We had a great day today - despite the fact that the lunch was an hour late, throwing our whole schedule off. The participants were really into the topics today! They really were paying close attention and were sharing and discussing and interacting... and hopefully learning a few new things in the midst of it all. I'm completely exhausted, but feel like it was a good day.
Silly me, for some reason, the first song that popped into my head to teach them at one point last week during a lul in the day happened to be an old camp song that we used to sing, "With Jesus in the Boat"... so now, they want to sing "With Jesus in the Boat" all day. Seriously. We sang it 5 times today. I'm not even joking. 5 times. We intersperse that with "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", because it's a good song to get people moving. I've also taught them how to play "Simon Says" and tomorrow I think we will try playing "Mingle". Who knew that all those years of being a camp counselor would come in handy training mother tongue primary school teachers in the middle of Africa?!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Halfway there.
The workshop is officially half way done! Whoo hoo! We had the participants fill out an evaluation form yesterday to see if we could get some clues as to what we can do differently this week and see if we can somehow stir up some enthusiasm in them. There weren’t too many clues in there, but in conversing with some of them, it seems that some of them are not really into it because they don’t see the “material” value in learning how to teach their mother tongue. That is, some of them think that they should be paid more if they become the language “experts” in their schools. Yet, they know that’s probably not going to happen, so they’re sorta figuring “why waste my time”.
So tomorrow we’re going to spend some time talking about the official language policy and see if we can bring some of this stuff out in the open. And hopefully we can make a good enough case for the fact that it’s just a good thing for their learners to be able to learn first in their mother tongue! Anyway, I’m hoping it will be a good discussion, and won’t be like pulling teeth to get them to talk to each other and to me.
These participants are quite funny – they can sit for hours, and I do literally mean hours, on a plastic chair under a tree, chatting away. I haven’t a clue what they’re chatting about, but they’re chatter boxes. But then they get in the classroom… and nothing. They don’t say much in their language, they don’t say much in English. So maybe we’ll just drag all the chairs out under the trees tomorrow and do our teaching that way!
I had a good evening yesterday. It started to rain, for one thing, so it really cooled down quite nicely. And it gave me an excuse to wear my gum boots :) My beautiful blue gum boots. I got in touch with someone that I’ve met back in the big city of Jb. He’s based here, and said he’d take me out to the taste the best grilled chicken in the country. It almost got called off because of the rain – and once we got out there, I could see why! The rain had turned everything to really sticky slimy slippery mud! Even the big old Landcruiser, in 4WD, was sliding around on the main road! I’ve never seen mud like that in the middle of a town. Truly amazing! There were literally vehicles sliding right off the side of the road and into the ditches.
But the chicken was worth it! Hot off the grill, served with some beans, fresh bread and a cold Coke. What more could a girl want? And it’s actually not that far from where I’m staying! I have to admit, it was just really nice to have some conversation with someone from closer to my own culture, as well. While I love my African colleagues, I’ve been feeling a bit lonely for some company of someone who I can understand a bit better! So it was a very nice refreshing dinner out. And it was just fun to wear my gum boots out for dinner!
This morning I slept in a bit. It was pretty humid again, so I was feeling kinda gross and sweaty by the time I got out of my room at 8:00am. My colleagues had kindly left some tea and fried dough for my breakfast near my door. So kind of them to think of me before they all headed out to church. Again, I just didn’t have the energy to sweat through a 4 hour service in a language that I don’t understand! Much more refreshing to stay on my own at home, and listen to a little John Piper and do some reading.
It was also wonderful because I was able to take a good long shower without having to rush to make space for someone else in the bathing room! The air was warm, but the water was still nice and cool, so it was a perfectly refreshing shower this morning.
I also took a little hike to the market this afternoon to see if I could find some more bananas. Alas. There were no bananas. No avocados. Very little of anything, really. There were a few very sad looking pineapples. However, I’ve only got my Swiss Army knife with me and no other implements for chopping into a pineapple. So I left those. But I did find a few little piles of green oranges. I bought several, hoping that they’ll be good. I don’t have such high hopes, but they will probably last a few days so I can at least get a bit of fruit!
I sorta rushed to the market and back because it was really threatening to rain again. So far, though, no rain! It’s gotten a bit cloudy, but the air is so still and it’s humid as anything. But the clouds don’t seem too eager to release their water!
I also did some work this afternoon to prepare for tomorrow. It’s going to be a long week, though I have a feeling it will also go fast! There’s a lot of material to cover, and I am, quite frankly, a little nervous about how the participants are going to deal with it all! I just haven’t quite figured out what they’re all expecting yet! I’ve already rearranged a few bits and pieces of my plans for tomorrow so that they’ll only be sitting and listening to anything for about 15 minutes at a time, before they have to get up and do something with it. Normally adults have a longer attention span than that, but I’ve figured out that these guys have about 20 minutes to sit before their minds go somewhere else!
That also means I have to try to get to sleep early tonight, because it’s going to take all my energy to keep teaching through the whole day, and trying to make sure I keep these guys’ attention all day… in increments of 15 minutes! One of my dear little friends in Uganda suggested that I dress up like a cow to do my teaching, and maybe that would keep their attention! These are, after all, cattle people, and everything, always, comes right back to the cows.
Speaking of the cows, did I mention that I drank some milk on Friday that came straight from a cow? They said it was boiled, so I figured it was probably safe enough to drink. But I did have a few slight regrets about it yesterday. It wasn’t exactly terrible, but enough uncomfortableness that I will avoid the full-on fresh from the cow milk experience in the future. I don’t know if there was something in the milk that actually got me, or if it’s just that my poor little belly isn’t used to so much dairy all at on… anyway, that’s probably way too much information for you.
