Grace puts the lie to Roe v. Wade

 Grace and her mobile device-a bit of knitting, while Dlangeni rolls by

 Cowgirl Jabu, back at the ranch

 Kit with that precious, but as yet untreated, liquid substance

This sorry little cut knocked me out?

Hello again!

BOIL YOUR WATER

Children have a great way of reducing concepts to their simplest elements. Grace, for example, wonders how abortion can be a fundamental right when America's founding documents include "Provide for the common defense". While studying American history in March this year, she got excited when she heard that phrase. She thought that she had discovered the final word that would settle the abortion question in the US. On her own initiative she wrote "is killing Babys really defend them?"



Kit delivered a similar "break it down" moment recently. We boil the water that we drink; otherwise we'd ingest some fascinating intestinal flora and fauna with their various unpleasant side effects. Ruth and I call water from the tap "untreated water". Kit and I were milling around in the kitchen recently, and needed water for some reason. She said something like "I won't use diarrhea water". I took a moment to figure out what she meant; what she meant was, water from the tap. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler". Next time you need something expressed most simply, tell it to a child 10 or under and let them rephrase it for you.





HILLBILLY SEAMSTRESS

A couple weeks ago Grace and I traveled to town via pickup truck. We needed to get to town to view a soccer game (the school was playing) and make it to a dentist appointment for our first-born daughter. We found a kombi (minivan) waiting at the station, but it was set to take the team to the game, and we didn't want to overload the thing. We took our chances hitchhiking and got lucky. Grace immediately sat down with her back to the cab and withdrew her yellow scarf knitting project from her purse. I relished the picture of long-blond-haired Gracie sitting as comfortably in the back of this open pickup as she would in the back of a family sedan, happily putting her scarf together as the rural countryside of one of the last absolute monarchies in the world rolled by. Living here has taught her flexibility unavailable, I suspect, in many other contexts.

Grace and her mobile knitting project.



COWGIRL JABU

Equally rewarding and amusing was a recent trip to the river for the girls and I. Once a month the school spends three days giving tests to the students. Teachers proctor for two of those days, and get one of them off to go to town and buy groceries. On my days off Ruth goes to town and meets with Sister Benni, the Italian Mantellate Roman Catholic nun who is Ruth's spiritual director. The kids and I get the day to ourselves.



Last week the girls wanted to go swimming. The water level is low (it's the dry season) and the weather unseasonably warm-perfect for a dip. This is not, however, a suburban community pool; we share the river with crabs, snakes (rare), and cows (common). Jabulile cracked me up when a half-dozen thirsty bovine visitors approached the river. Jabu began to wave her arms at them and shout "Hamba!", which means "Go!". She gave the cows pause, which is something as Jabu weighs about 20 pounds and an average cow about 2000. She was outweighed 600 to 1 (6 cows x 2000lbs/20lbs).





PET GRASSHOPPER

Kit, ever practical. Two weeks ago on our walk to church Cub(who loves animals) found a miniature grasshopper. The black creature would fit comfortably on your pinky fingernail. Cub wanted to take it home and make a pet of it. She put it in her wool hat (Cub started out cold this Sunday morning but warmed up during the walk, so she didn't need to wear it) and squeezed the opening of the hat shut. "You should call it 'Nappy'", offered Kit. "Why nappy?", I asked. "Because it will need a nappy (diaper), because it will go to the bathroom in Cub's hat." That name did not stick, and Cub mercifully released the grasshopper at the church.





FIXING WATER SANS MAMBA

Stan Mamba spent last week at UNISWA, the national university of Swaziland. He is upgrading his teaching credentials. We're glad he's doing that, but "absences have consequences" when he is the man to fix the water.



It went out while he was away.

It was up to three serious amateurs to try to fix it.



A Thursday morning attempt by TJ Mamba (Yenzie's dad), Mbuyiseni Gama (the school groundskeeper, who's not really an amateur), and myself found a couple of valves wrongly set. We did have water until near sunset, when it went out again. TJ and S.W. Dlamini and I set out again in the late afternoon, when we discovered that not enough water was entering the system at the source. This meant we needed to take a trip to the source, and we had not the light for such an operation.



So Friday morning Mr. Shandu and I met Mr. Gama along the road to the source a little after 6AM. Stan Mamba allowed us to use his pickup truck in his absence. I told Shandu that I had not driven a car for 8 months to a year, and certainly not on roads like this. He was silent; I wonder if he was as worried as I was? Worry or no, we had no water and wanted to fix it.



I turned the defroster on, as the inside of the windshield was clouding up with condensed water from our breath. This worked some, but had an even greater impact later.



