culture stress (or i don’t want to be a missionary anymore)

Lest you believe I’m some sort of missionary superhero (not that there’s really any danger of this), I’d like to share with you confess to you that I have my bad days.  Days when I don’t want to be a missionary anymore. Days when I want to fly back to the United States, enjoy air conditioning, wait at traffic lights, and eat at McDonald’s.  Days like Friday.

I was just sitting down to the computer when the electricity went out.*  I started the generator for the first time since Sunday — the most recent of its breakdowns (I’d only got it running again Thursday) — and returned to the computer.  15 minutes later the generator was wheezing and coughing.  Another couple of minutes passed, and she quit.  And she wasn’t planning to start again.

That’s when, like a no-name Chinese generator, I broke down. Not in tears, mind you.  But still, I was broken down.  Angry, frustrated, and tired — and I wanted to shut my eyes and wake up in Dothan, Alabama… at the National Peanut Festival.  [There's no place like home.  (Repeat x 3)]

Great!  Just what I needed… my generator to break.  Again.  One more thing to go on my list. [If you don't like to hear venting, complaining, and whining, you probably should skip to the bottom; I feel that I rarely complain, but today there will be whining.]

• We haven’t had water from the city since July. For a week’s worth of water, I have to borrow Carson’s truck and tank, fill the tank in town, and pump the water up to our holding tank… twice (about 4ish hours of work, depending on the line at the well and whether there’s electricity or not).  Or I can pay 20 times what we’ve got in our budget for water and have it delivered by a truck from town.
• The water we do have is frustratingly difficult to use because our taps and faucets are full of red dirt and sand and don’t allow water to pass.  Seriously, we have three sinks in our house in which we can’t wash our hands.  I can fix them, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.  There are also leaks in the pipes in two of our walls.  Concrete walls.  Behind tiles.
• Our electric oven doesn’t work. Not because it’s broken but because there’s something wrong with the wiring that causes the breaker to trip every time we turn it on.
• We’re $20,800 in debt and struggling to pay for our furlough plane tickets. This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds in that $17,500  of this money came in the form of a bridge loan.  A very kind and anonymous donor loaned us the cash so we could buy a new truck.  We’re to return the money when we sell our old truck, which hasn’t happened yet and is proving somewhat difficult because of the rising dollar (or the falling shilling).  The other $3,300 is extra port fees charged us by the government of Tanzania.  If you’re thinking this means the government makes us pay for “storing” our truck in their port while we waited for them to allow us to have it, you’re right.  The slower they do their jobs, the more cash they get. We paid $3000 already, but were informed of this other $3,300 the day we picked the truck up.
• Speaking of the truck, our brand new Toyota LandCruiser doesn’t have 4WD high. This is because the 4WD toggle switch was stolen at Toyota of Tanzania before I’d ever even seen the car.  Those buttons resale at well over $100 USD, but I can’t find one anywhere — and Toyota won’t take responsibility for what one of their employees did.  When I picked the truck up from them, they told me the empty space was there for a placeholder button, and that it did nothing.  My 4WD low works fine, but it’s not suitable for getting to some of the villages we visit.  So we haven’t been to a single village since we got the new truck.
• We’ve been in Tanzania two years now — and we’re technically on-schedule.  But I can’t help but feel like we never get any work done, because we’re always fetching water, repairing plumbing, sitting in the dark, or just trying to live.  It just takes so much time to live here.
• I didn’t tell you what happened just before the electricity went out on Friday.  Christie called from outside, and I opened the backdoor to find the puppies playing tug-of-war with our bed sheets, which they’d pulled from the clothesline. Our high-thread-count, nicer-than-we-can-afford, we-received-them-as-a-wedding-gift and only-have-two-sets bed sheets.  My wife was slightly troubled.  [It didn't help that when the generator quit working an hour later, all the clothes in the washing machine were trapped inside, obviously wet.  Aah... the joys of an electric washing machine in a land of electricity rationing.]

When the generator quit — and I wanted to lie face down in the red dirt (where we’ve not yet planted grass) and beat my feet and fists in the mud while sobbing something about “my mommy”….  When the generator quit, these were all the things going through my mind.  I didn’t understand my feelings; I wasn’t sure if I was angry or sad, frustrated or afraid.

