Category: YWAM

Well, it has been several days now… well weeks actally since we started to try and set up our bathroom. You see, we moved into this uncompleted house and thought it would be a great thing to have a working bathroom.

What we inherited was a small room with an elevated floor and a toilet base sitting loosely on the sewage pipe. A tap out of the wall should have supplied the water for our bucket flushing system, but it was broken so we retrieved our water from the kitchen sink – which just happens to be a concrete washing tub.

So, after finding and extracting an old hand basin from the rubbish, and buying lots of other bits and pieces, we now are close to having a working bathroom.

Most showers here consist of something like a toilet cistern with a kettle heating element in it. This is plugged into the nearest power socket and heats up the water that you have in there. When it is hot enough, you mix some more cold water to get the temperature you want and then stand under the shower head that protrudes from the base of the side. Pressure is not great, but it works.

Our shower is the next level up, where we have a powerhead attached to the head of the pipe that sits above our head. Two big fat electric wires carry the current needed by this device to heat the water instantly, so it hits our bodies below at a lovely warm or hot temperaure. This is called the “Super” shower, and is quite a luxury. Ours will be the first of its kind on the YWAM base here.

Now, as it is with every job like this, we went and bought all the bits that we needed only to discover when we tried to use them that half of them don’t work or are missing bits. So our hopes of having the shower ready today did not work. Of course, with the hopes of getting a “Super” shower a number of us are holding off on having a shower amongst the crowds in the old bathrooms… but this has been going on for about three days so far. Some of us are getting a little smelly. If we don’t get this shower working tomorrow then there will be a few more people in line for the next shower under the old kettles.

Putting a shower into a house with brick and concrete walls is not all that simple. It involves chiselling out a channel for the pipes to go, and then covering it all back over with concrete… and hoping that it never leaks. The bricks we use here are thin walled at least and so once we are through the first layer of concrete it gets a little easier to make the holes. There is a great mess of concrete and brick on the floor however. Demolition is always a lot of fun.

As it stands now, we have a bathroom with a hand basin, a toilet with a cistern, and a “Super” shower, all sitting on the wall and ready to be connected. There is no water or pipes running to them yet. Tomorrow should sort out all of those minor problems.

Tonight, I wired up the shower and bathroom light. This involves simply running the thick wires from the shower to the nearest other thick wires. Once there, you cut through the insulation and wrap the wires together and seal them off with electrical tape. Nothing more. Couldn’t be easier really.

So tomorrow we plan to have a bathroom. Working, that is. Our toilet is sealed, and our hand basin mounted and plumbed. With the water pipes connected and in place, we throw some concrete around on the wall and it is finished. Three days of work, and three weeks of procrastination. Supa Ducha (Super shower) here we come!

Our Park
We have a park nearby to us which has not changed very much over the last year that I have been here. Broken lights, broken swings, no paint left on anything, overgrown pathways, and more broken bits and pieces. Rubbish adds to this scene, strewn as it is over every part of the grass.

Now I do not understand how the grass itself always remains short over the whole park, as I have never seen anyone actually cutting it. It could be that all of the stray horses and other animals are providing a natural cutting service, or perhaps it is happening when I am not nearby. In any case, this is one redeming feature about it and means that it is still useable.

There are many horses in our neigborhood.

Fixing Broken Things
There has been many discussions between Chris and I about the possibility of fixing this old park up one day. We have considered that it would not take a lot of effort, and if we involved the students also then it would be even easier. With a newly restored park, it could well become even more of a center point of family life to what it is.

It was only the other day that I decided that I would actually do it. Moving from the talking-about-it phase into the actually-about-to-do-it phase sometimes takes a while. I know for me it did. But now I am ready to do something about it… or I was.

Sleeping Dogs Waking Up
Talking with one of the people on the base I discovered that I am not the first person who wanted to do this, nor the first who was about to try it either. Not too long before I arrived here in Corrientes another young guy went over to the park and started the process of fixing things. He never made it very far.

Within the first moments of starting the process, he was approached by some people from the houses adjoining the park. They promptly informed him that although his intentions may be good, there was a committee assigned to do this sort of work.

This committee was formed out of a number of different local families and outside help was definitely unwanted. If he continued it was indicated that there would be some sort of consequence for his actions. So the park remained as it was.

One of the better park playgrounds during a very busy local event.

My Dilemma
The irony of this is that no work ever gets done on the park. There appears to be a strong political stronghold on this whole area, and as a result the park remains broken and derelict.

So what do I do now? Do I go ahead and try again, or let sleeping dogs lie?

Well, not being one that likes to give up easily, I am about to wage a war. Hopefully it will all turn out good in the end. My intentions are to start the process of fixing the park anyway, and wait for the inevitable intervention. When this occurs, I hope to try and find some agreeable way to continue my work. But this is where the crunch comes.

What Then…
If there is no agreeable way to continue my work, what do I do? Well, perhaps it is best to wait until that moment comes before making a decision. But for now, I am off to improve a park.

After much debating about the merits of getting one or not, and especially with the expectation that I may leave within 6 months, I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a decent wardrobe. Lehman and I were both in desperate need of somewhere to put our stuff, and this has provided us with the perfect solution.

At first we both wanted something very cheap, but after three weeks of trying to get a set of shelves built, we decided to look around at what was available. For the price we wanted, it was impossible to find anything worthwhile. Most of the stuff we saw was like a doll’s house wardrobe that had been enlarged. All of it was very crude and basic.

Instead of giving up or settling for something like that, we decided to extend our view. The next option was to get something more realistic… something made of real wood.

