Water Bottle Gutter
As long as I can remember, I have been a big time day-dreamer. I got in trouble for it all through school. In college I didn't get punished for it until I had to take tests, but somehow, I passed. Perhaps it is actually a gift that God has given to me. I think I have an ability to imagine things and come up with creative ideas that give me a great desire to do those things. Today I was thinking about a space in the orphanage that I am calling, “The Rhino Dead Space”. It is an area between the wall and the Rhino that is irregularly shaped, it has terrible soil, and is in a remote place in the orphanage. I love being in people’s back yards where they have taken weird spaces and turned them into something that makes you feel very comfortable, or something very useful. The first thing that I thought of was privacy. This dead space is already away from everything in the orphanage. There is really no action anywhere near it. My thought was to wall it off with an opening to serve as a doorway with an arch made out of brick going over the door. I could level the dirt in the space, bring in some good soil, plant grass, and have a comfortable area to relax. This would be good for visitors, or if the mums or children just wanted a nice place to escape and read or something. Then the thought of mission teams came to mind. I thought of the numerous times that the mums have been crammed into a house to do their lessons with our team. I had the idea of having some of the masons create a very smooth surface on the wall on which we could paint a blackboard. This would turn this funky space not only into an outdoor private space, but one that could be used as a classroom during the day time. I believe the bottom of the foundation of the wall is higher than the top of the foundation of the Rhino, so I thought I could build a small retaining wall that would hold back the dirt supporting the wall’s foundation, and fill the retaining wall, making a space for flower or herbs that could be used for cooking. With the ground leveled, and the blackboard in place, I think that this would be a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon, or to hold a bible study.
I did not do very many things today. I felt very tired all day, and eating too much beans and posho seemed to send me into a coma. I try not to sit down here after I eat, but today I did; and it took over. I removed some of the dirt from our water hole for the workers, and did a small bit of tilling some garden space. This morning I saw several of the Mums down by the construction site with their hoes preparing the soil for gardening, it gave me so much joy. Though this wall cut off much of the land that they were used to having, we have opened up a good portion that will now be used for gardening. The odd shaped spaces that the wall has made I think can be made into places that will be very comfortable; more so than normal shaped spaces. I keep thinking of Italy, where there are old walls and buildings everywhere. There are tons of ridiculous little spaces that make you wonder what drugs the planners were taking, but they are some of the most wonderful places around. They make you feel good simply standing in them. I am excited to change some of the spaces in this place, but I am sad that I will not be able to do that this time, perhaps in the future...
Today is day two without water. I am starting to feel bad, because I have a few boxes of bottled water sitting in my room, and as people are starting to get more thirsty, they keep asking me for a drink of water. The water that I was holding for tonight’s drinking water in the bottom tank was removed by the children last night. They needed water for washing their clothes, so they opened up the lid and leaned down into the tank removing basically all of the remaining water. Tonight I think they will be very thirsty. I tried explaining this to them, but there are too many in too many different places. The ones that did not hear me got the water anyways. I believe there is some construction going on in another area which has cut our line. I don't know if it was by accident, or on purpose. The rain, however, has come this evening; God has provided water. It has been raining for a good hour and a half now. I quickly devised a system to efficiently catch the rain water. Rather than setting the bucket down below where the most water falls from the roof, I attached with duct tape, some hose to an empty water bottle that I cut into a funnel with my knife and wired it to a nail that is just above the valley of the roof. I have been filling up buckets very fast. It makes me happy. Now while it is still raining, I am storing all the water in a very large cooking pot that is sitting under the table in my main room. Every now and then I check the buckets, and dump the full one into the Pot.
The workers progressed well despite the lack of water. We have formed up the columns for hanging the gate. These will be poured tomorrow. We did everything we could to get enough water for the mortar team. We almost dried up the hole that I dug, and had to move down the road to the next closest water hole, which is about 100 meters away. We finished the green wall, and have moved everyone down the finish up the wetlands wall. Having the gate columns poured, and the wetlands wall finished, the last order of business will be the razor wire. I don't know how much it will cost for labor, or how fast it will move, but I am thinking it may be a day job. This means that the Wednesday estimation will move to thursday. This is all pending on when the razor wire arrives.