I called Carson and asked if I could charge my computer on his battery back-up system so I could do a little work.  Mostly I wanted to be able to say I accomplished at least one thing on Friday.  I packed the computer up and started walking to Carson’s house.  On the way I passed a young boy who asked if I would give him a ball.  I wanted to scream, “Does it look like I have a ball, you begging idiot?!”

Instead I told him politely that I didn’t have a ball.  He then pointed at the bottle of Coke Light in my bag and countered, “Well, then can I have a soda?  I see you have one of those.”

I told him I only had the one — and that it was for me to drink while I did some work on my computer.

As I walked away I realized it.  That I was experiencing culture stress.**  Under other circumstances I would have taken the bottle out of my bag, opened it for the boy, and given it to him.  But I was angry; the last thing I wanted was for one more person to ask me for a soccer ball or a soda, or for money or a job.  I wanted to leave Geita. Or at least lock myself in the (dark) house and refuse to answer the gate.

But I didn’t leave Geita.  And I didn’t lock myself in the house.  I went on to Carson’s house and told him I was having my first (and only, that I remember) culture stress event since moving to Tanzania.  Then I sat down at my computer (plugged in and charging) and got some work done.  I prayed while I worked, naming each and every one of these stresses and handing them over to God.***

After only a couple of hours, I felt fine.  And you’ll be happy to know I went on to accomplish as much on Friday afternoon as on any of my most productive days in Geita.

* Common occurrence as of late.  Electricity is being rationed.  For a couple of months it was as bad as 72 hours of electricity a week.  But lately it’s been much better — we’ve probably had closer to 100 hours per week, maybe more.  [To keep you from having to do the math yourself, there are 168 hours in a week.]

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** Lots of people and books speak of culture shock — with no mention of culture stress.  I’m firmly in the camp, though, that we ought to see the pressures of living in another culture (and the effects of those pressures), as being on a continuum.  And so, we all experience culture stress.  But we reserve the term ‘culture shock’ for more extreme cases, and not these singular and shorter-term bouts with second cultures.

I suppose I am blessed to not have too many of these culture stress days.  In fact I don’t remember feeling quite like this any other time in my life except the one day in China when I punched a bus that had brushed my shoulder in an attempt to convince me to cross the street faster.  The echo of my fist against the hollow metal of the bus was deafening.  And it caused a horrible scene, as the bus driver stopped in the middle of a very busy road and got off the bus in order to yell at me for hitting his bus with my hand.  I was the only white person around, two heads taller than anyone else.  And they were all staring at me.  I swore I’d never act out in anger at a cultural situation again.

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*** In light of recent discussions on prayer, I’ll be posting a very useful and practical prayer exercise a little later in the week.  For those of you who carry a great deal of stress with you, I think it will prove very helpful.

the knowledge of the glory of the Lord… and water

This post is meant to paired with the previous post: you just never can know about these things.  The two were originally written together, but became too long.

 

I’m no genius when it comes to physics and fluids and the like.  But I do know that water has a leveling effect.  It always wants to rest at the same level.  The milk in the handle of the milk jug will always be even with the milk in the jug.  And you can’t fill one side of a glass more full than the other.  You also can’t make a pile of water (try).  Because fluids level.  [We even use fluids in these things we call "levels," which we in turn use to find out if other things are level.]

And that’s how all of our water systems work.  There’s a big tank that holds lots of water really high.  And if that water is allowed to travel down a pipe, it will continue to travel through that pipe (up or down) until it either leaves the pipe or reaches the same height as the water in that big, original tank.  That’s how water comes out of our shower-heads.  Those shower-heads are still lower than the big tank from where all the water comes — even though the pipes that feed those shower-heads might be under our houses.  [This is also why your toilet has a tank that holds water above the bowl.]

While we’re on the subject of water and leveling…

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
– Habakkuk 2:14

A couple of ideas on this verse:

• Just as the water in the sea doesn’t pile up in one place, neither should the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.  If we have this knowledge, it is our duty and responsibility to ensure that it flows to those places where there is none.  That’s how water works.  And mission ought not work differently.  [Though we definitely have tendencies to "stockpile" the knowledge of the glory of God in certain countries and buildings.]
• Notice it is the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of God that will one day fill the earth.  We don’t read that the glory of God itself will one day fill the earth.  That’s because it already does.  God’s glory is already present in all places and among all peoples.  It is their knowledge of this glory that is lacking.  Our task, then, is to make God’s glory known in every place.

