Blessed Inconvenience

I had planned on writing earlier but the internet has been acting up and (like the rest of you I'm sure) we have been so busy. I wanted to describe the amazing food we have had over Eid meals with friends, how watermelon season is saving our lives in this heat and how fat and sweet Jena has gotten, but those things will have to wait for another day. Right now the only thing that we are thinking about is our new home. We (finally!) moved over to our new compound on Wednesday! It took two full days of hard work to get our monster tent up, water tanks filled and showers ready for use. But on Wednesday night, for the first time in almost three months we got to sleep in our own beds (which really just meant we took the plastic covers off of our mattresses and slept with Granny's quilt instead of in sleeping bags.) Yes, we are now cooking on a gas camp stove but we get to cook whatever we want with our own kitchen stuff! Yes, we are taking bucket baths but we have our own shower that we can leave our shampoo and soap in every night. Yes, we are sleeping in a tent but it isn't a haven for rats and you can see stars outside of the windows all around you at night before you fall asleep. I know the day is coming when I am going to get really sick of a lot of this stuff (though we are continuing to work on making everything even better for the long run), but right now, finally getting to set up our own home feels so very wonderful. As an old man who has become our friend said in his limited English: "I think maybe you can say that house is fabulous."
Our joy at finally getting to stop living out of a suitcase has been shortlived though. The UN guys came by yesterday to inform us that they had finally received orders to go ahead and sweep our plot for mines. This was a huge answer to prayer, however, it is a mixed blessing. What we didn't know is that this means they will have to cut a huge hole in our bamboo fence to work through and no one (absolutely no one) is allowed within one hundred meters of our compound between 6:30 am and 1pm while they work for two weeks! Holy cow. So "settlin in" has been delayed once again. We are still working out what this means for us. We have been needing to get officially registered with the government in another part of the country anyways, as well as work on getting our ATV up from our neighbors in the south, so we may leave again to get these things done while the UN works. It is discouraging though to have to hit the road again when we were just beginning to feel the roots sprout out of our toes. Nonetheless, we are grateful that they are keeping everyone safe (even if it's a month later than they said). When my American side kicks in and starts to complain about the inconvenience of so many aspects of life here, I have to bite my tongue. The forty year old man that sold us our broom yesterday was proud to tell us he is now in fifth grade, finishing his education cut short by the war years ago. Of the five women my age, or younger, who work next door, only one has a father still living. When our old friend saw our pile of "basic necessities" piled in trunks outside our tent as we moved in he asked wided-eyed, "What is all that stuff?" Inconvenience is something I have no right to talk about here.