Dark and Slippery

Wouldn't you just love visiting with the cute family that lives inside this little house?


Let me tell you about our experience of walking through the pitch dark down a very muddy and slippery path to this home where Willana, a young woman who was recently baptized, and her husband, Alex, who is currently being taught by the young elders, live. And I'll tell you of the family home evening we shared with them.

I'll even show you a few photos that were taken the next day when we returned to "the dark and slippery path" to see what it looked like in the daylight. (We discovered that the hot sun had dried up all the slippery mud where we had had to tread so carefully the night before.)

Before we left home for our family home evening, the elders had given us vague instructions of where her house was. It was somewhere down a sketchy path through the weeds way far back away from the road. Because of the darkness and lack of lighting, I knew it would be a challenge to find. I wondered what shoes to wear, knowing the way could be muddy and wished later that I had worn my most awful plastic flipflops.

Willana, who was barefoot, met us out on this dirt road where we parked our car so she could lead us to her house. (Notice there are no street lights and noone has electricity.)

She said, "Just follow me,"and off she scampered across a footbridge that led from the dirt road and continued down a dirt path towards her home. We turned on our flashlights and carefully crossed the foot bridge after her.

The bridge was missing several of its main boards and I was nervous I would fall right through one of the big gaps if I weren't careful.

We continued down the path ...

At first it was just a dirt path.

Then, it became a "board" path. (These aren't so easy for me to balance on.)

Here's where we had to make a right turn and suddenly saw the trench! The only place we could walk was right close to it because the ground all around was so muddy and gushy.

I never took my eyes off my steps, only long enough to keep my eyes on the trench that was right along side me.

(Willana's house is finally in view. It is on the left with the yellow door. In the dark of night, we could barely see these little wooden houses and the path seemed to be a network of paths zigzagging us through them to where her tiny house was situated. )

(Notice how close to the trench dad has to walk. Scary....)



(At this point we had to walk these crazy boards. They weren't secured in place and they kept surprising me by flipping up when I'd get to the end of a board and knocking me off balance. And off to the side I would fall.)



(This was the craziest part of the path. Just imagine an old woman like me trying to navigate and balance on these loose boards in the pitch black! Do you see the outhouse off ahead?)

I did a lot of teetering on the boards as I struggled to keep up with Willana. I was wishing I was barefooted so I'd be more surefooted. Dad was behind me with his flashlight.

(Here's the final stretch to the house and dad was bringing her a pineapple.)

At last, we climbed the 9 stairs to her front door, not noticing there were no arm railings alongside the steps and that when we would turn to leave, we'd have to climb back down those same steep stairs (which would now be wet from the cloudburst that came down during the family home evening) with nothing to hold on to.

We had a sweet family night with them and taught them about prayer, played a few games of Guyanese dominoes and got ready to leave. As we made the scary climb back down the wet stairs, I expected to slip and land in a heap at the bottom of them. But I didn't.

Tiny Willana led us back out to the road to our car through the pitch black. This time I went bare foot. The night was so dark and the mud was so slippery. It had rained while we were in Willana's house for the FHE. I thought I was going to slip into the trench, once again!

Some stranger appeared alongside me and held on to my shoulder as I walked. I couldn't have made it back to the car without her balancing me. And then she disappeared into the night without a word. And Willana returned to her house alone without a flashlite.

It was a long walk back to her house from the road. She said she knew the way and probably could make it blindfolded. I wondered how she could walk through there with her two little ones, one 6 months old, that she would have to carry, and the other one 3 years old, whom she'd have to hold by the hand so he wouldn't end up in the trench...especially in the dark.

Life is definitely different here from what we're used to. I heard yesterday that Guyana is the poorest country in South America.

When I got home, I sat on the edge of my shower and scrubbed at my mudcaked feet and sandals. After my feet were clean, I had to scrub out my now filthy shower that was full of mud splatters on the walls and 2 inches of dirty brown water covering the shower floor. I finished the cleanup by having to use the toilet plunger to coax the dirty water down the drain.

I wondered how Willana cleaned her feet after she made it back to her house. She has no bathroom or running water…only a bucket outside in the dark somewhere.

Well, that's a slice of our missionary life in Guyana.