May the knowledge of the glory of God fill the earth, even as the waters cover the sea.  And may we be used in that process.

you just never can know about these things…

The water guy showed up at 7:30 in the morning — on the day he said he would.  To say this was a rarity would be a tremendous understatement.  I hadn’t expected him for at least another week, and I never would have dreamed he’d hodi at my gate before 8 am.  If he’d never shown at all, I would not have thought it odd.  But there he was, grumpy and irritable, though still willing to help me ascertain why our house had been without water now for 9 weeks.  First, however, he wanted to ensure that my own plumbing was done properly and that  none of the pipes in my yard were plugged.  I assured him that I’d already checked all of that, but he insisted we look anyway.

So I took him to the water meter, and we disassembled the pipes coming into it.  After he was satisfied with the work on my end — the inside of the pipes were bone dry and obviously hadn’t seen water in weeks — we started walking the neighborhood.  He would occasionally ask passersby where the water passed en route to “that house” (said while motioning).  There were lots of disagreements and discussions, but we finally ended up on one particular street corner.

Then we dug.  We were looking for the “main” pipe that brought water to my house — or rather, didn’t bring water to my house.  But no one was certain where this main was located, or whether it even might be on that corner.  After much digging to one side and the other (about 36 sq. ft. total, and in someone’s front yard), we found a pipe.  Proud of our recent accomplishment, we disassembled the pipe (water going everywhere), and assembled it again.  ”See,” he said, “the water is working fine.”  I was amazed.

[I should explain that when the water is functioning "properly," we get water  at our house for 2-4 hours, 2 days a week.  So you can understand why I was amazed that water was flowing through this pipe at that very moment.  At any given time, there's about a 3% chance that water is flowing through pipes in our neighborhood.  (You can also see why it's difficult to problem-solve plumbing troubles here.)  I later discovered, though, that this was indeed why the guy from the water department had shown up at my house on that day, and at that time -- he knew the water was running at that very moment.]

So we looked elsewhere, following the same pattern of walking, asking around, and digging until we found pipes.  Finally, we ended up just on the other side of my backyard.  He started digging and, this time, found the pipe quickly — by digging through it.  Water was beginning to puddle, but not at nearly the rate of pipes past.  But again I heard, “See, the water is working fine.”  This time, though, he added, “It must be a problem with the pipes in your yard.”

“Yeah, but now it’s a problem with these pipes not in my yard,” I thought.

I wasn’t excited about insulting this man, my elder by at least 20 years.  So, I worded my comments as an unknowing question (I often play the role of dumb white guy here), “But I don’t understand; I thought we checked all the pipes on my side?  Maybe there just isn’t enough water pressure to push the water up into my pipes from here?”

“No, I think a pipe must be plugged in your yard; we better check them all again,” he gruffly suggested, as if this were all my fault.  No, not as if this were all my fault — but as if this were all my fault because I’d purposely filled my pipes with hair pomade, rubber cement, and Starburst candies.

I asked him what we would do about the pipe “we” busted while digging.  His answer:  ”We’ll wrap some rubber around, so it won’t leak anymore.”

While (once again) disassembling pipes in my backyard, I suggested that I go and buy another pipe to replace the one that was busted during digging.  He acted as if it wasn’t needed, but agreed all the same.  It was about this time that he turned his attention to my larger water system.  He wanted to disassemble the pipes that came after the water meter.  Not wanting to be rude to this older gentleman, I again carefully asked, “But I don’t understand — if water is not reaching the meter, then how can the problem (and the plugged pipe) be after the meter?”

He said you can never know about these things.  My patience was beginning to wear thin.  I wanted to scream, “But you CAN know about these things!  And I DO know about these things.  It’s simple science.  No, it’s just plain common sense!”  But I refrained.  Instead, I politely asked him not to disassemble more of the water system, as I went into town to get the pipe.

When I returned, he had disassembled more of the water system.  And he was just about to cut into one of the pipes (that came after the water meter).  When I asked him both to wait and to explain what he was doing, he offered that my water problem was because this one flexible pipe was too long.  And that if we removed about a foot of the excess, everything should work fine.

I didn’t even pretend to be dumb.  I just told him we were NOT going to cut that pipe.  And that he was wrong.  ”There is no water going into that pipe, so that pipe CANNOT be the problem.”  I didn’t even begin to explain why the length of a pipe can’t itself be the problem.

So, we still don’t have water.  But I do have a new pipe in my backyard.  I believe the problem is one of pressure, and the water department guy believes one of my pipes is either plugged or too long.  You just never can know about these things.

