High Maintenance Women

You have heard that when people are such back cooks that they can't even boil water. Well, that could be said of Bev and me. Boiling water means having charcoal and/or wood, a kettle or pot, and the ability to make a small, very hot fire. So this is one of the things Rebecca does for us. She comes in the morning to boil water for us so Bev can have coffee or tea. In addition, Rebecca cooks for us, one meal each day, and fills up the water buckets from the well. We just took on another woman today (Amein, I think is her name) who will do laundry and clean the house for us. We will pay her 1 pound per item, which is about .25 Cleaning is 125 pounds which is around $30. All of this work is done by hand so no easy task. We also have a driver. Now that may seem a little unnecessary until you understand driving in Rumbek. There are no signs and few rules. Fortunately, there is very little traffic here in terms of vehicles but there are goats and cows everywhere. The cows aren't much of a problem as they don't run into traffic but the goats are another story. And if you hit a goat you have to find the owner and negotiate a payment for it. The goal is to give money to the owner and then keep the goat for food. These aren't things Bev and I want to do especially since we do not know the language. So we rent the car, buy the gas, and pay the driver. He is used to getting really good money driving for the NGOs here but we assured him that we are not NGO people, just two retired preachers living on a meager pension. Frankly, once school starts it will take nearly all our time preparing lesson plans, etc. for the students. These other responsibilities that are so easy in the states take considerable time. In addition, the people here could really use the money, even if it is pretty small. Just to keep you up to date - we still do not have running water in the house and probably won't the entire time we are here because we cannot find a good way to get water into the water tank. The motor bike driven by our director was stolen. We hope the police or a church member (it was announced Sunday at church) will find it and return it in good shape. Electricity has returned to Juba - they turned it back on - so we missed that. The electricity here in Rumbek may also be turned on but where we live is not on the line. So we will continue with the generator. Last night it ran out of gas so today we had to get a couple men to come and get it started for us - probably put a little gas in the carberator. Next time I'll do it myself - maybe!!