Saturday, February 19, 2011
2011 A-Dollar-A-Day-Challenge
I woke up at dawn this morning, as the full moon was still low near the horizon. I had to pee. I debated getting an early start on laundry but the thought of sleeping a bit longer to make the hunger go away was way too appealing. I slept till 10 am. Unfortunately my growling stomach would not let me forget about its need for some nutrients… nutrients that I couldn’t afford to give it. Morning tea would have to do. It was all we had. The good news was it was late and it would only be a few hours until lunch. The bad news was that the small portion of ugali would neither satisfy the palette or the belly. It was a lose- lose situation for me. My only hope was that it would at least provide enough calories for enough energy to complete today’s tasks. After tea and before lunch I continued sewing school uniforms and tried to focus on the task at hand. It was so difficult and I noticed how my hands were far less coordinated than the days before. I think they must have been hungry too. When lunchtime came around I wanted to be excited but I wasn’t. It’s hard to get excited about food. This food is not for pleasure, it’s for survival. I could barely finish my portion and only did so because I knew I needed every calorie I could get to make the 1 ½ mile round trip venture to the corner for some kerosene. I was right. As we set out on our journey in the hot afternoon sun, I prayed asking God to help me make the journey without complaining. It was tough. My feet didn’t hurt as much from the pebbles today, but the dirt road was hot from the searing sun. I had to walk quickly to keep them from burning. Step by step it got hotter and hotter and when we reached the tarmac road I realized the only way to reach the mangos was to cross the black tar surface in our bare feet. OUCH!!! And it would be hours until dinner when we would discover if our trek across the tarmac would pay off. There was always the chance the fruit was bad. As we were buying the mangos a nicely dressed man wearing Nike’s approached us and inquired as to why we were not wearing shoes. We replied that we didn’t want to wear shoes while children in the community were without shoes. He kinda laughed and then offered to buy us a pair of shoes. As good as it sounded at the time, we suggested he buy a pair of shoes for one of the kids standing in the distance instead. He again laughed and shook his head no, but it’s my prayer that our example at least made him think through his proposal. After purchasing the mangos we walked back across the road to buy the kerosene for our lamps. It always cracks me up when they want to sell us more than we have money to buy. They actually laugh when we tell them we have 10 shillings for kerosene. After putting the kerosene in our lamps we realized we had 4 extra shillings between us. We decided to add it to our tithe for tomorrow. As we spent the last of our 140 shillings spending allotment for the week (which is a little less than $2) I was overwhelmed with the thought of how far that money go us… at least on the survival scale. Throughout the week we had purchased enough kerosene to keep our lamps burning, enough fruit to satisfy our craving for a bit of flavor, and ½ kg of sugar to give us energy. I would say it was money well spent. A seventh of our income, all we had to spend, did not go to guilty pleasures, although if you had seen us devouring our mangos and bananas you might consider it such. Instead it went toward items we needed to survive. You better believe the next time I reach into my pocket for a dollar I will definitely consider the value of what I chose to purchase with it. It was a long walk back to Tumaini with our ½ full kerosene lamps. No, they weren’t heavy, but the sun was hot and our feet were on fire. When we arrived back at Tumaini, the kids and Hesbon had just prepared Toto the donkey for fetching water. We were hot and tired but we knew we had to go. We quickly put away our lamps and mangos, grabbed our water cans and headed for the stream. As I was walking I noticed a few Tumaini school kids walking along the road so I walked with them a while and asked them where they were headed. One girl, Ruth, had a scrawny chicken tucked under her arm. She was headed to the corner to drop off the chicken for an elderly neighbor lady. As we walked along I looked down and noticed one of the little girls without shoes. I asked her, “Where are your shoes? “ And she replied, “at home”. Then she turned and asked, “Teacha, where are yours?” I looked at her an smiled and said, “mine are at home too.” In that moment, we continued to walk side by side as equals. You see, she had 1 pair of shoes at home, probably for school and she didn’t want to take a chance on wearing them out on a Saturday. That pair of shoes may have to last her years before her parents could afford another pair. And even when she out grows them, she will be cramming those little feet into the status symbol of the little black Mary Jane’s. We arrived at the stream and the girls continued to the corner with the chicken. We found the Tumani kids hard at work carrying water that weighed as much as they did, up the hill to the cart. I found Sophie struggling and whining about having to carry a 20 liter can (which I don’t entirely blame her). Those things are heavy, even for a grown woman. Anyway, Lacey told her that she would share the load and help her carry it up the steep hill. After a bit of encouragement from us, she finally made it, but she didn’t like it. On the walk back I talked with her about not always liking something, but still making an effort to give our best. It was a sweet moment. When we arrived back at Tumaini I worked on a few more uniforms until bath time. The water was a bit chilly but it was so nice to be clean. Really nice! For dinner we had tea and our mangos. Well really we had to share 1 ½ mangos because one had a very big bad spot. I told Lacey that she had to take the seed, because I had taken one earlier in the week. At dinner we prayed for all those less fortunate than us and then talked for a while about our day. We had managed to survive another one. We went to bed singing praise and worship songs in the dark. In that moment we could not see our own poverty… we might as well have been the richest women in the world.
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