Tad's Life

Well, it’s been over a month since I posted. I certainly was busy, but that was only the beginning of my absence. I find that it takes a certain energy, psychological I guess, to do this. To take time to reveal what I’m up to and thinking, or maybe to be a little reflective, it requires something of me. I’m afraid I had a bit of a down time. Let’s say I was “borderline” depressed, to protect my ego. That made blogging impossible for me. I was needing to work just to face each day and function.

Perhaps the fact that I’m adding an entry here is an objective sign of what I’m feeling subjectively, that I’m coming out of it.

So what is new? Power cuts!!!! Our power company has not been paying its fuel suppliers and they have been refusing to deliver. The government two days back announced that it has issued an order to the suppliers to deliver and another to the power company to pay within 60 days. Everybody is saying it’s not their fault and they are doing everything possible to fix the situation. Elections are coming soon, so this is a real problem for the government.

Meanwhile, we go for hours without power each day. You never know which hours though. Today we did breakfast by candlelight. We cook with propane, so that is OK. That coffee maker in the photo, though, didn’t help us much.

The worst part is not being able to use our computers. For the office we are running a generator. In the apartments, though, we just wait. We are studying what it would take to have an automatic generator for the whole conference center. Our guy came back saying we needed a 100KW. But that is nuts. We only use 15-20 KW right now. Even planning for the near future, we can do with less. But how much less is what we’re looking at. In any case, such a machine will cost several tens of thousands of dollars. Will that be on the Lord’s agenda?

The other characteristic of life in Dakar at the moment is rain! Not every day, of course. But this is the height of the rainy season. We’ve had a good amount; perhaps nearly a dozen rains already, though just a couple gully-washers so far. Jonathan had some buddies overnight on Saturday. They were pretty happy with the downpour that day.

But rain brings a down side. Weeds. The entire property is at risk of being overgrown! That’s an annual problem. Hervé is getting quotes for guys to come and spend a couple weeks clearing out all around the property. I suggested this morning that we ask the talibés to do the area around their shelter. Antoinette is going to propose that to their teacher. But I can’t wait. The last couple mornings I’ve thrown on an old pair of pants and grabbed some shears and gloves and attacked the problem personally. Yesterday I trimmed the bougainvillea and pulled vines of the fence. Today I pulled the weeds on the outside of that fence for about 100 feet. I’ve found it actually quite relaxing and on both days I have had good time with God talking about life.