24 An Encounter in the Heat
Where we sit for evening prayer overlooks the river and following the end of the rains we’ve been watching the watermark fall lower and lower each day. The river itself, which is no great thing anyway, stopped flowing shortly after the rains came to an end – this is a further hardship for the poor families who have increasingly little water to wash either themselves or their livestock in. The river edge in villages like this is also the common toilet – there must be access to water for cleaning purposes – but it’s a toilet that only gets flushed once a year, when the monsoon comes; the sun does the job of sterilising the matter to a certain extent, but along with the rise in the mosquito population, this is the time that disease is rife, and naturally the first to suffer are the children – if they can survive the first few years of life, they will be able to survive most things, but really all will in one way or another suffer from illness.
The end of the rains means the end of cloud cover, which has certain consequences on the temperature, making the days very hot – it must be over 100°f (37°c) by 10.00 am – and it continues to get warmer through the day. At night the temperature drops and the early mornings are chilly, requiring a couple of blankets to keep warm. The sunset is now marked by brilliant and indescribable colours at the horizon, the failing light radiant. The night sky is clear and the stars shine forth – it is one of the things that I love to see, tonight is the new moon and the night sky should be at its best, the heavens declaring the glory of the Lord (Ps 48).
she came and she sat and she listened for a while
then she talked of her visions and all she had seen –
of faces that glowed much brighter than sun
of power and strength that were not her own
of dying a death at the same time as another
of being a cell in the heart of god
of feeling the agony that our lord went through
of the pain of the cross and the suffering of man
of her hopes and her memories and friends in her life
of seeing the way to the one she adored –
and her face was lit with joy from within
as she extolled her god and spoke of his love
and she firmly believed she had come to this place
to say thank you to god and give praise to his name
and she talked and we prayed and soon she was going
but the one that she loved was still here and was smiling