We met Gama, and after two attempts up a particularly steep and slippery slope, found ourselves at the main tanks. Having decided the problem must be the source, we headed off with shovels, nylon mesh flour bags, and zip ties to try to get more water into the source.

30 minutes later Shandu and Gama were filling bags with soil while I, stripped to my soccer shorts, was wading in the reservoir placing bags to block the water from escaping under the dam. Having done as much as we thought we could, we returned to the big tanks to see what effect our efforts would have.



At first it looked like we'd succeeded, then it looked like we'd failed. The water level seemed to rise a bit in the first (filtration) tanks, but after the holding tanks started drawing properly, it appeared to me that we hadn't really raised the volume of inflow very much.



Instead of sitting around worrying about it, I told the other two guys I was going back to the source to see if I could do anything. With sacks and shovel and ties, I tried to identify any other holes and generally raise the level a bit more. 90 minutes later back at the tanks, it looks like our first effort had been sufficient; the water inflow looked pretty good. Maybe we weren't abject amateurs after all!



We went back to the pickup and got in. The truck was scheduled to transport soccer players from the school to a local soccer field for the last game of the group stage of the soccer tournament. When we got into the pickup, I realized that I had left the fan for the defroster on, and the battery was dead.



Back to the bush league, son.



Fortunately we were on a very steep hill, and could roll-start the car. Thing is, I haven't roll-started a car for at least 15 years, and not on a hill this steep and slippery. I failed twice, then Shandu (who has been driving more recently) took over. He got it started-but, unfortunately, put it into a deep ditch.



We had high-centered (the truck was resting on) both the differential and the oil pan while the back wheels were spinning freely. This was a narrow and deep ditch.



We asked a local homestead for tools; they provided a pickax, a second shovel, and a long, heavy, pointed javelin-like piece of iron (looked and weighed like a cave-troll spear from The Lord of the Rings). With these tools we managed, after an hour, to free the car. That hour, however, was punctuated by numerous calls from the soccer coach and the athletic director asking about the pickup truck. Gama explained more than once that it was jammed in a ditch and that they should seek other transportation options (which they did, I guess; I missed the whole game, which really bummed me out-not least because I had killed the car battery which necessitated the roll-start which put the pickup in a ditch, which cost us lost of time...). Anyway, we did get back down the hill. Gama had a very unpleasant incident; while we was pickaxing dirt away from the passenger side of the truck, his hand came down on the pointy end of the radio antenna (the car was at quite a degree of tilt). I thought the antenna just jabbed his hand, which would have been bad enough; turns out the antenna went subcutaneous and traveled about three inches across his palm. I did not know this until later in the day. Gama kept working. Swazis are tough. He later visited the local clinic, where he received an antibiotic shot and tablets.



Anyway, after we got down the hill there was one more valve to check. This is the "400 pounds of development" valve you may remember from 2011 (or was it 2010? Time does slip away). I adjusted that as best I could, hoping it would provide water to both Hlongasibi and Nsukumbili. I was too generous in favor of Hlongasibi, and after getting home, found no water entering the tanks. I got on my bike and pedaled to that same valve, and adjusted it a second time. I phoned Ruth and asked her to see if water was entering the tank; she said it was. I rode back home, about 10 hours after setting out. Got my hot bath and good night's sleep (until about 3AM; more below). The water did go out a second time about noon on Saturday, but that was once again the Hlongasibi valve. Stan Mamba fixed that early Sunday morning, and we've been splashing in water ever since.



So, even though it took 3 men twice as long as it would have taken Mamba, we did the job without him. This is a good thing for the future, as people inevitably come and go. The fact that we could fix the source was really significant; fiddling with valves is important, but relatively easy. Getting water into the system is the crucial step.



HEADS UP!

I mentioned that my good night's sleep ended about 3AM. At that wee hour, Whiskers the cat came into Ruth and mine's room. We don't like the cat in our room, so Ruth asked me to take her out. I felt around on the bed and got a good grip on the feline. I stood up on unsteady legs and, with the help of the backlight on a digital watch, figured I'd found my way out of the mostly-dark room.



We'll, I mostly had, but not quite.



SMACK! went my head on the doorframe. I felt my head and found blood on my fingers. I told Ruth that I'd need a little first aid.



So I sat on the edge of the tub and stopped the bleeding with toilet paper. Then Ruth had me hold another piece of toilet paper soaked in antiseptic to the cut. Next thing I knew, I woke up to find myself laying on the floor next to the toilet with my left hand in the toilet brush bowl.



Man, what was this about?



