Category: Countries

For most of my friends back home, going to the bathroom does not elicit major emotions. Showering, use of the toilet, and many other mundane tasks are things that just happen because they are part of the day. There is nothing extraordinary about it.

The Way Things Were
Here, for a long time, this simple action has been a significant ordeal. Living upstairs in a dormitory with toilets downstairs meant that we needed to get down there for all of the normal bathroom things. With the building in which we were living still under construction, our first method of getting down there required the use of a ladder, built from spare planks of wood.

Using a ladder was a novel way of accessing the different levels of our building, and on reflection was a better method than the stairs which came along next. This was because the stairs were built on the outside of the building, requiring us to brave the elements on every sojourn. Pouring rain, freezing temperatures, and mud everywhere all helped to dampen our desire to use the bathroom too often.

On top of all of this, we needed to grope around in the dark during the night for two keys which would first unlock the door at the top of the stairs, being very noisy and difficult to open, and then unlock the second door underneath the stairs to get into the lower level of the building. This door was very difficult to close without slamming and waking up everyone above it.

Our Own Bathroom
So when we moved into our current little house, it was an absolute wonder to have a bathroom, even though it was only a toilet and we needed to fill up buckets of water to flush it. Over time our little bathroom has evolved, from just a toilet to a toilet with a seat on it, and then a toilet that is fastened to the floor and sealed to prevent the odors floating through the house. Things were looking great.

We found a hand basin in the garbage at one point and rescued it to put in our evolving bathroom. The cracks in the basin didn’t leak and the tap still worked, so it quickly found a home on the wall. Then we decided to get more serious about our little room. Walking over to the building during the middle of winter for a shower was not a wonderful experience, and we had water here, so there seemed to be no reason why we could not have a shower here too. It did not take long before we had put in a shower too.

A Few Remaining Problems
Now, with what we all consider to be a very classy shower, a toilet that flushed, and a hand basin, we had a bathroom. No more journeys across the yard for a shower, no more unlocking of multiple doors to access the toilet. Life had become pretty comfortable, except for a few problems still.

Our bathroom floor had holes and lumps all over it, letting the water pool from our shower. After cleaning the water from our shower, we discovered that our toilet also leaked water onto the floor. By this time too its cistern did not work any more so we had to reach in and lift the plunger for it to flush, waiting until the water had gone before replacing the plunger back over the hole.

So no matter what we did, water remained on the floor of the bathroom, even if we cleaned and dried it every shower. Additionally, a reddish sand continually collected on our feet when we were in the bathroom, obviously coming from the floor and the walls. At this point we decided to go the extra mile.

The New Classy Bathroom
Now our bathroom sports painted walls, the paint stopping any of the sand from the walls appearing any more, and a tiled floor. The tiled floor actually drains the water from the shower into the drainhole. Now this may not be startling to many people, but after living with a shower in which the floor seemed to drain the water away from the drain hole, this is just a delight. In fact the first time I ran the shower, I simply stood there and stared at the water as it all went down the drain. It was like a little miracle taking place.

When we walk into our bathroom now, with the smooth tiled floor, finally dry, it feels a million dollars. Using our new ceramic toilet cistern – in place of the old plastic one – and it flushes without effort by simply pressing the button on top, it seems like magic. Looking at the floor and seeing it dry even after a day or two, with no more stepping around pools of water, breathes relief into our beings. Seeing how wonderful the whole thing looks, is comfort to our eyes.

Yes. We are certainly living comfortably with our newly evolved classy bathroom. And what a pleasure it is too.

Well, it was hardly alien, but the death-ray part is pretty accurate, since it killed a lot of things. Late last week, when I had just returned home from a bout of travel, I woke up to a nasty green looking sky. It was obvious that something was not right, and when I looked outside there was a very ominous looking storm heading our way. In the distance was a lot of electrical activity, but it was still a fair way from us yet. That is why what happened next surprised me so much.

Leaving my house, I wandered down to the neighbouring home, only moments away. No sooner had I entered the house than our property was struck by lightning. The death ray. Only 30 metres away is our larger teaching building (this is the mission site where I live and work) with a telephone antennae on top of it. A strong, thick bolt of lightning struck this very rod.

