...time......work......reflections.......

Time..........the proof that we are strangers here......... I'm amazed that it's been so long since I posted. I have lots of thoughts running around inside my head, some floating, some swimming.......and I think I will tell you about it. Then things happen, and time is gone, we are going here or there and suddenly it's days and weeks..........time...........I've never got along very well with it.......never have liked it......never have figured it out very well.........fought with it practically my whole life. I think I have finally made peace with it, though. I try to just let it do it's thing, reminding myself that it does not go fast or slow, it is steady. If it seems to be tearing along at break-neck speed, that's fine........I have my eye set on a timeless goal, and I will enjoy what comes or doesn't come.......... (I'm going to stop my philosophizing. Sorry)

One day while Roger was repairing something in another part of a missionary house, I worked on the ironing board cover. Funny thing here........the elders use......well, let me backup. Nearly all missionaries use their ironing board. The sisters I've noticed use it for a shelf--books, makeup, toiletries.........the elders have the iron on it and use it for ironing. Kind of surprised me, but it makes sense when I think about it......a wrinkled white shirt with a tie looks LOTS worse than a wrinkly, crinkly top with a wrinkly linen skirt. Soooooo.........I know these elders use this to iron their shirts, for I caught them at it one day. And the cover was a mess........so here is my "fix". I wanted something I could do no matter what the board was made of. It's not perfect, but it's lots better than it was, and I think they were grateful. Anyway, that afternoon Roger bought a stapler. We'll be back here one day and I'll make it better.

 I was waiting for Roger one day and watching these men......they are sitting on what looks like swings hanging from the top of the building, and they are washing the tiles!!! not the windows! With soap and a scrub brush!! This building is practically right on the beach, so I wondered if the salt spray has to be washed off regularly??

  Sometimes I cringe when I see how hard people work here. I have seen very little "heavy" equipment and lots of shovels..........with men on the end of them! There are wide expanses of grass here....well, along the "Avenidas", which are all divided, with grass and occasionally a canal down the middle, or a small play area, or a monument to someone. But no tractors with lawn mowers! Crews of men, dressed in green coveralls with hats and face shields. Gloves are optional. Two or three are holding a screen made of some fabric (looks rather flimsy to me, but it must work) along the curb while a couple of other men use over-sized weed-eaters like scythes, swinging them back and forth, cutting the grass right down to the dirt. Coming along behind are several others with rakes! Yeah......they hand rake it all up and put it in bags........I wonder if they are ever done. I just don't have my camera out in time to get the pictures I really want, but you can see the expanse of grass.........

 ...and all along the roads are white curbs......which they paint by hand. I watched them outside our apartment building one day........a man with a broom went ahead.....sweeping the gutter. The painters came next, followed by a man with a barrel of paint.

I've also noticed people--men and women--pushing a garbage can, sweeping the gutters and using a shovel as a dustpan. It gives me pause just to think about all the manual labor that goes on here......... They are taking out the sidewalk just down the street from us here. They started last Friday--five days ago. They had a small jack-hammer, or a large hammer-drill--depending on your experience. But they didn't use it much. Most of the work was done with regular old-time picks! They threw the bigger pieces of cement into a dumpster kind of thing and shoveled the smaller stuff into a bucket and dumped it with the pieces. I thought, at home they would have hired a "bobcat" or "skid-steer" and had it out in an afternoon. I don't know if they have it all out yet......... It all just makes me stop and think some. Grateful that these men have work to do, but feeling so badly that they have to work so hard. Life is hard here, for most people. I'm pretty sure I think nearly everyone is older than they really are.......... we are, well, Roger is working to get contracts set up for some new missionary apartments. We went to meet a man and talk about one of them yesterday morning. Later, Roger asked me to guess his age. I was off by nine years!!! And as I pay closer attention, I'll bet I do that with lots of people.

I don't want this to get too long......and I've already written more than you will want to read.