By the way...

Celine has followed me home. Complete with a mini-series on TV about her life. Titanic is on TV tomorrow (I think, or maybe it's on New Years' - I tried not to listen to the preview on TV...). She was even singing at the first restaurant Hiwet and I stopped at in Addis. Sigh. I just can't get away from that woman.

And now I'm going to bed. I'll write more sometime later. I promise. But honestly, there are just so many more distractions here than I'm used to - magazines, radio, tv, books, libraries, nephews, friends, phones, cousins, aunts, uncles... and nice cozy beds with flannel sheets and fluffy duvets :)

Christmas was great...

... but I'm too tired from all the fun to post any of the photos of it. So that will come... maybe tomorrow... I just wanted to let you know that I haven't actually turned into an icicle over the past few days. I've even left the house once or twice!

I'm not quite frozen yet...

But going from 40C to -25C in the space of a few days is a little bit of a shock to one's system!

I almost didn't make it out of Jb, due to a missing stamp in my passport. It was one of the most stressful two hours of my life. I won't go into the details, 'cause I don't want to relive the whole thing... but in the end, about 15 minutes before my plane was supposed to leave, the immigration guy had my passport in his possession and was NOT going to let me have it for anything. He just kept saying, "You're in big trouble..." All I could do was stand in the middle of the airport trying not to cry and praying! I had called all the people I knew to call (even tried calling Richard in Uganda, though I couldn't get through :( ) to see if they could get me out of this pickle... but to no avail. I had even looked everywhere for my Immigration Buddy. But he was no where to be found, either.

So what to do. I just stood there for a few minutes, just waiting for something to happen. Because something had to happen... either a miracle would happen and the guy would change his mind, or the plane would take off without me...

And then, a miracle DID happen. I never thought I would be so happy to see my Immigration Buddy... but there he was, a vision in his brown suit, striding through the doors. I'm sure he was so pleased that I was so pleased to see him, and I immediately shook his hand in greeting and launched into my problem. He dropped everything he had, strode over to the immigration desk with me in tow, told the immigration guy that was giving me the problem that I am his wife and I am a very good woman, grabbed my passport, grabbed the stamp, and I was on my way! What an amazing answer to prayer - this guy that I complain to no end about actually strode in at the very last minute and became my knight in shining armour (except that the only thing shiny about the day was my face, as I'd been running around in the 40C heat!).

Another one of my friends who works for an aviation organization was there, as well, and was sticking around to make sure I got out ok, so he walked me through the security and made sure I got on that plane to leave. What a comfort it was to have Peter there to put me on the plane, as I was so relieved from all that stress that I was almost in tears again! I was just so ready to leave that country, and I had no idea what was going to happen if I didn't make it on that plane when I was supposed to! So I was thanking the Lord that Immigration Buddy walked by when he did - on his day off, no less. There was no reason why he should have been at the airport that day, but he was, and he just happened to come and find me just a few minutes before my flight took off!

Now the tricky part is going to come when I get back. He did me a huge favour. What do I do in return... without giving him the wrong idea, if you know what I mean?! But I'll worry about that later. For now... I'm enjoying all the wonders of being home!

From Jb, I flew to Addis Ababa, where I stayed with my friend Hiwet again. My favorite taxi driver friend picked me up from the airport (where we actually landed early and I got through immigration incredibly quickly - so quickly, in fact, that I had time to eat a Twix chocolate bar whilst waiting... mmmm.... my first Twixt in almost a year!), and I went to Hiwet's house. My three days in Addis were so incredibly relaxing - I drank a lot of macciatos at the cafe near Hiwet's place, I visited some good friends, I strolled around the shops enjoying some lovely things, I read a couple of good books... and I slept so much in the nice cool fresh air! It was lovely.

Celine, however, followed me to Addis. Everywhere I went, there she was. Her heart was still going on and on and on...

But everything in Addis really went without a hitch, and I had a great refreshing and relaxing time. Of course, the days went much too fast, but I was also getting a bit anxious and ready to come home to see my family and friends here.

The rest of the journey home went as smoothly as it ever could. There were absolutely no problems with anything. I even had nice people to chat with on the planes and while waiting in the airport. And mommy was at the airport with a nice warm coat, mittens and a toque for me to put on when I arrived!

