five ounces when I am feeling parched. But these four items are very high in the “top ten” things that help us to keep our sanity when we need to escape the reality or the oppressive heat.

You crack open a cool bottle of Coke, stick in your straw and start to sip the carbonated bite of acid that only a Coke can provide. Or you unwrap a Snickers bar and you remember what it is like to live the U.S. where such sugary snacks are plentiful and cheap and there is a recollection that “Coke is it” and that “Snickers satisfies.”

Nescafé? Everett is drinking Nescafé? Has the world come to an end? No. It’s just that you can’t easily get a decent cup of coffee here. Nescafé is easy and relatively inexpensive. And it brings a similar sense of comfort to simply have something that some may consider at least a distant, maybe “shirt-tail,” relative of the real bean.

Ketchup? Yes. More need not be said. Except to say that Timothy LOVES ketchup. He even wanted it on his gluten-free banana bread recently (that Sis. McLean so graciously and generously provides for us). We said, “uh, no. We don’t put ketchup on bread.”

Now there may be some of you that would expect more from us. Maybe that “drop of water” in the desert could just as easily be accomplished in prayer. Could be. But all I know is when I’ve had about all I can stand, and that rivulets of sweat have caked into my skin and there is no electricity and I haven’t turned on the generator to run it for three or four or sometimes even five hours into the evening, that ice cold Coca Cola hits the spot better than just about anything I can imagine. Except maybe a Butterfinger Blizzard from Dairy Queen.