From February 3

We finally got some sun today! This is the first trip we haven't had to carefully conserve water, but this time we are carefully conserving electricity.

Since somebody from another village brought some really nice umalau/sweet potatoes to market on Wednesday, we decided to make kora/scalloped potatoes tonight instead of lelenga/cassava pudding tomorrow to give us more time to spend with Aaron before he leaves on Sunday afternoon. We had several different children come with sores this afternoon while we worked on the kora. One of them had sliced his right index finger diagonally across from base to tip with a knife on Monday, but didn't come for a band-aid until today. He had used the traditional leaf, which was great. But then he left it on so that it was caked in the oozing sore by the time he came to us. I had a really hard time getting his finger clean, but I finally got him bandaged up. Another little boy came just as I was taking the kora down to put underneath the hot stones in our outside kitchen. We had a crowd of about fifteen kids watching Aaron doctor this little boy all clustered at the bottom of our steps. When they saw me coming down, they said, “Lelenga!”. I corrected them and said, “Kora!”, whereupon I heard oohs and aahs and they all followed me to my kitchen where they watched Benjamin and me prepare the oven and cover the Kora with leaves and copra sacks. 

I could hear the peanut gallery making comments behind me, and some of the kids scurried over to the side of the kitchen so they could peek up through the gaps in the wall. I stuck my kuma/bamboo tongs out the cracks to play with them. Anytime I turned around, the kids disappeared, but as soon as I turned my back to work, they reappeared at the doorway. We finally got the kora settled for the night and came back to the house. Within just a few minutes the sun went behind dark clouds and another downpour started. Glad we finished when we did.

The small bell rang about 7:30 calling all of the Sunday School kids to come for singing. Since our kids' lights go out around then, they stayed in bed. The bell rang again a little after eight when not enough kids showed up, and they finally started singing around 8:30. They sang and sang and sang, their little voices belting out, “God, inu hobeam, hobeam...Nana inu hobeam, hobeam...Jisas inu hobeam, hobeam” (God, You are good, Holy Spirit, you are good, Jesus, you are good). As much as I enjoy hearing children sing praises to God, I was thankful when they finally finished a little bit before ten. When they let out, several of them came by our house quite loudly, and a small group of them with a flashlight huddled just under our bedroom window talking. Aaron said he could just catch that they were talking about us crazy “white-skins” sleeping that early in the night!