As I have read numerous spiritual blogs and books and even in some of the leadership material that I come across, there has been a lot of talk about margin. Talk about creating margin in one’s life and handling that margin in a most God honoring and fruitful way. Most of those articles are from a western perspective. What if creating margin meant dealing more efficiently with the basics of life? By basics I mean food, water, shelter, and clothes.
First you must make sure you have enough water for the day. If it has rained heavily the day before you may have been able to gather enough for 1-2 days. The rest you will have to take your 1-5 gallon jugs and get it from the water source. This spot is shared by the whole village and you may have to wait. Once you have hauled enough water the half-mile to your home you can begin the rest of your day.
The local water source. If the rain doesn’t come the water stops.
Now imagine that you must begin preparing your food as soon as you awake. This means getting a fire going and mixing, mashing, and stirring things together until they are cookable. Most of what you are cooking has been grown by you and prepared by you. Imagine corn meal that was made by you growing the corn, picking the corn, shucking the corn, and finally mulling the corn. The other ingredients are beans and maybe rice. You cook it over your fire. If it is raining you must improvise and try your best to make it work. Most likely breakfast will be late. The same process goes for lunch and dinner, which you begin preparing as soon as you have cleaned by hand the dishes from the previous meal.
The children bringing water to use for the day.
Preparing boiled corn meal.
Dishes to be washed.
This is just the process to prepare and fix meals. There is still cleaning of home and clothes to be done. Also any planting or harvesting is needing to be done as well. There is even some trade that must occur. If you are fortunate enough to have space for tea and coffee plants you must tend to them and harvest them when ready. Those products must be taken and sold at the factory, which you will likely have to walk many miles to get to. Or if you happen to own a corn mill, you may get to process corn that others have brought to you so as to earn some money for the things you can’t grow or make on your own.
There are also children that need tending and possibly repairs to your home or necessary equipment. There will also be visitors and church services to attend.
Lastly there is laundry to be done. This too involves water which you may have to go fetch. You will wash the clothes by hand and hang hem out to dry.
There is no electricity either, so when the sun goes down the lights go out and your work becomes that much harder to accomplish.
In Kimai village this is the daily life of the people. There are no strategic planning meeting or vision casting meetings. There is little time for fussing about what to wear or what new gadget you should buy. No doubt the people spend a micro fraction of their time on these things, however the vast majority of their time is dedicated to the basics. Food. Water. Shelter.
How much time and energy do you spend daily on the basics?
What kind of margin does the ease of access to the basics create in your life?
What are you doing with the margin?
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