Since I got home, I've been trying to stay warm, doing a little shopping, got my hair cut (something that hasn't happened in several months!), drinking hot tea, doing a little more shopping, enjoying electricity and paved (albeit icy!) roads, and playing with my new computer (my other one died in Jb - I had been borrowing one from the organization I work for), and catching up with friends and family. Oh yeah, and sleeping under a great big blanket, snuggled in some lovely flannel sheets!

Only a few more sleeps and I get to see my sister, bro-in-law and nephews... and I'm SO excited. I'm just sorry I haven't had more time to talk to them on the phone - I seem to be out a lot these days :( But they're coming in a few days, so I can't wait to see them!!

And now, since I've been up later than I have been in days, I should probably tear myself away from the fireplace and put myself into those flannel sheets of mine... mmm... so cozy and warm...

I'm Home!

It's 8:09pm, and I'm sitting in front of my parent's computer, wearing long sleeves, long trousers and big blue fuzzy slippers ... and I'm still cold. +40C to -21C in the space of a few days is just not right. I just might go into hibernation after all.

Anyways, my mind isn't exactly clear at the moment, since it's been a few days since I've slept in a bed! But I wanted to let you all know that I'm home, safe and sound. I had a wonderful few days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, sipping macciatos and visiting friends, and just resting, so if it gets warm enough to leave the house, I'm all rested and ready to go... if it gets warmer out there...

One last blog...

... just to let you know how excited I am about spending the next few weeks in a rat-free, cockroach-free, snake-free, dust-free, sweat-free environment, where I can snuggle in my bed, under a blanket and sleep without wondering what the scurrying is all about, where I can nestle my clean little pink toes in the soft warm carpet, instead of trotting around on hard concrete floors all the time, where I can drink nice fresh milk, instead of UHT milk from a box.... oh, I can't wait!

Even tomorrow night, I will be snuggled in my friend's apartment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I'm sure I will have my fill of injera and shiro and good visits with friends. Plus, the weather is supposed to be in the low - mid 20's as a high! Perfect weather!

But I've still got several things to do before I sleep tonight. Including figuring out what to do about the rat that is trapped behind my bathroom drawer...

Oh yeah, a bit of excitement for the day - the fence burned down next to our house this afternoon! I wasn't actually home, but I heard all about it. I just went to do some last minute errands this afternoon and I came home and found the charred remains of the fence. It's actually very surprising that something like this hasn't happened before, as there are so many burning piles of trash everywhere, all the time!

Anyways, I digress. I've got stuff to rat and dust proof since my plane is leaving in 12 hours :)

Time flies...

Really, time does fly sometimes! After tonight, I just have one more sleep in my bed here in Jb, then 3 sleeps in Addis, where I will stay with my dear friend Hiwet again, then one or two sleeps on a few planes... then I'm sleeping in my bed in my parent's house! Yahoo!

Since I plan to be busy tomorrow night with my packing and putting everything and anything away that can be covered and hidden from the dust and critters, I don't plan on blogging much tomorrow. And then since my own computer is dead (I'm using a "company" computer at the moment), and I will be in Addis, which has notoriously horrible internet... I may not get around to blogging for the better part of the next week.

I hope you won't miss me too much while I'm 'enroute' home. But I'll see you from that side... and maybe I might even be able to post a video or two that I've been saving up (but only because our internet here isn't fast enough to actually upload them!).

If you think of it, could you please pray that this trip goes smoothly - I'm never quite sure if all my tickets are actually going to work or not, and if my luggage is going to travel with me, or if something completely unexpected is going to happen! So please pray that all this travelling goes smoothly and that I will be able to have some rest during the next few days, too. Thanks so much, and I'm really, really looking forward to seeing some of you in the next month! TTFN :)

What's wrong with this picture?

Me, ensconced in my mosquito net, with Zane at my feet, at 10:17pm.

Life sure has changed since those guards have been turning off the generator at night! I no longer get to go on a 10:30pm star-gaze (which, actually isn't so bad, since the moon is nearing full-ness, the stars aren't that great at the moment).

I'm feeling really tired tonight - I was kept awake by a dehydration headache last night, and was out and about ALL day today in the heat again. I had a very interesting day, though.

Started out with a trip to a little pre-fab cabin in the parking lot near the President's office. That's where I got to renew the travel permits for me and Jackie. Pesky guy in the office tried to charge me a little extra fee... but when I started talking to him in Arabic, he quickly shut his mouth about that extra $15 that I was "supposed" to give him because Jackie wasn't physically present to renew her pass. Like any normal people go themselves to get those passes renewed anyways!

