A Bucket Half Full

(by Colleen) Days in Panamá: 63

When the weather is at its hottest, it’s enough to make any sane person think of suicide. I just need to finish the dishes, then I´ll go cool off in the river, I thought to myself. I needed to fill my wash bucket half full for the dishes downstairs with the hose. To my surprise, no water. Great, I was about to give Kalea a bath too, and we don´t bath her with river water since she will surely swallow it. I´ll just wait a little bit. Usually when there is no water, it is for a short period of time. This means someone up the water line is using water (usually wasting it by leaving a faucet open!) or there is a leak. I´ll take the laundry off the line and put the laundry away while I wait. As I´m sorting clean clothes, I have an extreme itching sensation. Since I´m already covered in itchy chigger bumps this isn´t anything abnormal. I look down, great a tick! Poor Kalea needs a bath, I know she´s hot and is covered in food from her lunch. It must be 100 degrees. The irritability of the heat, the tick, and the itch set in. I hate the heat, I can´t live here! I begin to pray and ask, Why here? Why Panamá? How can I help anybody here?

Meanwhile, Alan drops Kalea off with the neighbor, and leaves to go check for leaks in the water line. He returns with no luck which means, there might be a problem higher up at the base of the system, a 2 hour hike away. We get ready to leave for the river to cool off. The sky opens up with a downpour of rain. The rivers too dirty now and at this point too dangerous. I begin to bath in the rain. I´m shivering now because its cold. I look over across the lawn at Alan who is also bathing. A good laugh breaks my solemnness of the previous events. God is good. It is the little things in life we take for granted. I guess I received volumes of water in a way I was not expecting. Now my wash bucket that was left out in the open is overflowing. Now I can go do my dishes.

We currently have running water! But it comes and goes. The system in this community is over 27 years old, and we are in the midst of raising funds to build a new one. Please pray for us, and if you would like more information on how you can help, please contact us!

it is a little known fact that hammocks actually function better when it´s raining