I am approaching week four of life in Africa. Things have obviously not been perfect. I never thought a good morning would be measured by how many flies are on me when I wake up. Or that walking to the church would consist of avoiding cow patties every other step. Nevertheless, these things happen every day and are constant reminders that this is Africa.
At training camp we were told that it can be hard to live in community because there are always people around, making it difficult, nearly impossible, to find alone time. I didn’t think much about it because I’ve always considered myself a people person and I love to be surrounded by friends and the business connected with that. I never considered this struggle applying to me.
For the most part living in community has bee a blessing. Having fifteen people with the same beliefs and goals for their lives makes it easy to seek advice and talk about the struggles we are all facing, not to mention that it is easy to escape boredom with so many people. It has it’s drawbacks as well though. I found out yesterday what one of these draw backs is for me.
Including the people who are hosting us, there are twenty people living on one hector of land. So it’s not very easy to find a space to myself during the day. Especially since no one can leave the homestead by themselves due to safety reasons. In the past this has never bothered me before. But yesterday morning it was getting to me.
Now you all remember Charlotte from my previous blog. (She’s the massive spider as big as my hand.) Well she lives behind a halfway constructed building near the gate. The building also blocks the view form the rest of the homestead. Due to her living in the corner of the building, most of the team won’t go back there. much less stay back there for any amount of time. Fortunately for me, my fear of bugs and spiders has gone away, mostly by being one of two girls (out of eleven) willing to get close enough to a bug to kill it.
So I have found my space amongst the chaos of living in community. I truly believe that not being afraid of Charlotte is a blessing from God to allow me to have my personal, distraction free, intimate time with Him.
