It is never a dull moment here in the West Indies. "Thank YOU Grenada" has become my saying for things that have happened since we've moved here. Before we arrived, I started following several different blogs and became "Facebook official friends" with several people already living the Grenadian lifestyle, hoping to gain some sense of how life was going to be like. I think wherever you live, there will always be struggling times and easy-breezy moments. Lately, I feel I have had the later of these two.
We have been here since we arrived last July. Not going home for two major holidays was extremely tough for me. Thankfully, our families were able to come down to visit over the Christmas holiday. My "God will not give you more than you can bear" cup has certainly been pushed to the limit this past month. I am PAST ready to be home and have been counting down the days (we are currently at 42 days). Wishing for the time to go by just a bit faster is probably making some days a bit more stressful for me. I'm sure when one thinks of living on a little tropical island, it sounds like paradise. Sun, sand, and ocean. What more could a person ask for?? I know, I know, don't complain Jo. Let me just give you a little glimpse of my past week.
As many of you may know, shortly after we bought a car, I was in a wreck. A guy came flying down the street and hit me from behind, crushing the back bumper and trunk. He took full responsibility for the wreck and said he would pay to get the damages fixed. Here we are nearly two months later and our trunk is still crushed. We have had other issues with the car though. (Side note, when buying a Grenadian car, you are in for quite the ride. Since most of the cars students purchase here are just recycled from one student to another, you could be looking at pouring double the amount that you paid for the car into fixing different problems with it. I believe we have found ourselves in that situation.) Although it is a good car, outside of the physical damage, we have had to take it into the shop almost every week, if not every other week, since we bought it. The radiator fan that is in the car is actually not the correct size for the vehicle. There is an electrical issue that continues to happen due to the fan not working properly. The needles in the dashboard are not working (literally, they all are stuck at zero when we drive). In order to start the car, it must be in neutral. And the blinkers don't work. We just got the car back last weekend and not even five days later, the same thing happened again. Not to mention, we have had two flat tires within a month. To say we've had "car trouble" would be an understatement. It can be rather frustrating. There are times when I get in the car and pray, asking the Lord to get us where we need to go and back before something else goes wrong with it.
Grenada is currently in a very bad water drought. Back home when there is a drought, there may be a limit or only certain times when you can water your yard. Here, a water drought means they cut off your water for certain times during the day. We, thankfully, have not felt these affects. We have two large water tanks for our house but that's not to say we will continuously have water (42 days, 42 days, 42 days, 42 days....). Several of my friends have had to deal with water outages over the past several weeks. A drought also brings with it very dry air and land. We are desperately praying for rain!! (Was it Elisha or Elijah that prayed for several days for rain to come to the land?? Either way, I feel like him.)
The next two things that have happened this week have been with Matt and Nutmeg. After Matt's game on Wednesday night, he had a fever of 101.5. That fever has continued to fluctuate since then. It has stayed between 99.2 and 103. Thankfully his body doesn't feel bad. He isn't nauseous or light headed. However, he doesn't have much of an appetite, seems a bit dehydrated, and has just felt weak. I'm doing my best to take care of him but I just don't know what to do exactly. We were going to take him to the doctor today but when he woke up, his fever was down to 98.2. He said he didn't want to go and he said he was hungry. I probably should have pushed him to go because his fever spiked again this evening to 102 (we think it might be dengue...) He's staying hydrated and resting as much as he can. He does have several tests this week so he's been laying in bed studying as much as he can handle. Praying for complete healing over him. On Thursday, Nutmeg got spayed and has therefore had to take it easy. Obviously telling a dog to "take it easy" is impossible. We've had to place her in the storage room which has a door to a small porch outside. She is mostly an outside puppy and has enjoyed being able to sit out there. We are obviously not letting her go run around in the yard. Everything with that would be totally fine.........if she was not infested with ticks. The anesthesia has made them start crawling off her. Now, they are all over the storage room and we have been picking them up every time we walk in there. We are frantically trying to figure out a way to get them under control.
Coming home will definitely be a culture shock but that shock can't come soon enough!! I miss my family and friends and basically can't wait to feel some sense of "normalcy", whatever that might look/feel like. I know this is a long post but thanks for reading. I've had a tough week (yes, we have those in "paradise") and writing seems to help a little. Next post I'll try to get some pictures up. I know these things can be long without a little picture entertainment. :)
A hui kaua.....
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