Anyhow, it didn't take me that long to get the permits, though I had to argue a bit to get what I wanted, and in the end they still refused to give me anything longer than a 3 month permit! Normally we get 6 month permits, so we only have to go through this whole process twice a year. Looks like that's just been upped to 4 times a year :( I did talk to a friend later today, though, and she confirmed that she wasn't able to get 6 month permits anymore, either. So it wasn't just me, which is somehow a little comforting.

After the permit place, I went to drop off some reports and papers at the Ministry of Ed. That's always an interesting place to be, too. Seems one of our colleagues missed the bus to the big meeting in a different town yesterday. So Jackie might have to present something about languages in education at this big meeting. I wasn't able to get a hold of her to tell her that... so... hopefully she's ready for a little impromptu presentation to a room full of 150 people!

Once that was all taken care of, it was back to the office for a bit. I put the finishing touches on the layout of a newsletter that I've been working on with one of the language teams here. They have a really talented artist on their team, and with his art and my brilliant layout... well, I must say, that newsletter looks really good. I haven't a clue as to whether or not the content is good (I don't know a single word of that language), but aesthetically, it's beautiful, if I do say so myself :)

Once that was finished, I went and met a friend over the lunch hour. We were going to go back to the same place where I bought some Christmas presents last week. They got one thing in which I had ordered last week, so we went to town. Unfortunately, the place was locked up tight, so I called Eunice - the woman who works there. She told me that they were at this exhibition at someplace I'd never heard of before. So the next 45 minutes was quite a gong show of me and Eunice calling each other and trying to figure out where I was and where she was and how I was supposed to find her.

Obviously, there are no street signs or addresses in this town. Directions go something like this: Go to the tarmac road. Turn left down that road where they fix all the old trucks. Then you will pass the cemetary/garbage dump, turn right and go until you see the tent which is blocking the road. Go towards the road that goes to Comfort Hotel. Then you go until you see all the people gathered between the tukels.

It's really quite chaotic, but I got a nice tour of some parts of the city I've never been to before! Anyways, I'm really glad we perservered and found the place, because it turns out that there was a real exhibition at this "self-help" place. There were a few different groups selling various bits and pieces of things - clothes, crafts, food items, as well as showing off the furniture and brick work, computer and catering skills that they're learning there. It was really a neat thing to see! And it was all so well done and the compound in which it all took place was so clean and nice and well-kept. It was really a pleasant surprise!

I'm just sorry that I didn't have more money in my pocket to buy more things! I love buying useful things from these ladies groups, becuase they really do a lot for the grass-roots development. If these women can make a little extra income, their children can be fed, can go to school, can get the medicines they need. It's really a good way to support them, plus I get some good stuff for gifts (and for myself to use!). I bought myself a set of potholders, since we don't actually have any decent ones - I normally end up using a rolled up tea towel to hold my hot pots. But now I have a lovely set of hand made pot holders from a local woman in some beautiful African fabric.

And I must say that I'm really impressed with Eunice, as she really went way out of her way to try to get me there! She even used her own phone credit to call me and make sure I was on the way and see how lost I really was. When she finally saw me getting close, she came running out of the building and waved frantically at our truck while talking to me on the phone until I saw her :) It's really a nice thing when people go out of their way to help you, rather than trying to get an extra bit of money out of you.

Anyways, that all being said, I was thinking that I was just going to pop down to the usual shop this afternoon and be home in less than an hour. The whole thing ended up taking almost 3 hours - and all of that during the hottest part of the day. So by the time I got back home, guzzeled some water, ate a bit of lunch (leftovers from our little dinner shindig last night) while answering my emails, the day was almost over again! At 5:30, I went with Annamarie to the tailor at the end of our street so she could get another dress made. I'm still not quite convinced of the skills of this tailor, but maybe if he does a good job on Annamarie's dress, I might trust him with a piece of one of my beloved fabrics...

And from there, we went straight off to fetch another friend, whom I haven't seen in weeks, to enjoy some dinner with her and one of her visiting colleagues. Then, of course, I had to drive them home (thankfully they don't live too far from my house!), and came home and, of course, guzzeled a few more cups of water.

And now I'm completely exhausted. Doing pretty much anything in this heat just takes it out of me. And to top it off, Zane is sleeping on top of my feet- to keep them warm?! Or just because he loves me?! We decided to keep Zane in the house last night, because Annamarie had a little encounter with a fuzzy little four-legged creature on her way to the loo in the wee hours of this morning. Hopefully Zane will get to work a bit later when all the scurrying and chewing action starts up tonight...