A shop just down the road provided exactly what we needed. Some quick drawings to explain the design we wanted, some deposit money, and we were committed. New wardrobes were coming.

Now we have them. Almost expected, they arrived just under a week after the promised delivery time, but it was worth the wait. These things are made of solid timber, and are so heavy that two strong guys where struggling to carry them to our room.

With all of our stuff sorted out and stuck inside them, we now have a totally clean and neat room – a complete contrast to our roommates – and easy access to it all too. I am just so very very happy now. The addition of this one little item has made life so much more comfortable, and I feel that for the first time since arriving in Corrientes I have actually “moved in”. How awesome. I have a home. 🙂

Well for the past few days I have been really ill. After a series of late nights brought on because I could not sleep, I finally came to the point of exhaustion. That was when the worst of it hit me. That night was a sleepless night of some quite fearful random dreams and oscilations between being freezing and sweating profusely.

The night over, I found myself exhausted and surprisingly without a fever. My day consisted of lying on the bed, drifting into and out of a sleep that was still greatly disturbed by temperature fluctuations and bizarre dreams. Occasionally I would be visited by a friend but found it difficult to talk as the effort was huge.

Somewhere late in the afternoon, after almost two hours of uninterrupted sleep, I was encouraged to enjoy the last rays of sunshine. So with great effort and a spinning head I staggered my way over towards the main building. I never made it. At least not that attempt. My spinning head worsened with every step and I soon had to sit down or I would have fallen.
Continue reading “An Exotic Ilness”

Well it certainly is a dog’s paradise here in Corrientes. There are dozens of wild and freely roaming dogs around here. Some of them do not get fed at home. Some of them do not have a home.

What this means, is that these dogs go hunting for food and the best place that they have found it is hidden inside the bags of rubbish that we throw out each day.

Restoring order after the chaos.

Continue reading “A Dog’s Paradise”

I guess I should have done it earlier… but it never seemed to be that important really. Now I realise how important it was. A new mattress.

Since arriving here almost a year ago, I was allocated one of the worst mattresses in the place. I never actually chose the mattress as such, just took the one left over after everyone else chose the better ones. Some people were able to use two mattresses, but there were not sufficient for me to do that as well. So I stuck with my one old mattress.

The problem with all of this was that my mattress was very thin. So thin in fact that I could always feel every wood slat underneath me. Most nights, I would simply place my hip into one of the gaps between the wood and fall asleep. It seemed to work out quite well that way.

But lately I have been wondering if this has been affecting my sleep. It has certainly helped me to be able to sleep on the hard concrete floors that I have encountered during various outreaches and visits to houses full of students over my time here. However, the idea of having something that most people take for granted was starting to take a hold of me, and eventually I decided that it was time to buy myself a mattress.

So now I have a new mattress. It is huge compared to the older thin one that I have been using. There is a certain pleasure in being able to lie on my matress and not feel the wooden slats below. It is quite a joy indeed. But the best part of it all, is that last night, my first night ever on this new large mattress, I slept the best that I have slept in a long time.

Why did I wait so long to buy something like this?

The conclusion. Mattresses matter.

Comparing the small mattress on top with the new one that I have just bought (below it).

Today it is raining. Yesterday it was raining too. That is about all it takes here before there is a flood. Lots and lots of rain. Mind you, that is all it takes in most places for it to flood. Most floods are quick and small, and they disappear as fast as they came. This one was no different, although it still has not stopped raining.

Even though the water was up very high, our new wall kept the water out of our base building.

Fortuanately for us, there is no serious problem for our base and buildings, as we have made many changes to the place now and our flood wall, the newest addition, worked very effectively. However, our neighbour suffered considerably, and had to punch holes in the wall of his house to let out the water that had flooded it.

Cautious from the damage I had caused to my last camera when taking photos in the rain (the LCD screen died), I went out with an umbrella to protect my gear and then took a bunch of photos to try and give an impression of what we were experiencing. The locals tell me that this is the worst they have ever seen it.

Our dirt road was carved up in some large washouts, the sewerage system was overflowing onto the streets, the drain storms were inundated, and parts of the street were completely covered in water. It was very impressive to see the power of nature in effect.

Even though we survived this flood, our neighbour’s house was filled with water. You can see the water running strongly down the right side of his house where the front door is located.

In spite of all of this, people continued to go about their daily business. Shop owners found a way to collect the bread they need every day, buses still rolled down the road, albeit slowing down for each of the deeper water holes and the washouts, and there were people to get on and off the buses. It was business as usual.

Well, not quite. Our new kindergarten was empty today when not one child turned up due to the heavy rains and localised flooding – a rare situation indeed. Compared to dry days or even normal wet days the number of people outside was cut down to the bare minimum. It was a bleak and rainy day. The students also, simply stood out on the back patio and looked through the sheets of rain out over the waters. There was not much more they could do.

A nearby street was far deeper in water than ours. The fountain in the foreground is the overflowing sewerage system, overwhelmed by the amount of water trying to flow through it.

But, just as fast as it arrived, when the rain stopped, it was almost all gone again within a few hours, leaving a mushy and muddy ground for the next day or two as it dries. As I write this tonight it is raining again, although lightly. If we get some more heavy rain then the waters could easily rise again quickly over the already saturated land, although it is unlikely. It was large thunderstorms that brought this huge flood last night and this morning. Now they are only rain clouds.

So although we are wet and drying out, all is well in this part of the world, and we are in a good situation. Only six months ago things would have been very different, but we are making good progress on establishing this base and fixing up the most significant areas of need.

Enjoy the photos that follow. Rob.
Continue reading “My World is a Flood”