This post is meant to be coupled with its own devotional thought: the knowledge of the glory of the Lord… and water.  I originally wrote the two together, but the post was just too long.

brett’s morning blend (31aug10)

Time Travelers and the Eschaton

Church of Christ eschatology has generally been something like this:  there will be a judgment day, and we don’t know when it is.  In this essay, Richard Beck comments on that interpretation — but better yet he allows us to share in a conversation in which he explains the word eschaton (and its implications) to his son.  You see, I’m from the future…

How Rich Are We?

Trey Morgan shares some stats about money and its usage from around the world.  And in a couple of days he’s going to share some ideas on how we can help the situation.  Did you know Americans spend 15 billion dollars on bottled water when we have perfectly clean water that comes from our taps?  Here’s a picture of the water that comes from our tap here in Tanzania:

from the kitchen faucet -- the filter saves boiling a lot of water

Rwandan Coffee

If you regularly read aliens and strangers, you know that I drink Rwandan coffee (exclusively).  The coffee from Rwanda, in my mind, is matched only by Ethiopian Yirgachefe — and because the Rwandan border is less than four hours from Geita, this is actually the easiest whole bean coffee to come by.

Bourbon Coffee shop, which Christie and I enjoy, has three locations in Kigali, Rwanda, and (I just discovered) one in Washington D.C.  They’re soon to open another in Boston, and New York City is after that.  If you’d like to read more about Rwandan Coffee or the Bourbon brand, this article’s for you.

The Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt

This is another installment of “Sandwich Monday” from Wait, Wait of NPR.  Foods are something I miss a great deal while here in Tanzania — but I’ve found it’s probably actually the convenience of getting those foods that I miss the most.  Anyway, why has no one thought of a fried cheese sticks sandwich before now…

Fantasy Football

So, I won my league last year… from Tanzania.  Yep, the guys in my league apparently don’t know anything at all about football.  To read the only blog post I’ve ever written about American football, in which I mention the boneheads who make up my league, and in which I confess that I didn’t know who won the Super Bowl until I was able to watch it last year… on March 24th (yes, I watched the Super Bowl during March Madness, didn’t know who won until then, AND won my fantasy league), click here.]

So here’s the team I drafted this year.  And I’m no expert at fantasy football (though I did win our league last year), but after the roster I’ve shared one word of advice concerning the intelligent use of first round draft picks.

Quarterbacks

• Philip Rivers
• Brett Favre
• Vince Young

Running Backs

• Ryan Grant
• Jamaal Charles
• Joseph Addai
• Arian Foster

Receivers

• Andre Johnson
• Steve Smith (NYG)
• Donald Driver
• Mike Wallace
• Lee Evans
• Johnny Knox
• Chris Cooley (TE)

Defense

• Green Bay Packers
• Jon Beason

Kicker

• David Akers

It’s not how many fantasy points a player scores that’s important.  It’s how many points that player scores IN RELATION to other players of the same position.  Hence, I took Andre Johnson in the first round (4th pick), despite the fact that “all the points are scored by running backs.”

water, water everywhere — and a frog who’s in our sink

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Indoor plumbing is not the easiest service to come by in Geita, Tanzania.  The city does have a water distribution system, and it’s a cheap one at that — my last bill covered a span of two months and cost a total of $12.  But I’d gladly pay a little more cash to have water more than four hours a week.  The problem here is a general shortage of water.  There are three large reservoirs surrounding Geita, but they currently don’t hold enough water to serve all of  town for even a short time every day.  On average, water comes to our house two days a week, for a couple of hours at a time.

Most people here don’t bother with indoor plumbing.  Many fetch buckets of water from wherever they can that day.  Those with running water on their property generally fill up a large tank in their yard, and then dip out a few buckets at a time throughout the day for washing, cleaning, and cooking.  Most of this latter group, interestingly enough, have indoor plumbing but don’t use it.  Rather, small buckets of water are permanently stored next to sinks and toilets.  You can imagine the frustration you’d experience if city water ran directly into your house’s plumbing, but only worked a few hours a week.

Though I’d be more frustrated if my house were complete with indoor plumbing, yet I flushed my toilets and brushed my teeth with water from the same bucket in the floor of my bathroom.  The Harrison clan really wanted working indoor plumbing, so I’ll share with you our solution.