The generator just came on, it’s starting to get dark, which means I need to run next door to pick up something for supper. Here’s hoping they have a plate of potatoes for me!
So tomorrow we’re going to spend some time talking about the official language policy and see if we can bring some of this stuff out in the open. And hopefully we can make a good enough case for the fact that it’s just a good thing for their learners to be able to learn first in their mother tongue! Anyway, I’m hoping it will be a good discussion, and won’t be like pulling teeth to get them to talk to each other and to me.
These participants are quite funny – they can sit for hours, and I do literally mean hours, on a plastic chair under a tree, chatting away. I haven’t a clue what they’re chatting about, but they’re chatter boxes. But then they get in the classroom… and nothing. They don’t say much in their language, they don’t say much in English. So maybe we’ll just drag all the chairs out under the trees tomorrow and do our teaching that way!
I had a good evening yesterday. It started to rain, for one thing, so it really cooled down quite nicely. And it gave me an excuse to wear my gum boots :) My beautiful blue gum boots. I got in touch with someone that I’ve met back in the big city of Jb. He’s based here, and said he’d take me out to the taste the best grilled chicken in the country. It almost got called off because of the rain – and once we got out there, I could see why! The rain had turned everything to really sticky slimy slippery mud! Even the big old Landcruiser, in 4WD, was sliding around on the main road! I’ve never seen mud like that in the middle of a town. Truly amazing! There were literally vehicles sliding right off the side of the road and into the ditches.
But the chicken was worth it! Hot off the grill, served with some beans, fresh bread and a cold Coke. What more could a girl want? And it’s actually not that far from where I’m staying! I have to admit, it was just really nice to have some conversation with someone from closer to my own culture, as well. While I love my African colleagues, I’ve been feeling a bit lonely for some company of someone who I can understand a bit better! So it was a very nice refreshing dinner out. And it was just fun to wear my gum boots out for dinner!
This morning I slept in a bit. It was pretty humid again, so I was feeling kinda gross and sweaty by the time I got out of my room at 8:00am. My colleagues had kindly left some tea and fried dough for my breakfast near my door. So kind of them to think of me before they all headed out to church. Again, I just didn’t have the energy to sweat through a 4 hour service in a language that I don’t understand! Much more refreshing to stay on my own at home, and listen to a little John Piper and do some reading.
It was also wonderful because I was able to take a good long shower without having to rush to make space for someone else in the bathing room! The air was warm, but the water was still nice and cool, so it was a perfectly refreshing shower this morning.
I also took a little hike to the market this afternoon to see if I could find some more bananas. Alas. There were no bananas. No avocados. Very little of anything, really. There were a few very sad looking pineapples. However, I’ve only got my Swiss Army knife with me and no other implements for chopping into a pineapple. So I left those. But I did find a few little piles of green oranges. I bought several, hoping that they’ll be good. I don’t have such high hopes, but they will probably last a few days so I can at least get a bit of fruit!
I sorta rushed to the market and back because it was really threatening to rain again. So far, though, no rain! It’s gotten a bit cloudy, but the air is so still and it’s humid as anything. But the clouds don’t seem too eager to release their water!
I also did some work this afternoon to prepare for tomorrow. It’s going to be a long week, though I have a feeling it will also go fast! There’s a lot of material to cover, and I am, quite frankly, a little nervous about how the participants are going to deal with it all! I just haven’t quite figured out what they’re all expecting yet! I’ve already rearranged a few bits and pieces of my plans for tomorrow so that they’ll only be sitting and listening to anything for about 15 minutes at a time, before they have to get up and do something with it. Normally adults have a longer attention span than that, but I’ve figured out that these guys have about 20 minutes to sit before their minds go somewhere else!
That also means I have to try to get to sleep early tonight, because it’s going to take all my energy to keep teaching through the whole day, and trying to make sure I keep these guys’ attention all day… in increments of 15 minutes! One of my dear little friends in Uganda suggested that I dress up like a cow to do my teaching, and maybe that would keep their attention! These are, after all, cattle people, and everything, always, comes right back to the cows.
Speaking of the cows, did I mention that I drank some milk on Friday that came straight from a cow? They said it was boiled, so I figured it was probably safe enough to drink. But I did have a few slight regrets about it yesterday. It wasn’t exactly terrible, but enough uncomfortableness that I will avoid the full-on fresh from the cow milk experience in the future. I don’t know if there was something in the milk that actually got me, or if it’s just that my poor little belly isn’t used to so much dairy all at on… anyway, that’s probably way too much information for you.
The generator just came on, it’s starting to get dark, which means I need to run next door to pick up something for supper. Here’s hoping they have a plate of potatoes for me!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
I'm going out!
I have some friends who work for an organization that has a little base here. So when I was trying to do some logistics for this trip, I told them I was coming. One of them mentioned that I should try the really good grilled chicken. I believe it was referred to as the best chicken in the country or something like that. So yesterday, in my desperation, I sent an email to ask those friends directions to get to the chicken place. I must have sounded pretty pathetic in my email, because they wrote back this morning and said they're heading out there tonight and said they'd come pick me up :)
Whoo hooo! I get to go out! I know, it's probably not all THAT exciting, but to me, it's thrilling. Almost makes it seem like a weekend. On that note, some more clouds are coming, which means it just might rain and get cool again :)
And we completely finished half our workshop today. Halfway done. Now I'm just waiting to hear about how we might get back home to Jb. Please pray that it all works out as nicely as the trip coming here did!
