I can hear water falling—I have to listen twice to tell if it’s rain or our shower. Our shower no longer turns off, we have to turn the water off to the whole house. Wasting water grates at your conscience when you know there are people walking 16 miles a day for like 2 gallons of water. I went and checked, it’s the shower. Someone turned the water on outside.

Today was a rainy day, a full day, a jumble-of-here-and-there day, a sickness-and-death day, a walking-and-being-squished-in-mini-buses day. It started with a call that a priest I work with very closely had news of the death of his brother. A group was going to meet him and pray, I was asked to go as well. I didn’t manage to. This was on the way to a meeting with Social Action—the government branch that is responsible for preschools. It’s so easy to talk about sustainability and structural organization, and it’s so hard to put it into action. So its good the government has such branches. Senhor Felizardo, the technical guy for Social Action, had a lot of great ideas of how to get communities involved in the preschools. I think I need those sorts of conversations to re-animate me and inspire me to keep at these sorts of community organization tactics.

Speaking of re-animation, I had a call during that meeting this morning that one of the preschool teachers I work with is in “reanimação”, meaning intensive care. Literally, it means re-animation. Cases that are admitted to intensive care here start at a much less serious state than they would in the developing world. Basically it means that in the normal part of the hospital, care is minimal (see Brooke’s blog), but the doctor passes by once a day and thus it’s better than being at home. (otherwise it’s probably actually worse because you don’t have your family nearby to feed you and bath you and take you to the toilet). Anyway, my friend, Ines, had a premature birth, the baby died, the placenta wouldn’t come out, they operated in a rural hospital, brought her by ambulance to Chimoio, she lost a lot of blood they are helping her to “re-animate” by giving her blood and keeping her on an IV, and the entire situation is pretty not good.

After my meeting I walked to the supermarket with my two friends Capassura and Felix. I bought groceries, feeling guilty about paying my $20 bill in front of the two of them. But then we went to my house and had tea and bread and they were probably glad for the groceries. (no I didn’t pay $20 just for tea and bread). I painted two pots that we’ll give to the preschools as toys (see picture) before the husband of Ines called. He’s the director of the primary school at an Anglican mission (in Zove). I went into town to meet him and then we talked for about an hour about the school there, about the problems they have with the nurse who drinks too much and causes a lot of problems, about how the director planted lots of cashew trees last year and they are already producing, and various other topics.

Then realizing that our MCC Rep wasn’t coming by and wasn’t bring a truck for us to use, I got a bus and then started walking to a church that has a preschool I worked with some last year. About halfway there(after going down the hill and before going up the next hill), the pastor called and postponed the meeting until tomorrow. I turned around to walk to a taxi rank so I could go pick up another sick friend, Liliana, and bring her to our house for a few days of our own “re-animation”. (feeding her liver and beans, fruit juice and yogurt, whatever she wants to gain back some strength. She is anemic and has some other sort of blood disease called elosomia though I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet. Anyway know?) But when I called her she said actually people were coming to pray for her so it would have to wait until tomorrow. Foiled again, I decided to buy some liver at the meat place and then visit Ines in the re-animação. I bought some firm, bright red mangos on the way to the hospital. It wasn’t visiting hours, but I batted my eyelashes and the young male nurse let me see her. She was okay, not great obviously, but we chatted for a bit and I prayed for her.

It was nice to come home, splash myself with some cold water (at this point in the day, the only point that I wanted water to come out of the shower, none came), and then eat some beans and bread. I read my Bible about how Jesus got sassy with the Pharisees. I read through the contract that my landlord brought by—two months after we moved in. I ate a mango (it was perfect). And then I sat down to write this, smelling the bleach that Brooke’s spraying the mold with, and hearing the song “killing me softly with his song”.