By the way, the rat is STILL living in my office drawer. I just can't seem to get rid of them. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep rats out of one's office drawers?!

Kitschmas

I hope none of you find this sacrilegious... but I found this BBC website rather funny this evening:

Kitschmas

Now I gotta go give my suitcases a bath so they're ready to start packing on Friday :)

The Hedgehogs have Landed

Yup, two little baby girl Hogs have been successfully transported to Grace in Uganda. The funny part is how they got across the border. This is from an email she sent me (slightly modified to protect the innocent...):

[He] told the Ugandan officials that he was taking them for a traditional ritual. On Christmas they bless the hogs, then release them and this is an ancient custom. The Ugandans totally bought it!!! They said, “Oh!” When they told him that they needed the proper paper work for them, he patiently explained that since he wasn’t going to eat the hedgehogs, they didn’t need the paperwork.

So, there you have it. If you want to EAT the hogs in your traditional Christmas ceremonies, you need to bring the paperwork. I have a stamp, so I could probably give you the appropriate paperwork that you need. All is takes is a signature and a stamp :) (But don't worry - I treat my stamp with respect and would certainly not do anything that could be construed as an abuse of the power of the stamp!).

Fellowshipping

I had an odd evening this evening, though in some ways, it was very "normal"! We have a group of Christian expats here that meets on Sunday evenings, for prayer and Bible study and some singing and all that sort of thing. It's been running for a few years now, with varying degrees of involvement from various people along the way. Somewhere along the way, I volunteered to do some of the "administration" for the group (ie, sending out email annoucements, making sure there was a schedule for who was leading particular bits on a given Sunday etc.). And in the past, there's been a great group of people who have been involved, very informally, in the leadership of that group.

However, many of those who were lending de-facto leadership have either gone or will be going in the next few weeks. Going and not coming back. So it was falling more and more to ME to organize things. And I was feeling a bit of pressure to keep things moving along. So two weeks ago, we had a meeting on a Sunday evening, and I expressed the fact that I needed help to keep this thing going... if people, indeed, wanted it to keep going! And amazingly enough, a bunch of people stepped up and said that they would be willing to help with various aspects of keeping a group of about 30 people organized and meeting every week.

So tonight we had our first little "steering committee" meeting! What a joy it was to meet together with 4 other people and discuss the options for what the group should study next, and how we should structure things and which direction we want to go with it. And also to pray for the group together. It was great! I feel quite excited about the group again, which is good, because it's so good to have some "fellowship" (whatever that is - I don't like that word... but at 11pm, I can't think of a better word for it, and you all know what I mean!) and some studying and some learning from the Word and from each other. But it was starting to feel a bit like a burden to me, because I didn't feel like anyone else wanted to keep going with the group. Now, though, I know that people want to continue with it and I think we've got a bit of new life in the group again. It's very exciting.

Our meeting was in the home of a new family who moved here 2 months ago. Yes, that's right, I said a FAMILY. There are little blond children running around this town and living here full-time! That's a real first. Really, it's been a very long time since I've sat and played with Lego with a couple of little blond boys. And it's never before happened in Jb, that's for sure. There's just something very normal about drinking tea and having a sort of "church" meeting in a home with a couple of children running around and not wanting to go to bed.

It was all just so normal, and yet, so abnormal for this town. I'm so thankful that this place is changing and that it is becoming the sort of place that families will move to. I guess it's a bit of what happened when the Wild West started to get a bit tamed - it suddenly became a safe enough place for people to actually CHOOSE to bring their families to (of course, there are plenty of local families here - but I haven't heard of anyone who has actually chosen to move their family here in the past few years). So it's really encouraging that this young family has decided to live here. I can't wait to come back after Christmas and go over to babysit so I can get in on some more Lego action...

Game Park

My dear friend Grace in Uganda has a bit of a "thing" for hedgehogs. When she lived here with us, she led hedgehog safaris, and had quite the hog research project going on. She even exported a couple of hogs with her back to EBB. Sadly to say, the female hog died after giving birth to a round of babies who also passed away. They were just too homesick for their native soil, I think.