I'm off. Gotta run to the market before the rain comes - I'm also rather desperate for some fruit or veg., even though I know all I'll find in the market is more bananas! Better than nothing, that's for sure, though. Right, I'm off... maybe I shouldn't have had that milk fresh from the cow yesterday... they said it was boiled... but...
Now the guy from the internet cafe, asking to be my friend on facebook (which I politely declined), bought me a soda. Is orange Fanta equivalent to drinking orange juice or eating an orange?! I think for today, I will pretend it is...
Whoo hooo! I get to go out! I know, it's probably not all THAT exciting, but to me, it's thrilling. Almost makes it seem like a weekend. On that note, some more clouds are coming, which means it just might rain and get cool again :)
And we completely finished half our workshop today. Halfway done. Now I'm just waiting to hear about how we might get back home to Jb. Please pray that it all works out as nicely as the trip coming here did!
I'm off. Gotta run to the market before the rain comes - I'm also rather desperate for some fruit or veg., even though I know all I'll find in the market is more bananas! Better than nothing, that's for sure, though. Right, I'm off... maybe I shouldn't have had that milk fresh from the cow yesterday... they said it was boiled... but...
Now the guy from the internet cafe, asking to be my friend on facebook (which I politely declined), bought me a soda. Is orange Fanta equivalent to drinking orange juice or eating an orange?! I think for today, I will pretend it is...
Friday, May 28, 2010
It continues...
Tuesday:
Once again, so many bloggable moments, I hardly know where to start. This is a bit of a funny place – not quite a village, but certainly not a town, either. Ok, maybe more of a town than a village, but still not a modern metropolis! No pavement. No electricity. Some city water coming through some taps. And just a lot of huts and mud. And it’s also nice and clean, like a village. The Commissioner in the area has outlawed plastic bags. And it really makes such a difference to the cleanliness of the place.
Thursday:
Oops, got interrupted by something (don’t even remember what anymore!) on Tuesday. Yesterday I was feeling a bit on the lonely side after the workshop finished, so I went to the Internet place to see if I could connect with someone on the “outside”! Sure enough, a few people were on skype and I read the BBC news and some of the blogs I normally read… and I felt much better! I’m an extrovert, and I have to admit, it’s been a bit difficult to be surrounded by people here, and not really be able to connect very well with them. I mean, they’re nice people, really, all seem very kind and considerate and are very nice. But that being said, they are African men, so there’s only so much time I can spend with them and only so many topics I can discuss with them!
I’ve been trying to make friends a bit with the women who work here. One of them has a little baby who’s been suffering from malaria. She’s carrying the poor little baby around, tied to her back, and this poor little thing is so listless and weak. Today she went to the local clinic with the baby, and she got some medicine and fluids by IV. They will go back tomorrow. I hate to see these little babies like that – way too many of them never recover. Anyway, the mother is very sweet, and speaks some English. But it’s also a really good chance for me to practice the bit of Arabic that I know. Funnily enough, people seem so surprised that I can speak Arabic, and even though I’ve been away for a while, I do feel like I remember enough to communicate passably!
The days here have started to take on a bit of a routine. I wake up with the sun – amazingly enough. By 6:30am, I’ve crawled out of my little cocoon, to face the day. I’ve been trying to make sure I’m in the little bathing room by about 6:40, before the morning “rush”! There are three concrete stalls in which to bathe. Only one of them has a door that latches. Needless to say, I only take the one that latches! Sometimes, there is water coming out of the showerhead at the top of the stall. It was certainly built for the tall people who are local to this area – I have to reach up to turn the tap which turns the water on in there! And I’m a pretty tall girl with quite a long reach! Normal people who are not from this area would have an impossible time turning on the water!
After my cool shower, it’s back to my room to brush my hair and get ready for the day. By 7am, I’ve joined the throngs of waking men, strolling around in their towels and chewing on their sticks. One or two of them have toothbrushes, and everyone sorta finds their own little space and stares off into space while chewing. So I keep my head down and find my own little space to brush my teeth somewhere.
Then it’s time for tea. A little fried dough and some very, very thick hot milk with a little instant coffee powder thrown in is breakfast every morning. 20 of us sit around the compound in the shade on plastic chairs, slurping our tea.
At 8am, we file into the conference room for our devotions. While the workshop we’re doing is co-sponsored by the government and all the teachers are from the formal government schools, there’s an amazing number of pastors among them. Quite a few of them work as teachers during the week, and are pastors on the weekends. So they’re very enthusiastic when it comes to having devotions and praying for the workshop and for each other. It’s really quite a lovely feeling amongst the participants, and it’s nice to have such freedom to talk about the Bible translation work that we’re involved in and to talk about our faith, even in the middle of the workshop.
By 8:30am, we’re done devotions and have started the work for the day. We normally work until about 4 or 4:30pm, when we close our day with prayers and usually a song. These guys have amazing voices, and it’s really something to hear them singing their prayers in their language.
After we finish, I’ve been either going for a bit of a walk in the town – the market is very near by, and it’s been fun to go exploring to see what I can see there. I’ve also been buying some bananas and a few little supplementary bits of food for myself. I just can’t eat the local food three times a day without having some fruit and bread and peanut butter! However, I have been so disappointed with the fruit choices in the market. So far, all I’ve found is a few bananas. No pineapples, no mangos, no papaya… nothing. Just a few bananas. And I’ve only found them at 2 stalls! Back in Jb, pretty much every produce stall in the market has pineapples and bananas, at least. Here, it’s tomatoes, a few potatoes and lots of onions and okra. That’s about it for fresh veggies. I don’t think I could manage living here long-term with those sorts of fresh choices (or lack thereof!).