First, we built and set a water tower.  It stands about 20 feet tall.  To see pictures of the initial installation, see 2000 liters and 20 feet.

setting the water tower

The purpose of the water tower is to hold our “pressure tank,” a 2000 liter tank that rests on top of the tower.  This is the tank from which water actually enters into our house.  The 20 feet (23 counting the slope of our backyard) between the bottom of the tank and the bottom of our house provide enough gravity-powered pressure for us to take showers, fill toilet tanks, and use faucets.

water tower and tank system

We have a “reservoir tank” on the ground that is (occasionally) filled by water from the city.  Whenever water is available, it enters this 2000 liter bottom tank.  You can see the water meter to the right in both the picture above and the one below.  That’s where the water enters our yard, and you can see the flexible pipe running up the right side of the tank in the picture below.  This pipe feeds our reservoir tank.  If both tanks are full (rarely happens), we’re able to store 4000 liters, which is 1,056 gallons, for all you yanks.

water meter, reservoir tank, and entire ground system

We installed a ball float valve (just like in most toilets) that prevents the reservoir tank from being overfilled.  Once water reaches the top of this tank, no more is allowed to enter.

ball float valve in reservoir tank

In order to fill the pressure tank on top of the tower, we have to use a pump.  The pump pulls water from the reservoir tank and pushes it up the tower and into the top tank.  If the water from the city came with enough pressure, we could have allowed it to enter directly into the pressure tank (and skipped several of these steps).  But it doesn’t.

water pump and reservoir tank

From the reservoir tank, then, comes all the water we drink, and with which we shower and wash clothes and dishes.  I placed this shower just at the bottom of the tower; and I use it when returning from runs or dirty work.  [This picture is faked; there's no water, and I had shorts on.  Christie thought it would be "funny."]

outside shower

While we’re on the subject of water, this is often what our city water looks like.  We bathe, wash dishes, and clean with it as it comes.  But we filter it before drinking.

a much needed water filter

You can imagine that occasionally we run out of water.  Four hours a week seems to be just enough, but often something happens to prevent us from getting water one of those days — a problem with the city well, a broken pipe somewhere along the way to our house, a bunch of people busting a pipe open and “borrowing” water before it reaches our home, or…

out of water, but no worries -- we've still got red sludge

…trash, dirt, rocks or the like in the water line.  The other day I noticed water was barely trickling into our reservoir tank, so I started taking pipes apart and found a couple of small frogs in the pipe leading to our water meter.  One of the little guys was still alive.

one of the frogs in the water line

Those of you who have spoken with me since our move to Tanzania know that I often say, “It just takes longer to live here than it does in the states.”  Cooking is from scratch, starting times are optional, and getting water is a chore.  But most days I enjoy the slower pace of life.

My advice for you:  Slow down a little.  Be thankful for electricity and other properly functioning city services.  Enjoy your clean and plentiful water.  And, for goodness sakes, watch for pythons coming out of your toilets — something’s gotta’ be feeding on these frogs.

brett’s morning blend (04may10)

If you’re an Orlando Bloom fan, please don’t read this post.  Or any of my posts for that matter.  You are invited to find another blog to frequent.  And with that out of the way, morning blend:

Dallas Willard on Assessing Spiritual Growth

An interview with Dallas Willard, in which he encourages ministers and pastors to change their views of success.  He also encourages them to get cool first names, if they don’t already have them.  The name of a big city in Texas, something Irish-sounding, a lesser-used Old Testament moniker, a name that would generally be thought of as a last name, or Tanner.

Family Worship

I don’t know if you and your family have a designated time of worship together — but, if you don’t, you would benefit a great deal from doing so.  And your children would probably benefit even more.  Christie and I sing songs of worship and praise with (for) Baylor every night before she goes to bed, with expectations of adding a Bible story and prayer time when she’s just a little older.  James Grant penned this article in hopes of encouraging men to start times of family worship as they strive to be spiritual leaders in their families.  He has some good ideas for how fathers can do this, even if they don’t feel completely comfortable in that role.

Boiling Water

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard debated how long water must be boiled before it’s safe to drink.  This is a great article on just that.  Great because it sides with me — zero minutes at a boil.

15 Movie Posters showing the Originally-Desired Cast

Johnny Depp skips school as Ferris Bueller.  Ralph Macchio goes back in time to play Marty McFly.  Tom Hanks builds a baseball field on his farm, in order to attract a certain barefoot pitcher.  And Brett Harrison plays the role of a man better than Orlando Bloom ever has or will.