Go, 'Go-Go'!

We are building rooms. It is very lovely. This is what I think about:

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the Everlasting God;
the Creator of the ends of the earth.

~ Isaiah 40

Love,

Gillian

For the past 2 weeks we’ve resided in a trailer-shaped addition to a boho backpacker joint. It’s affectionately referred to as “the annex”, more commonly referred to as “the budget room”, and casually referred to by the housecleaners as “the old storage closet”.
I love our old storage closet. I love sleeping on my little bed, and I’m reminded me of home when I wake up feeling the bed-slats beneath my back.
There are large wire lockers in Budgetville. In one of them we keep our three different tubs of peanut butter, packages of tea, a loaf of bread, stale crackers, apples, Peter’s margarine, Easter-sale chocolates, Gil and Peter’s nasty old beef jerky, (Peter –“We’ve still got beef jerky?!” Gil – “It’s called biltong.” Krista –“Call it what you will, it’s still nasty.”) etc…
There are books everywhere: Bibles, poetry books, journals, several novels, torn up pieces of Virginia Woolfe, books about Jesus, more journals, books about history, biographies, etc., all strewn about the room. We love to read.
We eat dinner in our storage closet, so sometimes you’ll find a teapot and mugs, some plates, and crumbs that don’t belong.
My clothes are not neat anymore. I have generally been keeping my three T-shirts and two pairs of shorts in line while traveling from place to place, but somehow my organizational skills have unraveled as of lately. Gil’s clothes are still folded and Peter has claimed a couple of the wire lockers –he needs it since he managed to bring three times the amount of stuff that Gil or I did.
There’s barely enough room to squeeze by each other between the lockers and the beds, and our doorknob consistently fell off every time we tried shut to the door (until a couple days ago when the managers realized and had it fixed,) but I’m going to be sad to leave our annex. It has been really wonderful to have a place (even this place) to call our own, a place to come home to, to hang out in, to escape the world in…

We are now in search of secondhand stores. After two weeks of cement mixing, brick hauling, sweat-breaking, tear-your-hands-up, hard work, most of our clothes are looking a little shabby (the key here is that “shabby” is probably an understatement seeing as I already feel as though I’ve been walking around in rags for the past two months).

I tore my fingernail off. A large brick fell onto it. It was bloody. Now my finger looks like a nasty, demented, zombie finger. I thought I would be self-conscious about how hideous it is, but mostly I just think it’s hilarious how grossed out Gil gets when she looks at it.
(Jennifer, you’re one for two: I broke the toe next to my big tow on my left foot. And I tore the nail off my middle finger on my right hand.)
I also got food poisoning, or something like that. I ate a crab curry across the street from the Indian Ocean, it was really amazing, but I’m not sure if it was worth it. Puking is gross.

Tidbits from the work site:
On our first day, Gil and I walked up and down a giant hill carrying cinderblocks… allllll daaay. The pile at the top of the hill would get smaller and smaller, and we would encourage each other by saying things like, “Look, Krista, almost done!” or, “Only 30 more, Gil!” and then the delivery truck would come back and drop off 200 more bricks, and again, and again. Slowly my positive groove dissolved. It’s funny how physically disabling a pissy attitude can be.
Also on that day, GogoRegina (aged 50-something) and her mother (no one even knows how old she is,) helped us haul bricks. There’s nothing like your grandma doing the same job as you to keep you motivated.
No one knows my name. They all call me “Kristine”, or “Kristina”. It’s awful. Peter and Gil play it up, refusing to call me Krista in front of those who think my name is some other Kris name.
Last week some time Gil was mixing cement with one of the guys. Uncle Stanley (the one with toothpick arms,) said, “It’s heavy?” “Yes, it is,” said Gil. “It’s heavy because you are a girl,” replied Stanley. Gil fumed. Today Peter and Gil were both mixing cement and GogoRegina said, “I think Gil’s shovel is heavier,” to which Peter replied, “Yes, it’s heavier because she is a girl.” More fuming.
I can mix concrete. I can carry 50 kg bags of cement down a big hill. I can complain too much. My body didn't know what to do with itself.
Peter’s funny when he’s not in charge and learning to do something new. My favourite thing is when he finally masters something then looks around to make sure I saw him do it.
Building with wood is much faster than building with cement and bricks.
There are kids running around everywhere.
After not even two weeks of work, all six boys are already moved into their new rooms. The rooms are painted bright pink.
I shall not plaster anything in the near future. I shall have no part in dealings of wet cement of any kind. (Unless I have to.)

I’m very glad for this experience, and I’m very glad that Peter’s going to fill you in on the rest.
Love, Krista.

P.S. Mother, call when you get bored and lonely over the next few days… be well soon.

