A comedy of errors

Consider this the lighter side of otherwise heavy and preachy bloggs, enjoy.

Upon arriving in Nyala I found myself bunking in a small shoebox of room with a large Kenyan named Jim who runs all of our Food Distribution work. And while Jim’s jovial personality and endless wisdom about relief work (5 years in South Sudan and 2 in Eastern Chad) allowed us to become fast friends, it did not convince me that two grown men should be living in a tiny sweat box for the next year. So with that in mind I began my exploration for a new room. I quickly located a nice room on the back of the compound that amounted to a screened in porch. Based on the intense heat the pours down on us most days this option looked perfect for me! I spent the next day moving my bed, dresser, table, and most importantly tying up my hammock! In a stroke of genius I also installed plastic tarps on the outside and rolled them up under the even to pull down in case of a rain or sand storm…as far as I could tell I was all prepared.

…so the first night in the new room I spent with a 24 hr. flu bug that has been going around the office, so the next evening I remember that I have two Cold/Flu Sleep pills (thanks Heidi) that should assure me a good nights sleep. As I rest my head back on the pillow a cool breeze covers my body and I drift away looking forward to a good nights sleep. The next thing I remember I am waking up with the sound of a waterfall raging all around me…oh yea did I mention it’s the rainy season now…it turns out that while I was sleeping a huge storm front has moved in and decided to dump several months worth of water at one time. My ingenious tarps are doing me no good rolled up under the eve and getting out to unroll them would simply defeat the purpose of having them. So like a caption going down with his ship I grabbed my only long sleeve shirt (the wind was blowing like a hurricane) and wrapped myself in my sheet to battle the storm. As the rain begin to let up I began to drift back into a victorious slumber, unfortunately the storm had knocked out our power so as soon as I closed my eyes the generator (located behind the wall right next to my room) kicked on with the roar of a lion. Of course the generator dilemma was short lived because the rain quickly picked up to Noah’s Ark levels. Still I was undaunted…until I realized that the cross beam above my bed was collecting water and raining it down right on top of me. I attempted to then move under my bed, but the small pool that had been gathering on the floor from the water blowing into my room prevented that option from succeeding. Finally with my head held in the shame of abandonment I made a mad dash for main living area of the compound, only to find myself sprawled out on my back on the floor when I discovered a leak in the ceiling of the entrance way. I eventually crawled my way to the living room where I curled up on the floor finally looking forward to at least a few hours of precious sleep…and then the power came back on, along with all the lights, TVs, and radios in the house! As I turned everything off all I could do was laugh, I’m not sure if it was a laugh of insanity or pity or simply realizing how funny all of this would be if it was happening to someone other then me. Never the less as I finally fell asleep with the Muslim call to prayer ringing in my ears I had an odd smile on my face…such is life I suppose.