Then last time Richard and I drove down to EBB, we tried to bring a replacement 'wife' for Spike, the remaining male hedgehog in Grace's menagerie. However, soon after crossing the border, those poor little hogs succumbed to their homesickness, as well, and they didn't make it all the way. They were rather unceremoniously buried in the red dust of Uganda somewhere along the road.

Richard is driving to EBB tomorrow again. So last night, the guards were given a mission to find a couple more hogs so Spike could try out a second wife. The guards found 3 little hogs, and carefully placed them in a box for us to figure out which ones were suitable little wives, and which ones would end up just sitting around and huffing and watching football with Spike.

Turns out the guards caught two little boy hogs and just one girl. Anyways, Richard and I took good care of them today, lovingly placing them in a big trunk, feeding them some peanuts and other tasty morsels, giving them some water, and thinking about how we could tie a little string to their ankles to allow them to play in the grass, yet keep them close to 'home' until tomorrow morning.

However, by about mid-day, we found that the bigger boy hog had jumped ship - climbed right out of his trunk! Amazing little climbing hog! The other two, including the remaining girl, were still happily sleeping the heat of the day away.

So we went out for lunch, though we did some reinforcement of the lid, to keep the others in. However, this evening, when we went to check on them... they were ALL GONE! I can just imagine a Pixar movie about escaping hogs. It would be SO cute. There would be a whole rescue brigade to come and rescue the hogs that were being carted off to a foreign land... I can just see it now...

Anyways, on the way back from trying to check on the escapees, Richard and I were walking back between the containers and the guesthouse, and I saw something slithering rather close to Richard's flip-flop clad feet. I mentioned it to Richard, and I have never seen him jump so far, so fast! Poor guy is rather scared of snakes - with good reason, I suppose, as most of them are poisonous around here.

Of course, then we had a problem - since we were on either side of the passage-way through the containers, with a snake in between. And both of us in flip flops. Richard just yelled at me to run the other way... and he ran to get a big stick. By the time I had made my way the long way around, Richard had already beat poor little snake quite senseless. And was just continuing to beat it to make sure he was good and dead. Sure enough, he was good and dead, so Richard picked it up with the stick and threw him over the fence. These encounters with these pesky little snakes make me really, really glad that I don't have to venture out into the night to turn off the generator anymore! The guards have been turning on and off the generator all week, and it's such a relief to not have to take care of that every night now!

I did have to dodge a few frogs on my way back to my house from the guesthouse, though, which is also quite a challenge, especially when I'm not sure if that rustling in the grass is from the frogs or from another snake...

A week of Firsts

In the past few days, I've had some "firsts" in Jb.

1. I browned ground beef that was bought in Jb! That's a first. I had forgotten what it was like to cook meat and make it into spaghetti sauce! Amazing. I'm still not quite sure where to find the shop where it was bought - the stuff I cooked up was given to Annamarie, but I've been given directions to the shop where it was bought... so I'll go searching for it when I come back!
   
2. I bought toothpaste - CREST! I bought it at my favorite Eritrean "supermarket", which just got a new shipment in. Normally, the "brand" name toothpastes can only be found at the special expat grocery store, which is super-duper expensive. And thus far, I've been able to keep myself supplied with toothpaste brought in from home or from Kenya or Uganda. But I've been in this town for almost 6 months without leaving... so I finally had to buy some toothpaste. And just at the right time, my favorite Eritreans brought some in from Saudi Arabia. At a very reasonable price - $2 for a tube. You know you've been somewhere a LONG time when you start having to buy toothpaste and underwear in a city. I've not gotten to the point where I've had to buy underwear yet... but oh man, it's definitely time to go home and replace what I've got!
3. I ate Turkish Delights that our dinner guests brought for us on Friday night. Yes, we hosted yet another dinner party on Friday evening - it's becoming a habit... a very good habit!
4. I went to the new Chinese pre-fab palace shop. Quite the place, full of clothes and furniture and household supplies, all direct from China! I actually broke down and got myself a pair of flip flops with a little flag from this country on them! They're really quite cute - they have a pink surfer theme going on, with palm trees and surfers, and then have an imprint of the country name and a little plastic flag glued on the toe-piece. Very cute. But don't tell Grace - I got her a pair, too, but they're a surprise. Now we have yet another pair of matching Jb shoes. Our Thanksgiving matching shoes are a bit worn out, I think.
5. I went to a new Eritrean restuarant which isn't too far from our house. It's quite nice - decorated in sort of a "nouveau tukel" decor. Bright solid colors on the walls, tasteful furniture made of chunky wood. Very sophisticated, actually. And they were playing this lovely easy-listening jazz sort of music, rather than some obnoxious East African pop, Celine Dion or Amharic music. We ordered some shiro and tibs, and then I spoke some Tigrinya to the manager. Then the price suddenly went down! It was good food. Nice fresh injera, nice laid back clientele. Helpful waitress. We liked it so much, we went back again this afternoon for lunch :)
6. I installed a program on one of the teams' computers which didn't require a whole bunch of logging off and logging in onto different user accounts to make sure it worked across all the accounts - I think I'm getting the hang of some of this software and multiple user accounts! Yup, I spend Saturday morning in geek-land and it wasn't such a bad place to be...