I have bought a few other little treasures in the market. One of my most beautiful purchases was a bucket. A big blue bucket with a lid. It’s a beautiful bucket. And I didn’t realize how much comfort would be added to my life with the purchase of a simple plastic bucket!
When the water is off (which seems to be the norm, rather than the exception!), you need to fill a basin (or a bucket) with water from the tank with which to wash. The 3 basins that are provided here are quite old, a bit cracked… and more importantly, used by, I’d say, about 40 different people for bathing and laundry. But me, I now have my very own bucket. I’m the only one who uses it. And I know that no one has peed in it! Better yet, it has a lid, which doubles as my “clean surface” in the shower room on which to place my soap and shampoo and washcloth. The only other place to put the soap is on the floor, which is, um, well, shall we say, less than clean. I know that no one has peed on my bucket lid.
I’ve also used my bucket to wash my clothes in. I can fill my bucket with water and use it sort of like a “sink” in my little room. I can even use it as a cooler – filling it with water from the tank and setting my water bottle in it to keep it a bit cool. I even used the lid for the bucket as a tray and a plate to eat my peanut butter and banana sandwich off of in my room. A serious multi-purpose bucket. I’m growing rather attached to my bucket, and I’m starting to hope that I don’t have to leave it behind when I go back home!
So the bucket has a role to play in my daily routine. I haven’t been eating dinner with the group, as I said before, I just can’t wait until 8:30pm to eat more rice, okra and chewy chunks of beef in greasy tomato sauce. Yesterday, I went to the hotel (where the internet is!) and got some take-away chips for dinner. Today, as I said, it was peanut butter sandwiches. I’ve been spending the evenings getting ready for the next days’ lectures and making sure I’m prepared for the coming day. Also, I’ve been reading a really good Maeve Binchy book – I love her books because they’re so long, light and fluffy, and yet quite enthralling.
By about 9:30pm, the rush to the bathing room has lessened, and this time, I carry my beloved bucket over for a hot shower. It’s normally been so hot during the day that the water really does come out hot, even at 9:30pm! Then I tuck myself into my mosquito net, read some more, or maybe watch part of a movie, and then lights out, hopefully before they turn off the generator so I can fall asleep feeling the somewhat cool breeze of my fan. Lately, I’ve been waking up sometime between the hours of 2 – 3am, when it gets hot again in my room. But for the past few days, for some odd reason, they’ve been turning the generator on again! So at 3am, I get a blessed blast of cool breeze from the fan! They turn it off again just as I’m getting up, at about 6:45am. I certainly won’t complain about having the fan on at 3am, but it sure does seem like an odd time to switch on the generator!
So the appointed time has come for my evening shower… tomorrow starts yet a whole ‘nother day!
Once again, so many bloggable moments, I hardly know where to start. This is a bit of a funny place – not quite a village, but certainly not a town, either. Ok, maybe more of a town than a village, but still not a modern metropolis! No pavement. No electricity. Some city water coming through some taps. And just a lot of huts and mud. And it’s also nice and clean, like a village. The Commissioner in the area has outlawed plastic bags. And it really makes such a difference to the cleanliness of the place.
Thursday:
Oops, got interrupted by something (don’t even remember what anymore!) on Tuesday. Yesterday I was feeling a bit on the lonely side after the workshop finished, so I went to the Internet place to see if I could connect with someone on the “outside”! Sure enough, a few people were on skype and I read the BBC news and some of the blogs I normally read… and I felt much better! I’m an extrovert, and I have to admit, it’s been a bit difficult to be surrounded by people here, and not really be able to connect very well with them. I mean, they’re nice people, really, all seem very kind and considerate and are very nice. But that being said, they are African men, so there’s only so much time I can spend with them and only so many topics I can discuss with them!
I’ve been trying to make friends a bit with the women who work here. One of them has a little baby who’s been suffering from malaria. She’s carrying the poor little baby around, tied to her back, and this poor little thing is so listless and weak. Today she went to the local clinic with the baby, and she got some medicine and fluids by IV. They will go back tomorrow. I hate to see these little babies like that – way too many of them never recover. Anyway, the mother is very sweet, and speaks some English. But it’s also a really good chance for me to practice the bit of Arabic that I know. Funnily enough, people seem so surprised that I can speak Arabic, and even though I’ve been away for a while, I do feel like I remember enough to communicate passably!
The days here have started to take on a bit of a routine. I wake up with the sun – amazingly enough. By 6:30am, I’ve crawled out of my little cocoon, to face the day. I’ve been trying to make sure I’m in the little bathing room by about 6:40, before the morning “rush”! There are three concrete stalls in which to bathe. Only one of them has a door that latches. Needless to say, I only take the one that latches! Sometimes, there is water coming out of the showerhead at the top of the stall. It was certainly built for the tall people who are local to this area – I have to reach up to turn the tap which turns the water on in there! And I’m a pretty tall girl with quite a long reach! Normal people who are not from this area would have an impossible time turning on the water!
After my cool shower, it’s back to my room to brush my hair and get ready for the day. By 7am, I’ve joined the throngs of waking men, strolling around in their towels and chewing on their sticks. One or two of them have toothbrushes, and everyone sorta finds their own little space and stares off into space while chewing. So I keep my head down and find my own little space to brush my teeth somewhere.
Then it’s time for tea. A little fried dough and some very, very thick hot milk with a little instant coffee powder thrown in is breakfast every morning. 20 of us sit around the compound in the shade on plastic chairs, slurping our tea.
