Africa Mornings

One of the things I liked about staying in the main house alone last year (sleeping in what's now Amy's room) was waking up with a view of basically the whole compound getting ready for the day.

Of course, it didn't always start out cheerfully. There was a rooster somewhere that would start crowing loudly at first light, too early to get up. Honestly, I wanted to kill it - I'd stick my head under my pillow but it still kinda drove me crazy sometimes. Good thing I never ran into it during the day...guess it was a wily old thing who was used people wanting to wring its neck!

Still quite early, the compound came alive. Even half-asleep I could smell smoke from the cooking fires, coming through the window screens. It sounded like there were about a hundred children yelling and playing, although really there were probably a dozen, and they were being sent for water. At that point I usually put on headphones and U2.

Maybe half an hour later, I'd open my eyes and see brilliant red flowers on the tree outside my window. I always looked at the green pods dangling from the branches, imagining they were green mambas. There never were any, though.

Then I read the day's entry in the prayer journal that Rocky put together for me. Sometimes it was from a close friend, but usually from someone I didn't know very well. God knows what he's doing in having such a variety in his church, all united in one body. One time when I'd gotten up in the night sick from malaria and was in a really bad mood, the Bible verse someone had included for me was "My [Christ's] strength is made perfect in weakness..."

Now I can picture little girls sloshing water back in jerricans on their heads, while their mothers made breakfast out of posho, which looks kind of like cornmeal. I'm not sure how I'd do with that. There's no roosters in Billings, thankfully, but then I can't smell my next-door-neighbors cooking (or search for snakes in the pin oak by my window).