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Monday, June 13, 1977, 7:00 pm, Day 503
Well, they never made it this far. The road proved to be too much for them. Kamiendor's bushness is still preserved! It turns out that they couldn't leave until late afternoon yesterday and so darkness and rain met them at Koardu, 9 miles short of kamiendor. They spent the night there, completing their journey to the school in Densembadu this morning. They were comtemplating whether to come on up to Kamiendor to see me this afternoon but decided against it because they heard the hill was bad. Anyway, they had to be back by the first thing tomorrow morning, so that they couldn't have spent the night, and if they took time to see me, then they would have met darkness on the road.
I will be seeing them this Wednesday though, when I join them for a birthday dinner. I will have to bake up a cake for it, to do my part, even though they are not expecting anything more from me than just my presence.
I ate a record 6 times today, and at the moment feel like I over-indulged. It began this morning with my two breakfasts. First, I ate the rice chop left over from the night before, which I was saving for my visitors. Second, I baked up some cinnamon rolls which I prepared yesterday afternoon, also for my visitors. When noon time came around, I was called over to the house next door for my third meal. There is a story connected with this, which I will go into afterwards. My 4th meal was at the house one more door down at about 2:00. Meal number 5 was given to me while I was waiting for my regular daily meal that I arrainged for. This was at 6:00 pm, and when I finished it, I was just pleasantly full. Then about 10 minutes later, my regular meal was ready. I felt an obligation to eat it, so I sat down and gave meal number 6 a try. I could only manage half a plateful, and I am still feeling the effects of it now. I am at that point of being full where I would almost be glad to throw up, just to releave the situation. It feels like my stomach is full, with the overflow being stacked up in my throat. The part that is in my throat is the part that I wouldn't mind throwing up.
Now, back to meal number 3. These last few days I have been called over there each day at about noontime for some rice chop. There might be an alterier motive to it, but I would like to think that it is them just being nice, with no strings attached.
Last Saturday morning, the lady of the house gave birth to a baby girl. A funny thing about this baby, though, is that it is white, whereas its mother is black. Just jokingly, of course, alot of people have hinted that I was the baby's father. That is impossible, for any one of any number of reasons, but I will just leave it by stating that I am not the father. The doctor wanted me to pay the hospital bill. I have counted this lady among my growing number of lady friends here in Kamiendor for quite awhile.
Last Friday, when I came back from Koidu, I gave a number of my ladies each a 5 cent loaf of bread. But to Bondu, the lady who was expecting the child, I gave a higher quality 20 cent loaf of bread. I was glad that I did, also, because the next morning when i got up, they told me that she had had her child. Since then, I have been over to visit her 2 to 3 times a day, one of the times being when they call me over for chop. She could use some help financially, which I wouldn't mind doing, but she doesn't want to come right out and say it.
Monday, June 13, 1977, 10:00 pm, Day 503
I've been reading from the Bible all these past 4 weeks or so. My reason was to make myself informed about all of those religious things, paying special attention to the parts about Jesus and how he fits in. Back at the end of last February, when I became aware of God, Jesus did not have a part in it, and I was left in an awful predicament. I was now able to truthfully state that I believed that there was a one and only God. That made me feel more at one with the church. But, since Jesus did not play a part in there being a God or not, it made me wonder "Who was this Jesus character anyway? Was he really the Son of God, and if so, What does that mean?" At that point I could not say "Yes I believe that Jesus was the Son of God", which is what you have to do in order to be a Christian. It left me thinking that I might end up having to drop out of the Church even though I now believed in God, because believing in Jesus did not automatically follow, but was a whole other thing in itself.
The Book of John is helping me out quite a bit because alot of it is set up to be the actual words that Jesus spoke, and in it Jesus is talking about himself, who he is and what his purpose is. If I can get it all straightened out in my head, I could probably be convinced about Jesus being what he is said to be. At one point Jesus mentioned that he was around before Abraham was born. That is a new one for me. I know that Jesus is supposed to be around now because he rose from the dead, but I didn't know that he was also around before he was born.
He also says that God is in him and he is in God. Thinking that over in relation to my experience with God, shows me where Jesus could be different from the rest of us. For us normal people, my finding God has shown me that God is not in us. I think that alot of people might say that God is in us, but they must be mixed up in their thinking. God is around us, like a person looking over our shoulder. He is always there, so that He always knows what is going on. He directs our actions and performs "acts of God". But I don't think that He is inside of us, directing our thinking. He can affect our thinking by changing our sense of perception, how we see and hear things, but He does not directly direct our thinking. He leaves that part up to us mortal men ourselves. That is where the problem is. Because our thinking is left up to us, we often think the wrong thoughts and end up doing things contrary to the way God might want it. This is where your sinning and whatever comes in.
Jesus, on the other hand, says that God is in him. That would mean that God directly directs Jesus' thinking and therefore Jesus' words and actions are also God's. Also, this would explain why Jesus supposedly never sinned. With God in jesus but not in man, I can see where this would set Jesus apart from every other mortal man, making him something special.
Wednesday, June 15, 1977, 10:00 am, Day 505
Well, diarrhea has struck again. It must have been from something that I had on Monday, the day that I had the 6 meals. I felt sick from over-eating, but early the next morning it started. I had loose shits all yesterday and this morning, and I've had stomach pains and my stomach has been making lots of gurgling sounds.
I didn't eat anything yesterday, and have been taking my pills. This morning I ate some crackers which was on the list of things to eat, but now the stomach pains have started again, maybe as a result of eating. I would like to get healed up quick because I have that birthday dinner to go to. I will go to it anyway, but I might have to hold off on the eating part. Staying healthy here in this country seems to be easier said than done.
Thursday, June 16, 1977, 8:00 am, Day 506
I thank God. I seem to be well again.It took all Tuesday and the first half of Wednesday to completely drain out my stamach. Once I was empty, my last try at shitting had a solid feel to it, even though there was nothing there. I took the chance last night and partook of that dinner. It was good, and I was glad that I didn't have to miss it. Anyway, the food stayed in my stomach all night with no problems.
Friday, June 17, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 507
I got ahold of some palm wine today and am really feeling the effects of it. It has been quite awhile since I last had some, because I usually don't like to just sit down and drink it. Today was different though. Today I drank it at the correct time for me.
This afternoon I had nothing else to do, and was itching to get the work started, so I took my cutlass and went out to do a little bush clearing. It was down near the well site at the place where I want to make the road. Also at the same place is the farm of my good friend, Secu Bawa, and his wife, Finda. They were out there today also. When it came time to call it quits, we all headed back together. On the way we stopped off at the palm tree that Secu had tapped. He climbed up and emptied the boulie that was collecting the sap in the tree, When he brought it down, we all got our fill. Myself, I had 3 tins full (or about 6 cups).
As far as I am concerned, that is the perfect time to drink palm wine. That time when you have just finished working hard all day and are still hot and tired and very very thirsty. Stopping off and drinking some palm wine, fresh from the tree, there couldn't be a more perfect time for it. Palm Wine - "Direct from God to man", as they say over here. And it is true too. Palm wine is pure 100% palm tree sap. It collects a 2 gallon boulie in just one day, and you empty it out each day, once a day. Somehow, during just that one day that the sap sits up in the tree in the boulie, it manages to ferment or something. Anyhow, whatever it does, it ends up acting like it was alcoholic, and just a few cups of it will get a person feeling its effects in a very short time. So it was with me.
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