What's Now Normal

This morning I had one of those adventures that I would never have believed would be part of my life 10 years ago.  We needed a part for our dishwasher and Jeyson has been so busy that I told him I would stop by a place that according to the GE website would have what we needed.

So off Elijah and I went to a new part of town I'd never been to before.  I pull up to where google maps says the place should be located, but there's nothing there.  So, I ask a guy on the street.  There's no place like that around here.  But if I go up another mile or so, there's a place that fixes refrigerators, maybe they can help me.  So off i go in the truck again.

At this point I'm on streets that aren't streets.  They're skinny dirt roads that have so many potholes it's more like you can't even find where the roads are supposed to be.  There are the poorest, most broken down houses on every side.  There are NO street signs, so I can't even find the corner I"m now looking for the shop.  On my left I pass a little shack that's has completely unfinished brick exposed and there are two friendly looking guys in their 20's selling snacks (while listening on ipods!).  They know just the place I"m talking about and it turns out it's just ahead.  BUT it's in the middle of a construction zone so no cars can go through the strip of the street just where the store (I use that word VERY, VERY loosely) is located.

So I find somewhere to park the truck and take Elijah out of the truck and start trudging down the dirt road in the heat.  I get to the store and there is stuff everywhere. I mean washing machines, fans, fridges just piled on top of each other like it was a junk yard, yet it was only a store front.  Anyway, turns out the guy doesn't speak Portuguese...only Spanish, which I dont' remember anymore.  So we communicate with each other, both straining to understand the other.  I get the point that he does NOT work with GE brand stuff but he tells me to just continue ahead, turn left somewhere vague, and ask around and I'll find somewhere that does.

At this point, I didn't want to give up, so we trudge back to the car and go around the detour, trying to find the original road again.  I have no idea how, but I manage to find the place.  Seriously, no clue whatsoever.  But guess what, this little "store" doesn't have GE products either, but the guy says there's another one that does!  Believe it or not, I"m still hopeful.  So I continue on in a NEW direction, still farther and farther from my starting point.  I stop for directions about 16 times, all the while carefully making mental notes of my turns so I can retrace my route.  I finally get to the store, and....drumroll.....they also don't work with GE!! But they used to and know there's no one in Boa Vista that does!

So, completely defeated and with no more rabbits trails to go down, it's time to turn around and follow my mental path back to the part of the city I know.  Only I do a turn around and discover that all the cars are coming at me!!!  Yep it was a totally unmarked 1 way road.  It was fine and traffic was slow so no real risk, but what to do now about finding how to get home?  Especially considering I barely know how to get home on the original path.  I grab a parallel road, each intersection peering over to see how I'm doing on the original road.  Then, the road I"m taking has a detour!  And I get turned all around.  I ask for directions from a little man who makes HUGE arm gestures as he tells me where to turn left, then right, then left and it makes no sense to me at the time.  Then, as I start deriving, I totally get what he was saying and it all comes clear.  I make it back past the second store, and then back past the first again, and suddenly I'm back in known territory again.

I feel like a SUPERWOMAN!  I'm not even exaggerating!  I think, that was amazing! I trudged around by truck and on foot on ridiculously skinny roads, navigating detours, WITH a toddler in the backseat and sometimes hauled in my arms, in a new city, in a foreign country, speaking Portuguese with people who don't even speak Portuguese, deciphering crazy arm gestures, went to three hole in the wall shops and got to the bottom of my sad story about my dishwasher, and didn't even get permanently lost!  If only I had known what I would now consider normal, my head would have exploded with panic.  But I'm not who I was, I've definitely grown and adapted, even if it's stretching.  Sometimes I think we think we're incapable of something that we totally are able to do.  God gives us what we need to handle each situation.  Now, that leaves only one question, what to do about the dishwasher???  I guess it's Jeyson's turn to figure out the next step.