As I woke up on this Valentine’s Day morning, love was the last thing on my mind. We spent the night in the guest house and woke up with all of our things of comfort around us. I woke up with mixed emotions about the start of this challenge. We got up around 7:30 *not too sure of this as we have no way of telling time :/ * It's a strange feeling having a normal routine and not being allowed to follow it. Usually, I would wake up, check the time, and then fall back asleep for a little while longer. Not here. Our world has changed.
Before I even got out of bed I was hungry. That’s not exactly how I wanted to start the challenge - but it was a reality. We did our first video interview of how we felt as we were starting day 1 and the real reality set in...there is no turning back now. We came and greeted everyone before having our 2 cups of tea for breakfast. Oh, and we had our first outside potty experience of the challenge. We have decided that the only time that we’re allowed to wear shoes is when we use the bathroom. We’re only doing hat for sanitary purposes. It hit me hard that many people have to do this in their bare feet! The floors in these ‘stalls’ are covered in urine and who knows what else. This stall is also where we will be bathing. I almost dread the thought of being clean because it will mean that I will have to be in there for even just a few minutes. The smell is so awful in there. The ammonia fumes can burn your eyes and it often makes it hard to breathe. I can’t imagine even feeling clean after a bath in there. But welcome to reality…
Fetching Water- After we drank our tea it was time to go and fetch water. We have to walk about a half a mile, round trip, to get water from a protected spring. We’re really lucky to have it so close as others have to walk very far or just drink from local, unclean streams. This was our first trip to the spring barefoot. You have to climb down a steep hill in order to reach the P.S. We got our water (in a 20 liter jug, each) and climbed back to the top to figure out how to carry it back. We each brought a lasso (a piece of fabric) with us to tie the jug on our backs. Amanda helped me get mine on my back but it was really hard bc there is a hole in the top of it…needless to say I got really wet! Amanda is a champ and just put it on her head bc we couldn’t get it on her back! After about 20 feet, my water was splashing all down my back. I decided that it wasn’t a good way to carry it bc I was wasting way too much water. Amanda put it on my head for me bc I wasn’t strong enough to lift 20 liters of water that high. This also failed bc my arms weren’t long enough to hold the top of the heavy jug! I was pretty upset by it all and decided just to carry it :/ it was the longest ¼ mile ever! When we finally got home I just broke down. It was such a humbling experience that it brought me to tears. I was so humbled by the fact that I couldn’t do something that these people do multiple times per day. It definitely looks a lot easier than it really is! I have a much greater respect for these women and children after today!
Laundry- After fetching water we decided that we needed to do some laundry. I needed to wash my lasso bc it’s serving as my water jug carrier and my towel. We quickly realized that washing your clothes is difficult when you don’t have any detergent! We ended up using our bar of soap that we also use for bathing…hopefully we won’t run out!
Lunch- Praise the Lord for ugali (corn flour + water)!! I went into lunch more excited for ugali than I ever have been before. *Ugali is almost like grits w/out enough water* Although I knew that we wouldn’t get much, I knew that it was something. We discussed what would be best- eat slow or eat quick? We wanted to make every bite count, so we opted for eating slow. It’s a really hard concept to grasp knowing that I won’t eat anything solid for another 23+ hours. So I ate that ugali as slow as I could to try to make it last as long as possible. All that I could do was pray that it would be the least bit satisfying. We pretended that our last bites were our favorite kinds of food…it helped a little :/ I can’t imagine how people go so long w/out eating. I guess I’ll know a tiny bit of that when the week is over. I pray that God will give me the strength and motivation that I will need to get through this challenge!
Post Lunch Activities- After lunch we washed some books…sounds crazy, I know, but somehow kerosene was spilled onto some of the book that we use for our lunch reading program. We washed them off and then laid them in the sun to dry. I would have never even thought about appreciating a bookshelf as much as I do now. God is really showing me that I need to be more thankful for the ‘little’ things that I have been so blessed with. I pray that I will never forget how blessed I am and who it all comes from.
Amanda and I decided to go for a walk to sort of debrief our day so far. We still have no shoes and had to walk down a dirt road that was covered with tiny pebbles. Our feet were praying for the end! We went a different way than we usually walk and found that it was much worse! We talked about our feelings of day 1 and just took a break to clear our minds. It is so hard not to think about my stomach growling, but being active helps a lot. When we got back we had nothing to do but we didn’t want to just sit around. Violet (the social worker/house mom for the kids) told us that we could earn our keep by helping to sew buttonholes onto the kid's school uniforms. This kept our hands busy as well as keeping our minds off of our stomachs.
Dinner Time- After a full day of activities, it was time for ‘dinner.’ The only thing on the menu for us was 2 cups of tea, w/out sugar. We felt ok, but it would have been really nice to chew something! I didn’t realize how much satisfaction came with the simple act of chewing. We brought our tea to our room and began to enjoy our first meal in our new home. We drank tea by the light of our small lamp…it was actually quite nice :) We also did our first home video diary. Pretty cool stuff came out of our thoughts on the day. We went over to the orphanage as usual and did a small devo w/ the girls. They are such a blessing to me! All in all it was a good first day of our ‘A-Dollar-A-Day’ Challenge. We’ll see what happens in the days to come!
Thoughts- So many things in only one short day have humbled me. I knew that this challenge would be hard but I had no idea of the real things that I would learn. I have always thought of myself as a strong person, but I now have seen that my definition of strong is a western one. We have no idea what it means to be strong. These people are stronger than I would have ever imagined. You think that their lives are so simple- and maybe they are, but they are hard. Their lives are hard. Going into this week I thought that I could carry 20 liters of water on my head, but I can’t. I thought that walking barefoot would be a piece of cake, but it’s not. I thought that I would learn a few things but go on living the same, but I won’t.
Day 1 Complete
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