Even today, many days after the event, we are working out just how much damage it has caused. It would be safe to say that virtually anything electronic was burned, damaged, destroyed, or otherwise rendered unusable. For example, today a telephone technician came out to fix the tower and discovered that not only the signal box was blown, which is the normal part that blows in a lightning strike, but also the antennae itself and the cable connecting it.

With everything now connected by telephone lines and network cables, it did not take long for the super-juiced cables to start frying everything they touched. The central telephone system, only recently purchased, was hit so hard that it melted in several places, and the phone cable entering it from the tower was charcoaled and severed by the electrical force.

Other spectacular damages were also wrought in items such as a network card of one computer that literally blew up and exploded inside the computer, leaving a hole in the middle of the chip. The network hub had a lovely burned smell to it, and upon opening there were melted parts all over the place.

The rest of the damages have been things that you cannot really see but it just doesn’t work any more. Things such as computers that won’t start any more, network cards that don’t work, browning marks (signs of massive heating) on chips, and more. Only a few people survived without any damages at all.

Because I had only just returned from travelling, all of my gear was safely packed away still. This has allowed me to focus my work on fixing the damaged equipment. This work will keep me busy for another week yet. So if you are wondering where are the stories, then wonder no more. I have a few ready to post, but without Internet have been unable to do so. Hopefully sometime this week we will be connected once again.

But now you know what happened… an Alien Death Ray killed our Internet.

There are only two days to go before we all head off to Buenos Aires for a national conference of everybody that calls themselves part of YWAM in Argentina. As such, my time is very limited in what is still left for me to complete, so the nights are getting longer and the mornings earlier.

To support these extended days, coffee becomes a required beverage. So this morning I thought I would make myself the standard cup of coffee, as I have been in the habit of doing every morning. In this place, there are two ways to boil water. One is with gas, but this is not very convenient as the nearest gas stove is on the other property and requires that I support gas costs even with minimal use. The other uses an electric heater, just as you would find in your electric kettle or jug. Ours is not in a jug however, but instead is a low-cost, highly-portable camping-style unit. Great for any sort of heating with liquids.

The Durability of Electric Heaters
One of the problems with these things is that the cable melts after extended use. They also burnout at the head – the very part you use to hold them – quite spectacularly at times with a big noise and great sparks followed by lots of smoke. All of these behaviours generally happen while using the heater as you would expect to use it. So when one of them showed incredible stamina I was greatly impressed.

With these things burning out even while immersed in water the general expectation was immediate burnout if ever plugged in while dry. One day, needing a power socket, I unplugged the unused CD player which had a plug and cable very similar to a heater. After using the socket I plugged the CD player back in but did not realise that I had inadvertently plugged in the heater that was hanging on the wooden wall above.

Continuing with my work on the other side of the room, it took a number of minutes before I became aware of a flickering light to my side. Looking over, our wall was on fire. The heater, still plugged in, was glowing so hot that it had passed all colours of red and moved into a bright and light coloured yellow. Around it flames were leaping out of the charred wall.

I raced to disconnect it and the flames quickly disappeared once I pulled the heater away. After that display, the heater had its shiny chromed surface destroyed, a few protruding wires from its cable, and obvious melting of the plastic head. But it still worked! This was incredible.

Back to the Morning
That old faithful heater finally burnt out a few months ago, but lasted almost a year, working faithfully. Another one took its place afterwards, but burnt out very quickly. It was just the wires inside the head, and were easily fixed. But this heater obviously had a problem and kept burning out the wires in the head until I finally replaced them with wire that was four times thicker. There has been no problems since.

Boiling water with these things is reasonably quick, but often takes just a little longer than is reasonable to wait and watch. So instead, if you start it heating, then do something quick, you can return to a hot cup of water, ready for coffee. Unfortunately, at times you can get distracted and return to a cup that is boiling quite profusely. As most of my work is on a computer nearby, I hear the water boiling before it gets excessive.

Today I didn’t. Music was playing loudly and I was focused in my work. Somehow I managed to be distracted just enough to see steam pouring out everywhere from my mug with the inserted heater. Racing over, I discovered that I was moments from disaster. The water was all over the bench, and very little remained in the mug.

Refilling my mug, I tried again to boil some water for a coffee but somehow managed to repeat my first mistake. The third time it almost happened again, but there remained enough water for a drink. I decided to cut my losses and make a coffee using what was left. Now I am feeling better.