At 8am, we file into the conference room for our devotions. While the workshop we’re doing is co-sponsored by the government and all the teachers are from the formal government schools, there’s an amazing number of pastors among them. Quite a few of them work as teachers during the week, and are pastors on the weekends. So they’re very enthusiastic when it comes to having devotions and praying for the workshop and for each other. It’s really quite a lovely feeling amongst the participants, and it’s nice to have such freedom to talk about the Bible translation work that we’re involved in and to talk about our faith, even in the middle of the workshop.
By 8:30am, we’re done devotions and have started the work for the day. We normally work until about 4 or 4:30pm, when we close our day with prayers and usually a song. These guys have amazing voices, and it’s really something to hear them singing their prayers in their language.
After we finish, I’ve been either going for a bit of a walk in the town – the market is very near by, and it’s been fun to go exploring to see what I can see there. I’ve also been buying some bananas and a few little supplementary bits of food for myself. I just can’t eat the local food three times a day without having some fruit and bread and peanut butter! However, I have been so disappointed with the fruit choices in the market. So far, all I’ve found is a few bananas. No pineapples, no mangos, no papaya… nothing. Just a few bananas. And I’ve only found them at 2 stalls! Back in Jb, pretty much every produce stall in the market has pineapples and bananas, at least. Here, it’s tomatoes, a few potatoes and lots of onions and okra. That’s about it for fresh veggies. I don’t think I could manage living here long-term with those sorts of fresh choices (or lack thereof!).
I have bought a few other little treasures in the market. One of my most beautiful purchases was a bucket. A big blue bucket with a lid. It’s a beautiful bucket. And I didn’t realize how much comfort would be added to my life with the purchase of a simple plastic bucket!
When the water is off (which seems to be the norm, rather than the exception!), you need to fill a basin (or a bucket) with water from the tank with which to wash. The 3 basins that are provided here are quite old, a bit cracked… and more importantly, used by, I’d say, about 40 different people for bathing and laundry. But me, I now have my very own bucket. I’m the only one who uses it. And I know that no one has peed in it! Better yet, it has a lid, which doubles as my “clean surface” in the shower room on which to place my soap and shampoo and washcloth. The only other place to put the soap is on the floor, which is, um, well, shall we say, less than clean. I know that no one has peed on my bucket lid.
I’ve also used my bucket to wash my clothes in. I can fill my bucket with water and use it sort of like a “sink” in my little room. I can even use it as a cooler – filling it with water from the tank and setting my water bottle in it to keep it a bit cool. I even used the lid for the bucket as a tray and a plate to eat my peanut butter and banana sandwich off of in my room. A serious multi-purpose bucket. I’m growing rather attached to my bucket, and I’m starting to hope that I don’t have to leave it behind when I go back home!
So the bucket has a role to play in my daily routine. I haven’t been eating dinner with the group, as I said before, I just can’t wait until 8:30pm to eat more rice, okra and chewy chunks of beef in greasy tomato sauce. Yesterday, I went to the hotel (where the internet is!) and got some take-away chips for dinner. Today, as I said, it was peanut butter sandwiches. I’ve been spending the evenings getting ready for the next days’ lectures and making sure I’m prepared for the coming day. Also, I’ve been reading a really good Maeve Binchy book – I love her books because they’re so long, light and fluffy, and yet quite enthralling.
By about 9:30pm, the rush to the bathing room has lessened, and this time, I carry my beloved bucket over for a hot shower. It’s normally been so hot during the day that the water really does come out hot, even at 9:30pm! Then I tuck myself into my mosquito net, read some more, or maybe watch part of a movie, and then lights out, hopefully before they turn off the generator so I can fall asleep feeling the somewhat cool breeze of my fan. Lately, I’ve been waking up sometime between the hours of 2 – 3am, when it gets hot again in my room. But for the past few days, for some odd reason, they’ve been turning the generator on again! So at 3am, I get a blessed blast of cool breeze from the fan! They turn it off again just as I’m getting up, at about 6:45am. I certainly won’t complain about having the fan on at 3am, but it sure does seem like an odd time to switch on the generator!
So the appointed time has come for my evening shower… tomorrow starts yet a whole ‘nother day!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The trip so far…
Rumour has it the “resort” next door to my “lodge” has internet at certain hours – namely, when the generator is on. So I’m writing this post in faith that when I hike over there in an hour, the electricity will, indeed, be there, and the internet, too, will be there. For $2 for each 30 minutes, I figure I can afford to spend 30 minutes on the internet every couple of days.
There have been ever so many bloggable moments in the past few days!
First, because of some certain situations, we really weren’t sure how we were going to get to this town in the first place. Thankfully, some budget was found so that we could pay for a flight on MAF – a wonderful Christian organization that flies all over the world. I happen to be quite good friends with a lot of the MAF folks in town, so it was pretty easy to arrange the flights. It ended up that we arranged to charter the entire plane – meaning we could take up to 13 people and something like 900 kg of cargo It ended up that we had 4 of us who were going for the actual workshop, then someone else from our compound who just wanted to go along for the ride, as well as a new administrator from MAF who wanted to go along for the ride… since we had rather a lot of space!
I was so wonderfully surprised on Saturday morning when we showed up at the MAF compound to go together with them to the airport. There was a woman there from MSF who needed to go to a town near where we were headed to. So it turns out that MSF paid for half the flight, and we only had to pay for half! What a surprise blessing, and a nice little confirmation that we made the right decision about flying with MAF. With only 4 of us going, it was actually slightly more expensive than flying on a commercial airline. But in the end, with the shared cost, it turned out to be much cheaper – and certainly safer and definitely much more fun!