As long as I can remember, I have been a big time day-dreamer. I got in trouble for it all through school. In college I didn't get punished for it until I had to take tests, but somehow, I passed. Perhaps it is actually a gift that God has given to me. I think I have an ability to imagine things and come up with creative ideas that give me a great desire to do those things. Today I was thinking about a space in the orphanage that I am calling, “The Rhino Dead Space”. It is an area between the wall and the Rhino that is irregularly shaped, it has terrible soil, and is in a remote place in the orphanage. I love being in people’s back yards where they have taken weird spaces and turned them into something that makes you feel very comfortable, or something very useful. The first thing that I thought of was privacy. This dead space is already away from everything in the orphanage. There is really no action anywhere near it. My thought was to wall it off with an opening to serve as a doorway with an arch made out of brick going over the door. I could level the dirt in the space, bring in some good soil, plant grass, and have a comfortable area to relax. This would be good for visitors, or if the mums or children just wanted a nice place to escape and read or something. Then the thought of mission teams came to mind. I thought of the numerous times that the mums have been crammed into a house to do their lessons with our team. I had the idea of having some of the masons create a very smooth surface on the wall on which we could paint a blackboard. This would turn this funky space not only into an outdoor private space, but one that could be used as a classroom during the day time. I believe the bottom of the foundation of the wall is higher than the top of the foundation of the Rhino, so I thought I could build a small retaining wall that would hold back the dirt supporting the wall’s foundation, and fill the retaining wall, making a space for flower or herbs that could be used for cooking. With the ground leveled, and the blackboard in place, I think that this would be a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon, or to hold a bible study. 
I did not do very many things today. I felt very tired all day, and eating too much beans and posho seemed to send me into a coma. I try not to sit down here after I eat, but today I did; and it took over. I removed some of the dirt from our water hole for the workers, and did a small bit of tilling some garden space. This morning I saw several of the Mums down by the construction site with their hoes preparing the soil for gardening, it gave me so much joy. Though this wall cut off much of the land that they were used to having, we have opened up a good portion that will now be used for gardening. The odd shaped spaces that the wall has made I think can be made into places that will be very comfortable; more so than normal shaped spaces. I keep thinking of Italy, where there are old walls and buildings everywhere. There are tons of ridiculous little spaces that make you wonder what drugs the planners were taking, but they are some of the most wonderful places around. They make you feel good simply standing in them. I am excited to change some of the spaces in this place, but I am sad that I will not be able to do that this time, perhaps in the future...
Today is day two without water. I am starting to feel bad, because I have a few boxes of bottled water sitting in my room, and as people are starting to get more thirsty, they keep asking me for a drink of water. The water that I was holding for tonight’s drinking water in the bottom tank was removed by the children last night. They needed water for washing their clothes, so they opened up the lid and leaned down into the tank removing basically all of the remaining water. Tonight I think they will be very thirsty. I tried explaining this to them, but there are too many in too many different places. The ones that did not hear me got the water anyways. I believe there is some construction going on in another area which has cut our line. I don't know if it was by accident, or on purpose. The rain, however, has come this evening; God has provided water. It has been raining for a good hour and a half now. I quickly devised a system to efficiently catch the rain water. Rather than setting the bucket down below where the most water falls from the roof, I attached with duct tape, some hose to an empty water bottle that I cut into a funnel with my knife and wired it to a nail that is just above the valley of the roof. I have been filling up buckets very fast. It makes me happy. Now while it is still raining, I am storing all the water in a very large cooking pot that is sitting under the table in my main room. Every now and then I check the buckets, and dump the full one into the Pot. 
The workers progressed well despite the lack of water. We have formed up the columns for hanging the gate. These will be poured tomorrow. We did everything we could to get enough water for the mortar team. We almost dried up the hole that I dug, and had to move down the road to the next closest water hole, which is about 100 meters away. We finished the green wall, and have moved everyone down the finish up the wetlands wall. Having the gate columns poured, and the wetlands wall finished, the last order of business will be the razor wire. I don't know how much it will cost for labor, or how fast it will move, but I am thinking it may be a day job. This means that the Wednesday estimation will move to thursday. This is all pending on when the razor wire arrives. 
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