It took three attempts to boil water. I often tell people that I don’t know how to cook. Their response is to say that if I know how to boil water then I know how to cook.

Hmmm, I think this is pretty good proof.

I had only just arrived the night before (17th Nov), and woke up to an unusual bluish-green light at 8am in the morning. There was a lot of activity going on outside as I went through my morning routines. From the clouds overhead it looked like it was going to rain, and by the colour of the light I was guessing that it would rain pretty hard too. Not that this was too uncommon here, but little did we expect what was coming.

As the first drops of rain started, I left my house and headed toward the main office area, stopping in to say hi to Mary and David, our base directors. I had only just arrived when there was a massive flash of lightning and the tell-tale crack of thunder that occurred simultaneously. It had hit us. I literally jumped off the ground for a moment. Realising the damaging potential of such a close strike of lightning, we quickly ran around the house unplugging things in case of more and checking if they smelled burned. The electricity had been cut at the same moment, so our current checks were only guesses at best.

After guessing that perhaps the television had sufferred some damage, I moved on to the base house, home to a number of people, our visitor’s lounge room and guest room, and the main computer office. The rain started to fall down very hard. So hard in fact, that I had not seen rain like it for years.

Hard rain.

On returning indoors, I started to sort out some of the stuff in the house, on the off chance that there may be some water leak through the walls or something. Little did I know that the whole place was about to flood. Just as I had finished the computer office, ensuring that most things were up reasonably high, I felt something cold around my feet. It was the most unexpected feeling. Looking down, there was water running around and past my feet, moving into the house at a cracking pace. By the time that I had called for help, the entire living room was inundated, and it only took a minute more before there was water throughout the entire house.

The flooded house.

We had created a concrete footpath outside which acted as a leevy bank, but with such strong rain, the water did not have time to follow its normal courses and ended up flowing over the top. From here, our house was unprotected. The floor was built too low, and is scheduled to be raised shortly, although this is dependent on raising sufficient funds for the job. When this is done then there should be no more flooding.

Flooded leevy/footpath.

There were only two of us at first, working desperately to ward off the ever deepening water and at the same time trying to lift up all of the clothes, mattresses, and other damageable items that were resting on the floor in one way or another. Eventually more and more people came. It turned out that the flooding was not just in this house, but in our larger building too. By this time the water was running through the house and it was starting to feel more like a river than a hallway or kitchen.

Kitchen with water pouring through it during the flooding.

Looking down the main hallway to the back of the house. Water was everywhere.

Squeegees, brooms, boards, and all sorts of items were put to use to try and curb the tide of water that had inundated the house. It was a lot of hard and very urgent work. None of it seemed to make any difference, however hard we worked. It was only when Oscar came to the rescue with his shopping bag based sandbags placed at the points of entry. When this was done we started to get the flood under control. Nobody thought of this beforehand however, probably because we were all so frantic at trying to keep the water at bay in certain critical places.

Oscar and Davis carry the sandbag to stop the flooding.

Putting the first sandbag down in the flooded doorway.

With the sand bags in place, the emergency was soon over and we were able to start cleaning up the mess that the water had left in its wake. There was even time to stop and survey the damages that had occurred during the whole process. Not only had we been hit by the lightning, but the flood too.

Adam cleaning the water out of the kitchen.

Paul standing in the doorway, surveying the flooding outside.

When everything was mostly over, the combination of rain and working with the water had left virtually everybody saturated, to the point that they did not care anymore about the floodwaters around them. So once the house had been cleaned out, and there was no more danger nor urgency to the work, all of the boys decided that their work was done and headed off to find themselves some fun.

Oscar after the emergencies had died down.

Isaac decides that a swim was in order after being so wet.

This was provided by an old rubber football and a bunch of energy, as half a dozen of the lads got physical in the one to two feet of floodwaters coursing through the back of our property. It seemed that nothing could deter these guys from having some good fun after all that had happened, and even though the water was mixed in with flooded sewage and countless other nasties, it was all forgotten as they dived and plunged after one and another in a game that resembled something more similar to bowling than football.

Chasing each other with the ball.

Just after a good takle that took them both down.

When the electricity returned later in the day, we discovered that there were many things that died during this one burst of lightning. So it has certainly marked itself off as a day to remember. The best part of it all was that nobody was hurt in any way. For that aspect alone we are all rejoicing. The rest can be fixed or replaced.