Tad's Life

Well, the month of Ramadan is here. In fact, we’re 10 days into it. This is the yearly Muslim fast period. For one lunar month Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours. Now having a large breakfast at 5:30 in the morning and holding out until 7 PM before you eat again is really not that difficult for healthy adults. And the regulations allow you to skip a day if you are sick and make it up later.

But not drinking all day long is truly hard. No juice. No Coke. No water. Nothing. For the first few hours, you don’t notice it that much physically. But in the afternoon, folks start to get quite irritable and focused on the passing time until they can break the fast. Try it some time if you want to understand the dedication that being a good Muslim requires at this time of year. If you do, you will empathize more with those who try to nap at least part of the daylight hours away.

Now, when the weather is cool and your work is light, all of this is still fairly reasonable. But this year and in the next few years, with the shifting of the lunar months, Ramadan falls fully in Dakar’s hottest months. All of this week the relative humidity has been hanging in the vicinity of 95%. Temperatures were in the low 90s F. Working in the full sun, pouring sweat as you lift and dig and exert yourself. You can imagine that not being able to drink is a constant conscious act.

As Ahmet said in his sermon last week in Ouakam, there are many Muslims seriously seeking God. Pray that God will send them dreams like he did to Cornelius and open their eyes to His grace toward mankind in Jesus. Dedication and suffering in the name of God do not bring reconciliation with Him. Forgiveness and peace required a sacrifice and a holiness from outside our own efforts. Neither the Law of Moses nor the law of Islam can solve our spiritual dilemma.

In the heat, it’s not just those who are fasting who feel it, of course. All of us do. And I guess the power company decided we all needed to enjoy the experience to its fullest. It is amazing how little good a fan does when there is no power and how hard it is to sleep when you are sweating! This has been a week of power cuts both at the Phare and at home. In fact, the last few nights in Ouakam the voltage has slowly oscillated between 140V and 230V for an hour or so before it has completely cut out. It is a fascinating thing to hear all the fans in the house slow down to half speed and to have half the florescent lights go out and then 5 minutes later hear the fans come back to what seems like twice normal speed. Jonathan and I checked with my multimeter, though. It never was too high. We just got used to the low speed and dim light bulbs. Of course, if you’ve lived here long enough like me, when something like this happens you shout, “The fridge!!!!” and dash to the kitchen to turn off the poor suffering refrigerator. Compressor motors running at reduced voltages tend to work way too hard and can burn out. I got up at midnight the other night when the fan kicked on again and staggered out to the kitchen to reconnect our freezer and fridge.

All of this is not unusual for our lives, really. Over the years in Senegal we’ve gotten used to it. But we are feeling very badly for our new colleagues, the Toombs, who just came in Monday. First of all, they arrive in the midst of the hottest and most humid week of the year. Then, when we get back from the airport to the Phare, the power is cut. Worst of all, we have had to put them in one of the guest apartments because our old place wasn’t quite ready. The guest apartments have wonderful fans and all, but when the power is out, they don’t get good airflow. What a way to start your life in a new place!

By His kindness, the Lord did send rain storms several times through the middle of the week and that helped a great deal the last couple of days. And then the power problems switched from the Phare side of Ouakam to our side. Not so good for the Hamptons, but much better for the new folks!!

// posted by Tad @ 2:51 PM