We arrived on Saturday the 10th, and were greeted at our home by a friend and coworker who happened to bring us soup for our dinner. What a wonderful treat! We got all of our bags in our house, looked around briefly, and ate our supper before getting ready for bed. Abby adjusted her sleep schedule perfectly from day 1, and slept like a baby the first night in her room. Denise and I unpacked every night from 9 until midnight or later.
Sunday morning we were greeted by our wonderful utility companies with cuts! Both water and power were out at 7am
No water and no power all day. Power returned around 8pm, water pressure came on around midnight. We weren't prepared so we simply had to go in our fridge even though there was no power (a no-no in hot season as things in the fridge spoil easily).
Once again, we were bailed out by an amazing friend in our time of need. I had just gotten my phone set up with a local number and Denise's best friend called me to say they were beinging pizza for our family. Thank you God for truly amazing friends. Thank you God for knowing our need even when we fail to ask.
We are in an area of town known for frequent power and water cuts. Other than the first day, the power has been pretty good! There has been the occasional outage, usually lasting no longer than an hour. But water for our first week was a challenge. We found we had a trickle of water at our hose pipe by the meter for most of the day. But we rarely had enough water pressure during the day to get any water to come out of any sinks inside our house. This is due to the heavy demand as everyone else in the neighborhood was also using water. We had enough water to wash dishes at midnight. We could take a shower around 1am. I had to do bucket baths my first 5 days. We filled every empty container we had available for washing hands, flushing toilets when necessary, and other essentials. We do have a cistern holding 55 gallons of water and use it for washing hands and dishes when we needed to.
Let me also describe drinking water. We use a filter to clean our drinkable water. There is one plumbed to the house that we were going to rely on for our drinking water supply. But with no water pressure it didn't work. Our first night I stayed up until 230 am filling up the 12 1.5 liter containers we had used for drinking water that day!
Another blessing, when we first came to West Africa we packed as if we would live in the bush. One thing we packed for bush living was a katadyn filter that stands alone. By the first night I had found it and on day 2 we began to prepare it for use (they need charging when they are brand new). Now we have drinkable water throughout the day with no worry of running out!
So we have spent the days mostly playing with the kids and adjusting to the heat. Abby started to have frequent nosebleeds. Denise made a saline spray and a teammate brought us a tube of vaseline so that we could make her nose more moist. Treating her nose with both of these have made her frequent nosebleeds much less frequent. She would have had 5 or more nosebleeds during the day her first 3 days. After day 3 maybe she has had 2 in the last week. Praise God we were able to address this issue.
Have we mentioned how hot it is here? Daily temps rise to about 110 or so. So keeping Josh hydrated has been a concern of ours. We discussed supplementing nursing with cool water in a baby bottle and have been doing that after feedings. Josh likes this and will usually even hold the bottle while he drinks. Abby likes flavored popsicles and I asked if there was a way Josh could get his own icicle. Turns out Denise has a teething popsicle net that will pop open and has room for a 1 inch cube of ice. Sucking on that has made Josh so happy! He seems to be doing much better with staying hydrated and having wet diapers again.
It has taken Josh longer to adjust to our new time zone. He liked going to bed at 2am ea h night of our first week. By day 7 he seemed to finally get on the right schedule. He is still waking up at night to feed. His sleep schedule seems to be getting better every day.
By day 5 we pretty much had our kitchen and clothes unpacked and set up. Abby has been finding toys and books from our time in Africa last year. Each day she finds something else and acts like it is Christmas! It has been fun to see and I know has helped her with the adjusting. We have a swing and some of her outside toys setup so she can play the games she has always enjoyed playing. And she has been so good playing with Josh when we are occupied with our own tasks.
There was a family of cats that took shelter under our vehicle under our carport. We found them on day 1 and Abby loved holding the baby kittens (3 weeks old?). Mama cat moved her 3 babies the next day to keep her kittens from curious 4 yeal old giants who love to hold and pet her babies. It was probably wise as our vehicle was going to be a danger to them.
I am writing this on day 11. Today we felt like our house is mostly unpacked and functioning. We have our list of things to purchase and things to fix. But we are making great progress in settling in and adjusting to our new home!
Thank you for praying for us!
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