When Darin is away...

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It’s Tuesday morning. Darin is in Burundi; his first work trip of the year. Since Darin started traveling out of the country, we have discovered that Darin being away from home = something not so fun for Jonna and the kids to deal with. We have been without water, had lightning strike and destroy our Wi-Fi, and been stuck at home because of riots in the community.

Last night a storm came through and knocked out our power. This is not unusual and was not cause for much stress as the kids were both asleep and I had a little charger to run my fan. Then both kids woke up and said they were being eaten by mosquitoes and were too hot to sleep without fans. I set to work hooking up extension cords and fans to our solar generator; problem solved. Only the fans didn’t turn on. I basically told the kids to deal with it as it was very late, very dark and I was very crabby. For the rest of the night, often as I was about to drift off to sleep, one or both children would come into my room to use the toilet, complain about the heat, or apply more bug spray. I was less than kind as I do not like having my sleep interrupted and my power source had run out, which meant I had no fan to offer relief from the heat. The fan had also been blocking the noise of said children scurrying around the house as they tried sleeping on the sofa and opened the door to check on Nala. I woke up with a sore throat from yelling at them to please go to their rooms and just lay still and seriously STOP OPENING THE FREEZER to look for ice packs as the freezer needed to stay shut to keep it cold. It was not my finest night.

The power was still not on when we woke up. The freezer had started defrosting and water was pooling underneath it. I had another go at the solar generator as my phone battery was very low. I left a message for Darin asking him what I was doing wrong, but he had no solution. I then went out to try and start the gas generator that we store for Take Action in our garage. I have used it before but found that this generator also would not start. Again, Darin had no answer for me.

Once again, Darin is away from home and things are a bit chaotic. We are hoping the power will come on before noon, but this morning has still been a bit drizzly and we’ve been hearing thunder, so the power company might just decide that it isn’t worth fixing as another storm could be heading through.

Although our situation this morning is less than ideal, we have much to be thankful for:
  •          The swimming pool that kept the kids busy for an hour this morning
  •          A gas stove to heat water for coffee
  •         A fully charged computer that I can use to charge my phone
  •          Friends who will stop by to look at the generator
  •          A husband who stays patient when trying to explain complex things
  •          Kids who know where things are, like a little solar panel to charge the solar light!
  •         Bug spray
  •          Overcast skies and cooler temps this morning
  •          A brain that is awake enough to come up with offline homeschool work to keep the kids busy
  •          New mercies, the wisdom to say “I’m sorry” to my kids, and the knowledge that this too shall pass

* edited to add that it is now 2:30 in the afternoon. The power has come on twice only to go off again soon after we started school. Peet stopped in and got the generator to work (whoo-hoo), there has been more swimming fun, we did Bible and History offline and I realized I am not good at speaking “teen” and need to figure out how to make stuff interesting for them, and while we are a bit irritated with Eskom (Eish!!) we are doing just fine.

** now it is 6:20. The power has been back on for about 4 hours without going out! However, it is now raining again and there is thunder and lightning. We are hoping that the storm doesn't intensify enough to knock the power out again, but everything is fully charged, and it is cooler in the house, so we will make do!


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