Late nights

On Friday Fany and I were outside talking when I heard the television make that fuzzy sound it makes when the cable goes out and there's just snow on the screen.  I didn't think much of it until later when none of us had cable.

Fany thought for sure a cat had tugged on the wire since cats are always walking on our roofs.  (That's one of the things that happens when the huge wall around your house is higher than your roof.  It freaks Jetty out every time we hear a cat pounce down onto the roof.  I've gotten used to it.  The mangoes, however, are much louder.  Glad they are seasonal.)

I was less hopeful than Fany about cat interference.  We have had free cable since I first moved to Honduras.  The lady who lived here before me took her internet modem back to the company but they never turned off the cable line.  For 3 & 1/2 years nobody has paid for cable.  Maybe I should have had more of a conscience, but I couldn't bring myself to go to the company and ask them to please start charging me.  Plus Fany's house is on the account, so anything I did would effect her.

Fany climbed up on the roof Saturday but couldn't find any wires disconnected.  Santos climbed up Sunday and found two cable lines cut off at the pole.  (Literally cut.  No wonder this country has so many cable wires hanging around!.)

Typical telephone pole in Honduras

So, we are without cable.  Today we went to the mall to shop around at different cable companies but ended up only going to one place because they were having a special promotion.  For $16 we get a million channels.  More than I will ever watch.  Plus news from Denver so now my Mom doesn't need to give me the weather report every time she talks to me because if I want to know the weather in Denver, I can look for myself.  (My Mom is obsessed with the weather in CO.  I keep waiting for it to wear off, but now she has been there three years and it hasn't slowed down a bit.)  On top of that they offer 100 minutes each month of free calls to other phones on the same plan.  I hardly ever use my phone so Fany is going to receive the 100 free monthly minutes.  She is excited about that.

Last night the water came at midnight which meant Fany and I started washing laundry at 1 a.m., after our tanks were part way full.  We have taken to watering the grass with water that comes out of the washing machine hose.  Good thing our washing machines are outside or the grass and trees would be  dead by now.

Also, Fany's sister has been in labor since Saturday.  Yesterday afternoon Fany came over in tears, which I have never seen before, because she thought her sister was going to die.  I assured her that everything seemed to be normal, as far as we knew.  Finally last night as we were washing the driveway and the front patio, the baby was born at 2 a.m. which meant the family was sending photos and we were both hyper.  I didn't sleep until 5 a.m. and today she told me she didn't either.

Fany's sister lives in the US.  Throughout the day Saturday and Sunday we had lots of time to talk about the difference between hospitals in the US and public hospitals in Honduras.  Fany kept waiting for her sister to have a cesarean and die.  In Honduras apparently the doctors will start cutting you open without even telling you.  I assured Fany that in the US they try to tell you as much as they can each step of the way.

I thought I had a good idea about how things work in the public hospital here.  During my visit with the team in 2008 I spent most of the week in the maternity ward of one, which is not the worst at all, but to me it was unimaginable.  After giving birth the women lay on beds with no water, no pain reliever, no ice packs, no diapers - the ladies had NOTHING, not even bed sheets or a pillow.  They all shared on big room with about 25 "beds" that were not really beds.  The next morning they were all told to leave at 11 a.m.  Even if they had just had a cesarean a few hours before.  It blew my mind.

Fany said that the people in the US were shocked that her sister didn't scream during her contractions.  Fany said that in Honduras you are not allowed to make any noise during labor - at the public hospitals at least.  I said how can that be?  She said if you make any fuss the nurses yell at you and say horrible things like, "Why are you screaming now?  You liked it when you got yourself in this situation."

She said the nurses in public hospitals don't work because they want to take care of people, they work to have a job.  And because they are often not paid for months on end and are treated pretty poorly overall, they don't care about bedside manner.  Fany said that while she was in the process of having Laura she watched a nurse tell a young girl to lean back.  The girl was sitting on a desk.  Then without saying a word the nurse shoved a sharp wooden thing into the young girl to get her water to break.  It worked.  The girl cried silent tears and Fany said she did too.  But neither dared make a sound as the tears dripped down their cheeks.

Anyway, we were both up until 5 or 6 a.m. between her new niece's arrival and the water coming in the middle of the night.  We will have to continue to do this until the water rationing stops.

I am grateful that I have a friend like Fany.  I was thinking a lot about that last night.  We come and go from each other's houses like family and we eat most of our meals together.  We basically are family, except by blood.  It's nice if you have to stay up at night to wash your clothes to have someone else to stay up with.

We won't have cable until Wednesday so I got some movies to entertain us tonight and tomorrow.  And there is always Chutes and Ladders.  Laura earned Chutes and Ladders last weekend by following her mother's instructions all day.  Every kid I know in the US has Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land.  Here board games are hard to find, as are puzzles, which are now Laura's favorite.  I found Chutes and Ladders at a second hand store.  I was really excited!  It is the original one, nice and strong and has all of the pieces.  I paid $5.  Probably could have paid less, but I was so excited I didn't feel like bartering.  Only now I realize that sometimes that game can go on for an eternity and even as a kid I remember it being frustrating.  But Laura loves it.

I am praying a lot about my meeting with Betsy, which is Friday.  A week from today I could be resuming full time ministry!