Baking bugs in banana bread

August 2, 2007
I am glad that many times the Lord gives us challenges in stages and not all at one time. Without such a staggering of trials, life would be much more overwhelming. Last night I heard the news that the town of Pinalejo would be shutting off the camp’s water along with the town’s water source whenever the water needed turned off. Unfortunately I did not think much about it last night – I was too tired. And other than one time when a worker forgot to turn the water back on to my house, I have had little problem with water. It has been a constant, even when the electricity has not. Well, at noon today I noticed that there was very little water and shortly thereafter – none. I had not stored up water and the cistern at my house had been drained because when it is full the cement walls get all moldy. This evening I walked down to the faucet at the amphitheater because there is still water down there since it is at the bottom of the hill. I am wondering if I should learn to carry a bucket of water on my head so that I can bring water up from the creek. Considering how klutzy I have been over the past month, I doubt that the results would be too successful. I guess that I could feel at home if I remembered all of the water fights with my family when I ended up just as wet or wetter than I would be walking with the bucket on my head.

Anyway from the sounds of it the town has water from 1-4 hours a day. The other day I was annoyed when the Internet Café was no open well after its stated opening time because the girl was washing the dishes (the water had apparently come back on). I think I will soon understand how a person could dare to be late to work for the sake of clean dishes.
In spite of the lack of water, I decided to make banana bread tonight with Ellie the oldest Williamson since the bananas on camp all ripened at the same time and a missionary in town has been through some challenges and could use a baked good. But the adventures of the day were not over because when Ellie opened the Tupperware container where the flour is, there were small bugs in it. Was it not closed tightly? Who knows. If the bread were just for me, I figured that I would eat it bugs and all but to give it away? That is a different story. In the end I called the woman since she is a nurse and been here for a long time to ask what she knew of the danger or lack there of in eating those particular bugs. I also wanted to offer her just the bananas. Her response was that she uses the flour anyway and as long as I labeled the packaging of the banana bread as having extra protein, she would still love some bread. You know you are in another country when you can give away a banana bread baked with bugs and the person wants it and will eat it. So we made the banana bread and it turned out well, I simply have a lot of rinsed but dirty dishes waiting for the next flow of water into the sink.

My clumsiness did surface several times in the evening in my efforts to conserve water. I wanted to use the water from the pasta for at least getting the majority of the food off of the dirty dishes and I certainly did not want to dirty the colander so I used the lid. Of course just as I was about done all of the pasta fell out into the bowl that had the remains of the banana bread mix and hence raw egg. I figured that I would have to throw all of the pasta away but Cindy told me of a pasta bake that has egg in it so I salvaged the pasta to bake at a later time.

It is days like these when I look forward to living in the city but then I wonder where my sense of adventure is. Even my desire to run has pretty much diminished because I would probably have to resort to a bucket bath afterwards. I can tell I have a lot to learn about this kind of living and I have been reminded of how I had taken for granted all of the seemingly simple and unquestionable conveniences of my home in PA.