So there were a few good 'firsts' over the past couple of days. I'm looking forward to a nice quiet week. I think tomorrow is a holiday - Eid al Adha or something. But I've got several things on the go that need to get finished before the week is over and I fly away home! By the way, it's currently -4C with light snow where I'm going. It's currently 30C (at 9:13pm) with light dust where I am. It's going to be a bit of an adjustment - maybe you all will have to come see ME at my house when I get there, 'cause I might not be able to drag my frozen little bottom out the door once I get there!

Two Weeks!

Yup. Two weeks. And I will be sleeping in a real bed. I can't wait. Mom, please fill the refrigerator with chocolate milk, chedder cheese and raspberry yogurt, and have some whole wheat seedy bread on the counter! I'm coming home!

Am I excited about going home for a few weeks - um, just a little! With the heat rising, the dust clouds billowing, and the work piling up... it seems like a really good time to take a holiday.

However, I think tomorrow might be a public holiday here. And then there might be another public holiday for the Eid al Adha next week. But I'll just work- got one or two things I need to get done before I take off, eh?

Anyways, we have had some fun, too. Yesterday, after work, Jackie, Richard, Annamarie and I met at a fancy restaurant and indulged ourselves in a cappuccino. Yum yum. We pay Starbucks prices for it, but sometimes, you just gotta treat yourself. While we were sipping, Richard was regaling us with stories. One of the funniest stories has to do with one of the local tribe's marriage customs. Seems on the wedding night, the bride and her groom have a bit of wrestling match. If the bride wins the match, she can run home to her mother, because she has married a man who will be unable to protect her. However, if the man is able to defeat his new bride in the wrestling match, she is happy and proud that she's got herself a real man who will be able to slay the dragons for her, so to speak. Apparently, both the men and the women spend most of their pre-marriage lives practicing for their big wedding night wrestle!

Since we had just stocked up on shea body butter, we were thinking that it might be advantageous for the woman (or the man, depending on your perspective) to smear themselves with shea butter before the match begins - they'd be so slippery that their opponent wouldn't stand a chance!

Ok, so maybe that's not so funny. It sure seemed funny yesterday as we were drinking our cappuccinos :)

Nothing too noteworthy happened today, either. Um, let's see... I had to go and get some little cakes from the corner store for a little farewell tea we were having for a staff memeber today. As I was walking out the gate, a couple of the staff members were really puzzled by the fact that I was walking, and not taking a truck. They just couldn't figure out why I was on foot (why I was "footing", as they say here). Maybe I need to walk more often, just to prove to my colleagues here that I actually DO know how to go out on foot, and not just in a truck!

It was hot today, but we had our Arabic lesson early, while the generator was still on. So I could enjoy a little breeze from the fan whilst trying to put together coherent sentences in Arabic. I think I'm a real "people-pleaser" - my whole motivation for wanting to learn Arabic is so people will smile and be happy that I'm speaking their language! During our lesson, I'm always just so fully concentrating on making Justin, my teacher, laugh or say, "Sah! Very good construction!" Anyways, even when we fail, he is very encouraging and is always telling us, "Good try... but say it like this..."

Anyways, I have a whole 4 days now until our next lesson - hopefully I'll make the time to do some studying...

Snow in Italy

I haven't blogged much lately because it's been snowing in Italy.

Yes, that's right. I guess we live in a "Global Village" or something (Marshall McLuhan, one of my favorite communications theorists, by the way, was who came up with that term). So anyways, I won't get into the technical details of it (because they're a bit hazy to me anyways!), but when it snow in Italy, I get a flashing orange light on my VSAT modem and I don't get any internet.