The flight was great – because it’s rainy season, the landscape below was greener than I’d ever seen it. It was truly beautiful. I was so amazed to see, too, how the River branches and really does turn into a gigantic swamp just before the town where we were headed to. I’m so glad we didn’t end up taking the road, because it looked rather flooded down there!
The airstrip was just that. An airstrip in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. Just a few people waiting for a plane under the trees. Thankfully, my colleagues have all sorts of relatives around, and there was someone waiting under a tree for us in his landcruiser from the olden days.
He deposited us at a hotel called the “Standhope Hotel”. Not sure what the name means, but it was quite a new building, and the rooms and even the bathrooms were pretty clean! I had high hopes for the place. But then they told us the price per person, which was much higher than what the relatives had told us it would be. And then I realized just how far it was from the actual town centre and the venue where we thought the workshop would be held. The only transport we could find was a rickshaw who wouldn’t accept less than $10 to take us from the guesthouse to the town! A little quick mental math told me that I was going to run out of cash at this rate. And, well, there certainly aren’t any bank machines in this town!
Anyway, we started off to town to see what we could find, to check out the progress on the preparations that the organizers here had said they would do.
Alas. We found no one and nothing. And no one was even picking up their phones! It was actually rather disheartening, and a little worrying! But instead of worrying too much (because really, what could we do at that point?!), we just wandered around the town a bit, making a stop at the port to watch onions get unloaded, clothes get washed and bodies get bathed. Well, I tried not to dwell for TOO long on that last one!
By this time, it was definitely past lunch time, and definitely time for a cold drink. It was so terribly hot and humid. We were all just dripping. Drenched, in fact, in our own sweat. My little sweat hankie was soaked. I have a feeling I was a pretty sorry sight. At least I was wearing my sun hat, so didn’t get too baked and burned… just really sweaty!
We had lunch at a place that we thought perhaps we would “hire” to cater for the participants. It was a bit of a walk from the venue… something I didn’t relish. Walking that distance every day in the noon-day sun (or the pouring rain and mud!) was not a thought I was relishing. But that seemed to be the only option.
Anyway, feeling a bit disheartened, we wandered through the market, picked up some bread and bananas, and went back to the guesthouse in time for a shower and supper.
Then a horrible night began. If I ever go into architecture and design a hotel, remind me NOT to design it like the Standhope Hotel. All of the rooms opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. The only window in each room also opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. Now that would be one thing if this town had electricity and each room had an A/C so the window could be closed and the room would stay cool. But this town has no electricity. And the generator at the Standhope Hotel goes on twice a day: from 7pm – midnight and from noon – 2pm when the Nigerian soap opera is on the Satellite TV (in the main dining/bar/lounge area.
Other than that, the rooms are completely pitch black. And stuffy. I mean, absolutely not a breath of air moving through the rooms. Nothing. So you can imagine hot the rooms got – a tin roof, a very hot African sun, concrete walls to seal in the heat, and no windows. It’s like putting a bed with a mosquito net in a shipping container!
And then there’s the noise. It just happened that there was a football (soccer!) game on tv from about 9 – midnight. And the whole neighbourhood came out to watch the game and have a few beverages. So there I am, huddled in my little shipping container, trying to drown out the noise of the football fans, and sweating. And sweating. And sweating some more.
Needless to say, I did NOT sleep well.
I crawled out of my room, still sweating, at about 7am before my colleagues were due to leave for church to beg them to look for somewhere new to stay. I couldn’t bear another night like that.
Off they went to church. And most of the other guests cleared out. The clouds came and the breeze started blowing. After a shower, a cup of Nescafe and a bit of good music on my iPod and a good book, I was feeling much more positive and hopeful about life in general.
When my team came back from church (I didn’t go with them because I knew that it would just be long and hot and all in a language that I know exactly 3 words of), we had some lunch, then went off in their relatives’ car again, which he had so kindly lent to us for the afternoon.
We were off in search of alternative lodgings.
Amazingly enough, the first place we went to check out for us to stay happens to be a place that someone from the organizing team in the town had contracted to accommodate the participants! And, to, boot, they even hired the conference hall at the same compound for the workshop to be held in! Why no one had told us this to begin with, I don’t know. But what an answer to prayer (and I did have a lot of time to pray over it all while I sweated in my bed the previous night!). The only downside was that the place is quite a bit older and a bit run down. But at least there are windows for ventilation, a garden to sit in, instead of just a lounge, and not a satellite tv in sight!
I checked out the latrines before completely agreeing… and I must admit, I was not too pleased. They were pretty disgusting, actually. I will spare you the details. But not nice at all. But I thought, well, if worse comes to worse, I’ll buy some cleaning supplies and take care of it myself.
Since it was a bit too late to check out of the Standhope by then, we told the folks at the new place that we’d return today. We had a wander around the market to search for some bits of things that we needed. We searched for jerry cans and some cups to put drinking water in. I did the math and if we bought bottles of water for everyone (2 bottles per day), we would go through about 600 little plastic bottles in two weeks. That’s ridiculous. I’m just sickened by all the bottles that are thrown around everywhere here, and I’m trying to do what I can to reduce that number. Plus, it’s expensive to buy that much water!
Anyway, back to the Standhope we went. It turned out to be a much better night. There was no football on tv – just a cheesy movie in which Harrison Ford infiltrates an Amish community. Oddly enough, I had just seen part of that movie on tv before I left Canada. I still don’t know what it’s called. If any of you know the movie I’m referring to, please let me know so that I can avoid it in the future!
It had also been a much cooler day, so the rooms were quite as baking hot.
