The daily grind

I've been feeling rather overwhelmed by housework lately.  Usually I can keep up with what has to be done, with some help from Andrew and Rose, a woman who comes to help me a couple mornings a week.  Last week and this week, however, it's starting to be a little much and my grouch-o-meter has been nearing the red zone at times!  A few things have been contributing to this flood of work:

• Dust.  I cannot believe how DRY everything around Musoma is right now, and the lack of rain coupled with all the roadwork going on (a good thing, but it creates a lot of dust when they grade dirt roads!), the air is positively thick with dust, which then settles on everything in our house.  Zarya helps me clean every day by volunteering her shirt as a dust mop.  As she crawls around the house on her belly, she leaves little dust-free trails behind her.  Effective as her method is, I do still try to sweep and mop regularly.

• Death.  When somebody dies, the family of the bereaved all gathers together for a week or two.  Last week Rose's aunt died, so Rose has traveled to the other side of Tanzania to go be with her family.  I feel petty for pointing out that I am now overburdened by housework when she's grieving the loss of her aunt, but it does fit into this list.

• Diapers.  Really I mean all things baby-related, not just diapers, but I wanted to keep my 'd' theme!  Zarya is as sweet as can be and I love her to bits, but wow, is she ever time-consuming!  I don't think I need to say more on that note - if you've ever been around an 8-month-old, you know what I mean.

• Dinner.  There is no such thing as whipping up a quick and easy meal around here.  Musoma is fresh out of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and canned tomatoes theses days, not to mention that Wendy's is closed and the supermarket doesn't carry baby food.

• Dishes.  We have two dishwashers at our house.  They are named Misha and Andrew.

I'm learning something through my doldrums of drudgery, however.  The other day when I realized that instead of sitting down at my computer to work on checking Zanaki and Ikizu Acts, what I really needed to do was make baby food and clean the house, I remembered a job I had in grad school.  For one year while working on my Master's degree, I had a job cleaning the washrooms of the linguistics building on campus.  I spent about ten hours a week scrubbing sinks and toilets and mopping bathroom floors.  It was the best job I could have had that year - it occupied enough of my mental energy that I couldn't think about classes and I got a total break from all the brainy stuff I was doing, but it left enough of my mind free that I could pray.  Never before or since that year have I had such an amazing prayer life.  For at least five or six of those ten hours every week I chatted with God as I cleaned.

And so, instead of running through my mental list of gripes and complaints about poor little Misha, having to sweep the floor of her own nice house and wash the dishes in which she'd just cooked a big meal, I thought I'd revisit my grad school days and hang out with God while I cleaned.  You know what?  He was happy to help me work.  We swept and mopped together, we washed dishes together, and when I sat down to play with Zarya after it all, I was feeling quite happy and energized instead of angry and exhausted like I'd been a few days earlier after going through the same chores.  I am once again reminded that one of the few things I can control in this world is my own attitude.