Living in a place of war...part 6.

Living in a place of war...part 6.

Growing up my dad was a snorer. As in shake-the-whole-house-oh-my-god-how-can-anbody-snore-that-loud type of snorer. One time when I was about thirteen years old, I traveled across the great state of Ohio with my parents to watch my two oldest brothers play in the Catholic Youth Organization state basketball tournament. They played several games over a two-day span. Because of this, my parents and I spent the night in a hotel after the first day. Now, I had been on several vacations with parents and family previously, as every year we travelled to Canada with lots of my relatives, but we always stayed in not-so-nice cabins. And I would often sleep with cousins my age in one of their families’ cabins. On this particular night, for possibly the fist time ever, I was in a hotel in a single room with my parents. Though I knew my dad snored loudly, this particular night testified to that fact. Once my dad fell asleep and started snoring, I knew there was no way I would ever fall asleep. My whole life I’ve been a light sleeper, and somehow God thought it just to place me in a family with a father that tries to bring the whole house down every night with his snoring prowess.

So what could I do? I like sleep, but my dad’s snoring was impossible to dismiss. I swear my bed was shaking. I tried turning over. I tried covering my ears with a pillow. I tried headphones. I tried piling every single blanket and pillow on top of my head. Useless. All useless.

So I did what anyone would do in my situation, facing trouble and uncertainty, I looked around and assessed my situation. If I stayed in that bed, next to the bed where my parents were sleeping, where my dad was trying to recreate the sounds associated with the atomic bomb with each successive snore, I would never get any rest. I had no choice. If I wanted to get some sleep, I would have to do something drastic. And so I did.

I thought about sleeping outside the room, in the hotel hallway. Somehow the thought of me laying there, trying to sleep, as other hotel guests passed by was not too appealing. The only other option was the bathroom. THANK GOODNESS there was a bathtub inside. So I turned on the bathroom fan, turned on the water in the sink to full blast, threw all my blankets and pillows in the bathtub, squished my body into the tub, and somehow managed to fall asleep. I do remember it was a bit odd in the morning trying to explain to my parents why I slept in the bathtub, and apparently the faucet to the bathtub had a small leak because my blankets and body were quite damp in the morning.

I am happy to say that my dad, many years later, WAY too many years later, eventually was diagnosed with sleep apnea and was given a machine to help him sleep better. It also corrected his snoring.

So as I was laying there in the pitch dark on the concrete, dusty floor of my house with a kitchen towel below my butt, the gunshots finally spaced out by the hour, I had to chuckle inside as I heard my friend Brown snoring away. His snoring immediately reminded me of my father. I do confess that his snoring also made me a bit nervous. Any human being within a five-meter radius of my house was likely to hear him snoring inside!

Brown is an interesting fellow. He has lived a life most Americans could never fathom. He was forced to flee his birth country because of fighting, many years prior to me meeting him in 2009. His family all scattered to various places in the midst of the chaos. He ended up footing to a neighboring country in East Africa, where he tried to gain refugee asylum status. He was in that country for several years, and he even managed to start a very small trading business. Because of business opportunities and the politics of being a refugee in a foreign country where people are not always welcoming of outsiders, he relocated to Sudan, which later became South Sudan. His work ethic and divine fortune opened up opportunities for him to pursue employment as a small shopkeeper and trader of goods. He has done well for himself.  He has not seen his family members in many, many years, and in many ways he has had to forge his own path in life with little to no help from others. He is a survivor that unfortunately knows the sound of guns and the horror of war all too well. And on this particular night, he was sound asleep, his nares roaring like a lion.

I debated on whether or not to wake him up, or at least try to get him to roll over. I decided to let him snore. He has lived a rough life, and on this particular night, seeing as how there was no bathtub nearby, I resigned myself to let him sleep as I relinquished mine. But I was determined to at least get off the concrete floor, knowing full well that sleep was not coming to me anytime soon.

Laying in the dark, listening to the rhythmic snores of Brown, with the occasional interruption when he changed position, I remembered my old yoga mat. YES! Perfect for a makeshift mat when forced to lie on the concrete floor because of gunfire in front of your house! The particular yoga mat I had, which was not actually mine, but thanks to former teammates that had left it behind, had somehow made its way to my house. This is a phenomenon I have often seen in the realm of missionary life. One missionary’s left over or unwanted items become another missionary’s coveted treasures!

This particular yoga mat, well worn with holes scattered throughout, was perfect as a floor mat in front of my sink. So in the deep darkness of the night, as the gunshots were becoming farther and farther apart in time, I inched my way over to my sink. As I was feeling all around trying to find the mat in the darkness, it occurred to me that several times I had seen scorpions on this very floor. And at any given time you could sit anywhere in this room and count AT LEAST twenty spiders without having to look for them. Well, tonight we were one. And oh the mosquitoes!

...to be continued...