Wednesday, April 22, 2009

it's 5 am, been up for about an hour, been awake for longer. one of those nights. thoughts can be such a bother. you know those times when your mind just won't cooperate, won't give you dead to the world sleep, or nice thoughts about what a wonderful person you are and how blessed others are when you are around them. stuff like that.

tonight was thoughts of being in a group of people different from me...a group of inner city people from home, blacks, gang members, drug users, etc. And in it, we are all just talking about stuff, trying to find a way to understand each other. Generally it went well, for those interested. it seems that the skill we lack most as people is the ability to listen to others, or maybe, just to care about what they say. we struggle to fit the world into our rules and reg's, so that we are comfortable that everyone else is doing it the right way, which amazingly, is always our way. I know how to do this so you have to do it the same way....or else you're not special like me. Somethinglike that. Fear drives us, fear that others won't accept us, so we just refuse to accept them, being different from us. I have to say, having seem things this year that I haven't seen before, it is a lot easier to accept that people do things differently than I would. The amazing part is that they survive doing it their way and not my way!!! Now sometimes my way may be better..but not necessarily all the time. Finding those times when I need to change is the real challenge. Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke that we should not lend and expect to get back, we should give more to those who have taken unjustly from us, that we should love our enemies and treat them well. Later in another part of the Bible (foggy morning in the brain) He said those who obey His commands are His true believers. So I guess it's ok if others are different from me, maybe I can learn something from others, maybe the poor know somethings I don't about life, they just say it a little differently than I would.

Short week this week in school, Monday off to avoid any potential election violence (which was evident in some area's. One of our teachers, Delson, got a one week job as an interpreter with the UN and in the area he was in there were gunfights and fires) and off on Friday for St. Marc's day.

do you realize we have electricity....city power and have had it for the most part of the last 2 days? that is unheard of around here. yesterday we did not have to run the generator for school, Gary said that has never happened before. right now, I am typing by the glow of city powered lights, an amazing thing at this time of day here. If the city would run power from about 8 am to 2pm each day, Gary would never have to run a generator and save a lot of money on diesel. We are thankful to have had it the last few days, I won't be disappointed when it ends, as it will. Power people are strange here. You will have power for 8 hours, then it goes off......for 10 minutes, then back on again for 45 minutes.....then off for 3 hours then back on again. Or as it was a few months ago, off for about 10 days, on for an hour, then off again. We think they have a dart board they throw at to determine the power distribution around the area. And some people are really bad dart players.

Djebenis tout moun
Bondye benis ou