I asked Ruth, and she said I was sitting on the side of the tub, then I got a funny look on my face (kind of like Frodo's in the Lord of the Rings movies when the Ringwraiths and the Nazgul approach) then I lurched forward and whacked my head on the sink. I sat crumpled on the floor with my head in Jabu's clothes basket next to the sink while Ruth tried to support my head, move my legs, and convince me to lay down on the floor. She failed on all three counts. My eyes were open and I was making noises, but communication was obviously not occurring. After a few minutes of this. Ruth said I came to enough to listen to her and take her direction to lay on the floor (I don't remember this exchange, but I trust Ruth).



I still can't figure out why I passed out. I lost a little blood, but nothing like a serious cut; this was a basketball elbow-above-the-eye-while-competing-for-the-rebound injury.



My wife likes to accompany me in all things. Later in the morning, she and the girls were playing on our bed. Jabu got very excited by all of the commotion and took the 8-inch whelk shell that was in her hands and threw it towards Ruth at point blank range. Ruth crumpled in pain as Jabu looked on in confusion. After the morning's drama, Ruth decided to just lay on the bed for awhile.



SCHOOL DAYS

School goes pretty well. I don't know why, but each year is different. I look back over the years since 2003 and can give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" for each one. Perhaps it is the mix of students. For whatever reason, this has been a pleasant experience. If most years went like this one is going, it would be harder to leave. But I have informed the head of my department that this is our last year. I have not told any students, though. One soccer player who has found a place in my heart asked me today "Why were you not at the match?" I explained why--the water, and getting the truck stuck in the ditch, and having to stay back to adjust a valve. "But you were at the Enjubukweni game, right?" Yes I was; we won that game 2-1. "You see, your presence makes a difference." I do not know if he was just being polite or really meant it, but it was touching. "We'll, there's next year" he said at the end of our conversation. For him, yes; but we won't be around. That was a bit hard to realize. But, that's the way it is.



Tell the people you love that you love them. You do not know when you'll have another chance.



A LITTLE NOTE FROM RUTH



I don't know how much this will resonate with you, but I will try. Since I have been here I have realized that one of the characteristics which really marks Americans is a sense that things ought to and will work out for good. If you do what is right, you will succeed. If you work hard, you will prosper. Life will get better even if there are temporary setbacks. Your kids will be better off than you were. One of the hardest things that Americans face here is not seeing progress. We, as a people, are optimists and problem solvers. We will work like a dog to improve things, but we need to see that our labors are effective. When they are ineffective there are several typical reactions. Some quit because their efforts are unappreciated. Some blame the people they work among either individually (saying they are lazy) or collectively (saying they are corrupt). This serves as an easy explanation of the lack of progress. Some despair and detach themselves emotionally or physically. I've at times tried all of these because it is very hard for me to accept that people are facing huge challenges with no easy (or maybe even difficult) solutions.



One thing I have learned is that life goes on. Maybe without electricity. Maybe without nutritious food. Maybe in chronic pain. But it does go on. You work hard to make some progress, then a family emergency demands everything you gathered. And you are glad to give it because you want your Mom or Brother to live. Or you want your kids in school. But you are back to bare subsistence.



What I see here for the majority of folks is no realistic way to get out of bare subsistence. Frankly, bare subsistence is an offense to my American sense of progress. What can you offer in such a situation? What is there to hope for? We have a friend working in HIV education and he says that people won't avoid HIV unless they have hope and a reason to live and that can only come from within their own culture. As Christians we know that our final hope is in heaven. Very few Americans really have their hope set on heaven--we have so many other hopes, but there really aren't many other hopes here.



Anyway, this is a long windup to give you the context of a short experience. I had to go to town the other morning. I ended up waiting a very long time for transport, so I had a lot of time to think when I couldn't do anything. I have been studying I John all year. What struck me was that God desires our love. I could consciously give love to God. He gets a lot of grief; he deserves a little extra love. So I did that, just sending up love while I was sitting. I realized that this is a gift that everyone can give in every circumstance. You can have everything or nothing and still give this gift. You can lose your health and still give it. If you never get past bare subsistence you can still give it.



As we plan to return to the US and face a great deal of uncertainties, I've been recently reciting our wedding vows as a prayer "For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health..." meaning, "No matter what happens, I love you, Lord" or in the words of a Steve Taylor Song "You don't owe me nothing, need I even say, you don't owe me nothing." I think I am coming to learn some value in knowing that life goes on and everything doesn't have to work out right in this life. We Americans have it right after all--it can all work out well, for everybody; we just need to move our time frame to eternity.



Have a good day,

The Poglitshs