There are great days....and there are others

(Written Friday Night)

Today fell into the “other” category. I decided to call it the “other” category not because it was necessarily bad (I suppose it depends on who you ask and when you ask), but because it was not great. Here are a few of the “highlights”:

• Hailey sprained her ankle on a jog this morning and it is already pretty swollen. She has been limping around most of the day.
• We learned early in the morning that the previous day’s rain made all of our water (except our filtered water) muddy. Huge rains mean flooded rivers, which means dirty water for us since our water comes directly from the river. This means we wash our clothes in dirty water, we bathe in dirty water, and I brushed my teeth using dirty water.
• I rode my motorcycle into town to take one of the students to the bus to visit her mom (who is ill) and my motorcycle almost fell over because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to where I put the kickstand. Luckily, I stopped it from falling, but I also put a huge crack in the plastic as I used my leg to stop the fall. Because the rivers were high (and also because I am still learning on the motorcycle) I got my feet and ankles completely soaked on the ride. To top it off, I purchased a few heads of cabbage for dinner and forgot them in the supermarket. Awesome!
• It POURED for a couple hours in the afternoon. I don’t mind the rain, but Micah isn’t a huge fan because we have to stay inside and there really isn’t much to do in our house. It was one of those “Huge Honduran Rains” that bring out all the earwigs that can fly. These bugs (I forget their Spanish name) are earwigs that fly around until they decide to lose their wings. Then they crawl around looking for someone’s ears to crawl into. They timed their arrival perfectly at dinner time, which meant Hailey and Micah ate inside our home while I ate tortillas and quesillo (with a dash of earwig wings) outside with a few of the students. Yummy!
• We learned that one of our close friends in Seattle had a brain scan and the doctors found a mass. We are optimistic that the test results from the specialist will show nothing serious, but it is still never fun to get news like this from someone you care about so much. Please pray with us for Sylvia.
• Micah was especially fussy. He doesn’t have days like that very often, so when he does have them they often seem to be fairly stressful. Maybe he was tired, maybe something he ate gave him an upset stomach, maybe he had a small fever, but whatever it was it makes for a long day. I felt like the entire day consisted of Hailey and I telling him “no,” taking things away from him that he shouldn’t be playing with (there seem to be a lot of those kinds of things in Honduras), or him saying “Momma, Momma, Momma” over and over again (but only during the times when Momma wasn’t available).

Anyhow, all those things added up led to an “other” day. It would be nice if we could end these kinds of days with a scrumptious order of Phad Thai followed by some brownies with vanilla ice cream. Or if we could enjoy some chocolate chip cookies or Hagan Daas (is that spelled right?) coffee ice cream. Maybe if we could just enjoy a hot chocolate in our pillow-top bed while watching one of our favorite shows on our laptop.

But for now, I am laying in my full-size, rock-hard, mosquito-net protected bed racing to finish this blog post before my battery dies because we have had almost no electricity over the last few days. I will end this “other” day in a few minutes and wake up tomorrow to what will likely be a “Great” Day. I’ve had many more great days in Honduras than other days and I think it will stay that way. I like it down here a lot, but just like anywhere else in the world, there are days when everyone thinks…“if only I could (fill in the blank).” Today was one of those days.

At least I get to fall asleep to the sound of barking dogs, barking frogs (yes, you read that correctly), and insects that make noises I don’t even know how to explain. This is the life!