Mike’s Home-Improvement Challenge

So, remember how my tent was baptized last week? Remember my act of genius the next evening when it rained?

Well, we had a visitor staying with us named Mike. Mike is a chiropractor from Atlanta, who loves Jesus, travel, and Jewish people (he hangs out in Israel every chance he gets- he’s actually there now). Anyway, he had been in Uganda for the Fresh Fire crusade last month, and decided to come up and visit us for a week, since he was so close.

Anyway, Mike observed the rain spectacle and decided to tackle the roof repair as his home-improvement project in Sudan. I was elated!

He decided that the gaps in the tin roofing (the cause of the leak) could be filled with caulk. A fairly simple job, right?

So, on Friday, Mike, Malik, and I went on a mission to buy caulk. We walked all over town, stopping at the different hardware stores along the way. Now, hardware stores in Sudan are not to be compared with Lowes or Home Depot in the States. Think instead, a small semi-stocked country store, circa 1940 – along the lines of Ike Godsey’s store on the classic TV show “The Waltons.”

We did eventually find caulk for the bargain price of $7.50 US per tube. How is caulk priced where you are from?

Apparently, the town of Yei is suffering from an endemic shortage of caulking guns. Lots of caulk, though. We gave up the search for a caulk gun as the afternoon sun arched across the sky.

On Monday morning, armed with tube of caulk, pen-knife, and a stick, Mike went to work.

According to Mike, it’s easy to open a tube of caulk in the USA- just poke a nail through the top and you’re good to go! That was not the case here. Mike had to carve into the tube for quite some time before it started working for him.

He targeted the place where the tin sheets overlap. Most of the water seemed to be entering there, and flowing down the inclined roof.

In lieu of a caulk gun, Mike squeezed out the caulk by forcing a thick stick into the cavity on the bottom of the tube. I imagine his right forearm was plenty sore after he finished the job!

I would like to say that Mike’s valiant effort had solved the problem, but we had a hard rain last night, and I was again defending my dwelling from the deluge. The holes that Mike caulked just redirected the water to new holes farther down the roof.But, hey, at least it has to be a hard rain to get through the roof!