By: Cindy Baker
Friday, February 11
Wow. What a day. Things started off well for our 3rd week/3rd trip to town. For our first two weeks our weekly town trip was a supply-shopping expedition fraught with overpowering heat that always left us tired, crabby, and just ready for the day to end. But, this week I was actually looking forward to the trip. Thanks to making some “good connections” we had booked lunch a local resort, Tanna Lodge, and the prospect of our first good “western” meal since our arrival and a swim in a pool gave us a reason to smile!
The day went great! We took care of our business in town early and then it was off to Tanna Lodge. Aaron and I enjoyed a “real” cup of coffee after three weeks with only occasional mediocre cups of coffee. Lunch was tasty and the girls swam (as did Aaron and I). It felt wonderful to cool off! Then, in the afternoon, Aaron drove 5 minutes back into town for a Bible study (with a man who walked 4 HOURS from his village for the study) while the girls and I hung out at the resort. The owners were so very nice (the husband is from New Zealand and the wife from Solomon Islands) and invited us to come back any time for a swim even if we couldn’t stay for lunch, offering us a cheaper option of getting away from village life! This couple also geneously offered to let us come get ice from their ice machine each week until the machine in town gets fixed. Yea! They didn’t have much ice on hand for this week, but they said next week they will be sure the ice maker gets filled up for us. Thank you, God!!!
When Aaron came back we picked up our local friends who had come to attend to their own business in town and left at about 3:15pm, applauding ourselves for leaving an hour earlier than last week! The road up the largest, steepest hill wasn’t too bad and we made it up just fine. However, then, we got to a stretch of road at slight incline that was just caked with mud. And the party ended there.
It took us over an hour to get through that mud, starting and stopping about 10 times. Each time we got stuck Aaron and I and the others would search the surrounding bush for sticks, logs, grass and weeds to fill the holes around the tires – anything to give us traction! Then, Aaron would hop in the driver’s seat, 5 of us (3 men, 2 women) pushed with all our might and we would advance about a foot before we got stuck again and then we would repeat the whole process. Mud was 10-12 inches deep in places and once we got into it we couldn’t get back out. It wasn’t long into this fiasco that I abandoned my flip-flops to the truck and pushed the truck “dry leg (barefoot)”, as they say here in Vanuatu, because I was slipping and sliding around and my shoes were just getting caked with mud! My legs and clothes were mud splattered and my hands looked like I had dyed my skin brown due to all the mud smeared on them from colleting grasses and digging sticks out of the mud to put under the tires. But, in the end, we did it! Working together we did it! Two of the young men helping to push weren’t even in our group – they just happened to be walking up the road when they came upon us and stopped to help. I prayed and prayed that God would help us get up that hill because I didn’t know what we would do if we were stuck for good. It’s not like they could send something bigger to pull us out. Our truck is only one of three that can go up our hill and the other two are in worse condition than ours. Anyway, I was never so happy to reach home! I didn’t even care that a hot shower wasn’t an option. My warm bucket-bath was plenty good enough for me that night – I just wanted to get clean!
Oh – and I had to laugh at myself. Like an American girl I had carefully chosen my skirt and shirt for the day – the nicest outfit that I have with me, thinking when I did that they were a good choice for “going to town” clothes because they weren’t likely to get dirty. Ha! I have to admit I had a sad fleeting moment of thought for all the dirt that was sure stain my clothes. And then I just sucked it up and let myself get filthy. Getting our truck up that hill was more importat than any clothes!
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