Well, today was different. I suppose you could say it happened in the early morning hours, sometime just before 4 a.m.
I dreamed last night that I was invited to be something like a clown at a child’s birthday party only I would be swimming with the little tykes donned with foam pool noodles. I would be donned with the pool noodles that is. First though, the lady of the house took one look at the mole on my ankle (which I don’t actually have) and sent me with one of her daughters to another room in the house where she picked up a small device (similar to those electric shock devices that they use to relax muscles) with which she more or less “zapped” my ankle and voila, the mole was gone.
It should have stopped there, but suddenly I found myself outside the house with my good friend, S.W. and someone else. We were watching his bull and suddenly realized the neighbor’s bull was on the other side of a very small, insignificant gate and was not happy with this intruder. S.W. saw the danger as we all did and we made it into the house just before things got crazy with the bulls chasing each other around the house and destroying everything in their path. I was peeking from just behind a curtain at what was going on outside (less the bulls see me and decide to come after me instead of each other) when a Holstein cow saw me and began laughing at my cowardice. She went so far as to berate me in an all too familiar tone on my lack of bravado.
That was the beginning of the day.
It was a beautiful morning, but from early on it was an uncomfortable shade of hot with humidity thrown in as an extra duvet. I knew the tin church where we worship from about 11 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m. would be far from comfortable and to be honest I was not looking forward to it.
No one seemed very thrilled to be in service and even the leader, though he continually berated us for not being into the service, seemed equally reticent to give everything.
Somewhere during the service, it became obvious that we might receive some rain, a welcome sight in this drought. You can imagine the consequences of heavy rain on corrugated tin, you can’t hear anything the preacher is saying, but no one dares pray against rain these days. Somewhere during the service a small girl threw up on the floor and the rain began to fall.
First it was just a light rain and then gaining in confidence it produced the most deafening roar. Uncle Johan ceased preaching because no one could hear him anyway and we all began to sing. The lightening flickered in the darkened sky and the rain fell. Holes in the roof and broken windows made for musical chairs and sporadic seating arrangements.
The rain seemed to subside just a little and Uncle Johan began again. The rain was still falling, but I noticed that the direction seemed to have changed completely. This wasn’t really what I wanted to see since thunderstorms here have been known, though very rarely, to produce small tornadoes. When you are in a tin church held together with wire and a few nails, this is not a nice thought.
Fears justified. I can’t say it was a tornado, but a wind of some significance hit that little structure and made a terrible racket. When we looked outside, one of the neighbors had his roof suddenly sitting inside his house. It had picked up the roof entirely and deposited it inside the house. Considering the construction standards in the townships, this isn’t the biggest feat, but it was obvious the service was now at an end. Uncle Johan ended with an admonition to read over the text and next Sunday we would continue.
Next problem; with water running in the muddy streets, getting the van out of there would be interesting. S.W. and I took off our shoes, rolled up our pants and began to push. All of us walked barefoot up the muddy street until the van was in a safe place to take the weight and not sit in the mud and then we were off…well, nearly. We were a bit crowded so I ended up with a good-sized man on my lap for lack of any other spaces.
I understand that in the U.S. it was “Sanctity of Human Life” Sunday. I am sorry I missed that.
We came back and after a delicious lunch at about 3 p.m., we played some “finger board” and Bananagrams. Tomorrow is another day and 4:30 a.m. comes all too early.
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