And I had actually moved to a different room for the night. The one I was in was right next door to a member of a large group that was staying at the hotel. They must have been “big men” somewhere. I just couldn’t figure them out, though. There were about 10 of them who came and went together in a very nice Landcruiser. Some of them wore posh suits. Others wore soldiers uniforms, and a couple of them wore pajamas. I kid you not. They climbed into the landcruiser each morning and climbed out again in the evening wearing their striped flannel pajamas. As soon as they came back to the hotel in the evening, everyone, except the pajama clad men, changed into their casual attire – a towel and flip flops. And there they sat, eating their supper and watching tv. In their towels and pajamas. Very odd.
In the meantime, I had asked if there was a cup of tea. Of course, no problem, I was told. So I waited for a little while. And after some time, I was presented with a flask (thermos!) of hot milk, some sugar and some Nescafe. I asked the waitress if there was a tea bag. I was told, “it is finished”. But I ordered tea and was told it was there. Anyway, apparently “tea” means any sort of hot drink… milk, coffee, tea, and any combination of the three.
Anyway, the second night passed much more peacefully. It was a bit cooler. And a bit quieter. So I slept better. And I had hope in my heart that tonight I will sleep better.
So this morning, we had our tea (which, of course, was Nescafe in hot milk), and waited for the landcruiser to come to bring us to the new hotel. We spent quite some time discussing the budget for various things (please pray that there are no surprise bills at the end, because they are charging SO much for things here, and we couldn’t get them to come down any lower, and, like I said, we only have so much cash along with us!). 2/3 of the participants have already come, which is great. We are just waiting for the others to come… hopefully by tomorrow. We did a bit of an intro to the workshop today with the participants after our lunch, and so we’re all ready to begin from tomorrow, hopefully!
Right, the appointed hour for the generator to begin next door has arrived. So I’m gion gto run off there and see what I can find…
Rumour has it the “resort” next door to my “lodge” has internet at certain hours – namely, when the generator is on. So I’m writing this post in faith that when I hike over there in an hour, the electricity will, indeed, be there, and the internet, too, will be there. For $2 for each 30 minutes, I figure I can afford to spend 30 minutes on the internet every couple of days.
There have been ever so many bloggable moments in the past few days!
First, because of some certain situations, we really weren’t sure how we were going to get to this town in the first place. Thankfully, some budget was found so that we could pay for a flight on MAF – a wonderful Christian organization that flies all over the world. I happen to be quite good friends with a lot of the MAF folks in town, so it was pretty easy to arrange the flights. It ended up that we arranged to charter the entire plane – meaning we could take up to 13 people and something like 900 kg of cargo It ended up that we had 4 of us who were going for the actual workshop, then someone else from our compound who just wanted to go along for the ride, as well as a new administrator from MAF who wanted to go along for the ride… since we had rather a lot of space!
I was so wonderfully surprised on Saturday morning when we showed up at the MAF compound to go together with them to the airport. There was a woman there from MSF who needed to go to a town near where we were headed to. So it turns out that MSF paid for half the flight, and we only had to pay for half! What a surprise blessing, and a nice little confirmation that we made the right decision about flying with MAF. With only 4 of us going, it was actually slightly more expensive than flying on a commercial airline. But in the end, with the shared cost, it turned out to be much cheaper – and certainly safer and definitely much more fun!
The flight was great – because it’s rainy season, the landscape below was greener than I’d ever seen it. It was truly beautiful. I was so amazed to see, too, how the River branches and really does turn into a gigantic swamp just before the town where we were headed to. I’m so glad we didn’t end up taking the road, because it looked rather flooded down there!
The airstrip was just that. An airstrip in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. Just a few people waiting for a plane under the trees. Thankfully, my colleagues have all sorts of relatives around, and there was someone waiting under a tree for us in his landcruiser from the olden days.
He deposited us at a hotel called the “Standhope Hotel”. Not sure what the name means, but it was quite a new building, and the rooms and even the bathrooms were pretty clean! I had high hopes for the place. But then they told us the price per person, which was much higher than what the relatives had told us it would be. And then I realized just how far it was from the actual town centre and the venue where we thought the workshop would be held. The only transport we could find was a rickshaw who wouldn’t accept less than $10 to take us from the guesthouse to the town! A little quick mental math told me that I was going to run out of cash at this rate. And, well, there certainly aren’t any bank machines in this town!
Anyway, we started off to town to see what we could find, to check out the progress on the preparations that the organizers here had said they would do.
Alas. We found no one and nothing. And no one was even picking up their phones! It was actually rather disheartening, and a little worrying! But instead of worrying too much (because really, what could we do at that point?!), we just wandered around the town a bit, making a stop at the port to watch onions get unloaded, clothes get washed and bodies get bathed. Well, I tried not to dwell for TOO long on that last one!
By this time, it was definitely past lunch time, and definitely time for a cold drink. It was so terribly hot and humid. We were all just dripping. Drenched, in fact, in our own sweat. My little sweat hankie was soaked. I have a feeling I was a pretty sorry sight. At least I was wearing my sun hat, so didn’t get too baked and burned… just really sweaty!
We had lunch at a place that we thought perhaps we would “hire” to cater for the participants. It was a bit of a walk from the venue… something I didn’t relish. Walking that distance every day in the noon-day sun (or the pouring rain and mud!) was not a thought I was relishing. But that seemed to be the only option.
Anyway, feeling a bit disheartened, we wandered through the market, picked up some bread and bananas, and went back to the guesthouse in time for a shower and supper.
Then a horrible night began. If I ever go into architecture and design a hotel, remind me NOT to design it like the Standhope Hotel. All of the rooms opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. The only window in each room also opened into the main dining/bar/lounge area. Now that would be one thing if this town had electricity and each room had an A/C so the window could be closed and the room would stay cool. But this town has no electricity. And the generator at the Standhope Hotel goes on twice a day: from 7pm – midnight and from noon – 2pm when the Nigerian soap opera is on the Satellite TV (in the main dining/bar/lounge area.