But then again, there's not been too much to blog about - I'm just looking forward to going home! I leave in 10 days! Yahoo! But perhaps you might be interested to know what my day was like today...

A few weeks ago, in a meeting with some of the very important people in government, we set up a meeting with a "task force" that was set up to deal with some of the language and education issues in the Ministry of Education here. So this morning was set to be our big inaugural meeting. Jackie and I gathered our bits of paper, my computer on which to take the minutes... and we called up our colleague at the Ministry to confirm the time. Yup, no problem, the meeting was going to happen as scheduled.

Unfortunately, Matt had taken one of the trucks, and Richard needed the other truck to go get some papers stamped at a different Ministry... so we had to beg a ride off of Richard in order to get us to the meeting. We were just like "normal" NGO workers who have a driver to take them everywhere :)

Anyways, we made it to the Ministry only 5 minutes behind schedule.

Unfortunately, only one of our colleagues, Moses, was there. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. As it turns out, even the guy who was supposed to chair the meeting didn't turn up! So Jackie, me and Moses hashed out a bit of a plan and divided up some of the work amongst ourselves. And I got a Coke to replace the coffee that I didn't have time to finish before running off for the meeting... so the morning wasn't a complete waste of time! But close. I think poor Jackie was so wound up from the frustration of this lack of a meeting that she wanted to walk all the way home - me, being the lazy one, wasn't too keen on carting all our junk through the mid-day sun, even though it's only a couple of kilometers... but I convinced her to wait under a tree with me for our driver/Director of Administration to arrive in the beat up dusty old truck.

The truck, by the way, that's looking so awful that when Richard was locking it in the parking lot this morning, someone called out to him and asked him, "Why are you bothering to lock the doors - no one wants to steal THAT!". I think I need another recreational water-based activity on the weekend... washing the second truck, even though the first one is already dirty again.

Anyways, after a delicious lunch of beans and rice and bananas, Richard and I jumped in the relatively clean truck and went off to town. We had to go get yet another letter stamped in a different Ministry, which was surprisingly quick and easy! As I was waiting for Richard to talk with the man with the stamp in the office with the fabric walls, I noticed a lovely poster about how people should plant trees. And the most amazing and surprising thing is that it was written in both English AND the local dialect of Arabic! That's one of the first posters I've seen written in local Arabic, as it's not normally a written language. But of course, as a literacy specialist, I always like to see things written in a language that people actually know. There are SO many posters and health brochures etc written here in English - a language that only a very small proportion of the elite are literate in! Silly NGOs just keep publishing all their community development materials in English. Sigh... I could go on. But anyways, I was delighted to see this poster printed using the local language.

After our little trip to the Ministry, I went to do some shopping at a little cottage industry shop. There is a group of women who have joined together to make a certain product from local resources, and they sell it here in town now. I've also seen it in some fancy shops in Nairobi, and apparently they're going to start selling it in the US soon. I don't want to give away the secret, as I did quite a bit of my Christmas shopping there :) But it's good stuff, I tell you. You'll like it, I'm sure. It's so much fun going anywhere with Richard, too, because he just loves people - he loves to laugh and make people laugh. A real charmer, that one... but in a good way. So now I'm good friends with the woman who runs the shop, and she will call me when she has a certain product in stock next week, which she didn't have today. Considering how much money I spent there today... I hope she will give me a phone call next week (by the way, I didn't spend all of my own money - I was shopping on behalf of a friend from here who just moved back to Canada, too!).

But of course, no outing with Richard would be complete without a trip to the hardware store! This time we were looking for some chain for Matt to put up some trusses for the new steel tukel that he's building. Yes, tukels are usually made from wood and grass. For some reason, ours is being made from steel. Anyways, he wanted some small chain - 12 meters to be exact. But the price for the chain was going to be over $200.00 US. So we went away without the chain - I had already spent all my money on Christmas presents - besides the bit that I spent wasn't going to even make a dent in $200! Maybe they'll use a rope instead... But stink, I forgot to get the rat glue to finally catch that rat that keeps peeing in my office drawer... I guess tomorrow is another day...

Oh dear me... time goes too quickly. My laptop battery is about to die. I kinda lost track of time tonight, since I didn't actually have to turn off the generator tonight! Yup, for the first time here, I didn't have to go out of my house at 10:30pm to turn off the generator. Richard taught the guards how to switch on and off the generator yesterday, so I'm completely off duty now! Yahoo! What a difference this is going to make... though I'm still staying up way too late tonight...