The Ram-Jam
Two weeks ago today we arrived in Pietermaritzburg and Met for the first time with Gogo-Regina (Zulu for Grandma-Regina). She’s a Black (black isn’t a racist term in SA by the way) Christian lady who takes in small children from her relatives and the community who need to be looked after. I believe at last count she had 18 people living in her small government-built brick house, but she’s hoping to take in 4 more babies now that she has more space, and she’s already making plans to build again. We know about Gogo through Anja Reuter who has raised monthly support for her from a family at Southview. Gogo is a simple but wise seeming woman, not seeming to care too much about money but well looked after by God. Our funds consisted of about $2600 gathered together from Southview and various other sources by Anja. Our experience consisted of my framing knowledge (useful only briefly on the roof) and minor missions experience in bricklaying. Also, Gill is a painter and Krista is a visual learner. Our goal, in less than three weeks; to construct a freestanding two room building appx. 4m*7m. Gogo took us to her house to see the site, and we met her brother Stanley who had been recruited to help us. He has toothpick arms as Kristina says, and said that he knew “a little” about bricklaying. The odds did not seem to be in our favour for any kind of success by worldly measurements, but fortunately, God really does seem to be on Gogo’s side. We immediately found a contractor who happened to be available to help us, and at a cheaper price than any of the other estimates that Gogo had received. His name was Moses and on the very next day he met with us to order supplies. He helped negotiate discounts, which started paying for his fee immediately. On day three he worked 11 hours, long after the three of us had taken off to go to the airport to pick up Anja. Anja thinks he’s the hardest working man in Africa, and she just might be right. He continued working from 7am to after 6pm, often to the consternation of the girls and in 4 days, with our help of course ;), he had the bricks laid with the roof on, the windows in and the doors hung. It was more than I could have ever expected, and quick even by framing standards. Then mysterious worker-machine vanished into another job and we were left with uncle Stanley to do the finishing. Fortunately, Uncle Stanley turned out to be a perfectionist and quite handy at plastering. He taught us all how, and Gogo’s son Man-X (real name unpronounceable with a click symbolized with the letter “x”) was home on holidays from school to help as well. Today we finished the plastering, and started on the fascia, which will get finished tomorrow.
Man X is one of the people moving into one of the rooms (actually, they’re putting the 6 boys in there) so he was particularly anxious to get finished. The day we finished plastering the interior, we found out that you need to wait at least 7 days before you can paint so that the plaster has time to dry. Very well we thought, we’ll spend the next while finishing the outside and paint when it’s ready. Not a chance. When we showed up the next morning at 7am, Man X was well into priming the first room. We tried to protest, and Gill, the painting expert gave a valiant try at explaining the need to wait, but Man X just brushed us aside with “no no, it will be fine.” He also rightly pointed out that it was likely to rain that day and so we shouldn’t start to plaster outside. We had no choice but to help him. Of course though, once the primer was done we had to wait a few hours for it to dry before putting on the first coat of paint. What will we do while waiting? We didn’t have a chance to think too long about it because Man X was painting peach first coat all over as soon as our backs were turned. Again Gill tried to explain to him the basic principles of painting, but again we were reassured that it would be fine and we returned to helping him cutting in the edges. At one point Man X started his second coat in the same room immediately after finishing his first coat. I think Gill almost lost it, and if he weren’t twice her size she might have succeeded in stuffing him into the paint bucket. On the bright side, we got all the painting done, primer and both coats, all in a couple hours and could leave early. Not bad for a Saturday. On Sunday when we showed up to meet the family for church we weren’t even surprised to see Man X already moved in, furniture arranged so as to not be touching the walls. So, today is the end of our second week and there are already people living in the house. Amazing!

More romorrowl

Today we finished the fascia, painted it, and installed gutters. Everything looks very nice, especially considering that the insides have already been mostly furnished and it’s very satisfying to look at the house as a finished project. The only disappointing things about the project have, perhaps inevitably, been dealing with people and money. Moses worked like a wild-man, but after the four days, he found a second job somewhere and denied that he told me he would plaster for the agreed upon price, and even said he wouldn’t do the floor, something he definitely had said he would do. He also forgot that he said he would pay helpers R60 per day, money we were donating back to Gogo Regina. I got a substantial discount out of him eventually, but he didn’t look happy about it. Then, Uncle Stanley somehow got the idea that we were paying him R1500 to do the plastering (the price Moses wanted to continue) but he didn’t mention it until we were mostly done. We offered to pay him R120 per day, for the time he was in charge of plastering – double the labour rate or R60 per day – but he had gotten the idea of R1500 stuck in his head, and the greed doesn’t seem to be letting him go. One night when we finally discussed everything he was quiet for a long time, and finally said, “I was just coming to help my sister.” And shook our hands before we left. Unfortunately he didn’t come back to work again, and he’s still complaining to Gogo that he’s owed money. Please pray for this man as he struggles between love and greed. Gogo Regina cares so little about money that she says she will pay him little by little even though his attitude seems to make her sad, just so he won’t hold it against her.

Enough about that. Today was lovely. The children are adorable and they are loved and now they have more space to live. Most people are very friendly towards us, and God is working. Africa is very interesting, how much evil and good are going on all at the same time. Pray.

Peter out.