Other than that, the rooms are completely pitch black. And stuffy. I mean, absolutely not a breath of air moving through the rooms. Nothing. So you can imagine hot the rooms got – a tin roof, a very hot African sun, concrete walls to seal in the heat, and no windows. It’s like putting a bed with a mosquito net in a shipping container!
And then there’s the noise. It just happened that there was a football (soccer!) game on tv from about 9 – midnight. And the whole neighbourhood came out to watch the game and have a few beverages. So there I am, huddled in my little shipping container, trying to drown out the noise of the football fans, and sweating. And sweating. And sweating some more.
Needless to say, I did NOT sleep well.
I crawled out of my room, still sweating, at about 7am before my colleagues were due to leave for church to beg them to look for somewhere new to stay. I couldn’t bear another night like that.
Off they went to church. And most of the other guests cleared out. The clouds came and the breeze started blowing. After a shower, a cup of Nescafe and a bit of good music on my iPod and a good book, I was feeling much more positive and hopeful about life in general.
When my team came back from church (I didn’t go with them because I knew that it would just be long and hot and all in a language that I know exactly 3 words of), we had some lunch, then went off in their relatives’ car again, which he had so kindly lent to us for the afternoon.
We were off in search of alternative lodgings.
Amazingly enough, the first place we went to check out for us to stay happens to be a place that someone from the organizing team in the town had contracted to accommodate the participants! And, to, boot, they even hired the conference hall at the same compound for the workshop to be held in! Why no one had told us this to begin with, I don’t know. But what an answer to prayer (and I did have a lot of time to pray over it all while I sweated in my bed the previous night!). The only downside was that the place is quite a bit older and a bit run down. But at least there are windows for ventilation, a garden to sit in, instead of just a lounge, and not a satellite tv in sight!
I checked out the latrines before completely agreeing… and I must admit, I was not too pleased. They were pretty disgusting, actually. I will spare you the details. But not nice at all. But I thought, well, if worse comes to worse, I’ll buy some cleaning supplies and take care of it myself.
Since it was a bit too late to check out of the Standhope by then, we told the folks at the new place that we’d return today. We had a wander around the market to search for some bits of things that we needed. We searched for jerry cans and some cups to put drinking water in. I did the math and if we bought bottles of water for everyone (2 bottles per day), we would go through about 600 little plastic bottles in two weeks. That’s ridiculous. I’m just sickened by all the bottles that are thrown around everywhere here, and I’m trying to do what I can to reduce that number. Plus, it’s expensive to buy that much water!
Anyway, back to the Standhope we went. It turned out to be a much better night. There was no football on tv – just a cheesy movie in which Harrison Ford infiltrates an Amish community. Oddly enough, I had just seen part of that movie on tv before I left Canada. I still don’t know what it’s called. If any of you know the movie I’m referring to, please let me know so that I can avoid it in the future!
It had also been a much cooler day, so the rooms were quite as baking hot.
And I had actually moved to a different room for the night. The one I was in was right next door to a member of a large group that was staying at the hotel. They must have been “big men” somewhere. I just couldn’t figure them out, though. There were about 10 of them who came and went together in a very nice Landcruiser. Some of them wore posh suits. Others wore soldiers uniforms, and a couple of them wore pajamas. I kid you not. They climbed into the landcruiser each morning and climbed out again in the evening wearing their striped flannel pajamas. As soon as they came back to the hotel in the evening, everyone, except the pajama clad men, changed into their casual attire – a towel and flip flops. And there they sat, eating their supper and watching tv. In their towels and pajamas. Very odd.
In the meantime, I had asked if there was a cup of tea. Of course, no problem, I was told. So I waited for a little while. And after some time, I was presented with a flask (thermos!) of hot milk, some sugar and some Nescafe. I asked the waitress if there was a tea bag. I was told, “it is finished”. But I ordered tea and was told it was there. Anyway, apparently “tea” means any sort of hot drink… milk, coffee, tea, and any combination of the three.
Anyway, the second night passed much more peacefully. It was a bit cooler. And a bit quieter. So I slept better. And I had hope in my heart that tonight I will sleep better.
So this morning, we had our tea (which, of course, was Nescafe in hot milk), and waited for the landcruiser to come to bring us to the new hotel. We spent quite some time discussing the budget for various things (please pray that there are no surprise bills at the end, because they are charging SO much for things here, and we couldn’t get them to come down any lower, and, like I said, we only have so much cash along with us!). 2/3 of the participants have already come, which is great. We are just waiting for the others to come… hopefully by tomorrow. We did a bit of an intro to the workshop today with the participants after our lunch, and so we’re all ready to begin from tomorrow, hopefully!
Right, the appointed hour for the generator to begin next door has arrived. So I’m gion gto run off there and see what I can find…
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Moving right along...
Today we moved offices, we decided how to get to a town a few hundred kilometers by air and put the finishing touches on two back-to-back workshops. I'm rather tired.
It's been a bit of a long week, preparing for the workshops and doing a lot of logistical fanagiling to figure out what the best way to get to our destination is. And I think we've got it sorted out. Still haven't quite figured out the best way to get home, but considering that's not for another few weeks, I don't think it really makes a difference quite yet. Yet. One thing about this country is that the situations change SO fast. So all our transportation options this week might be completely different in the coming two weeks! I'll just bring enough money along (I hope!) to cover most eventualities.
That being said, yes, I am going up to the land of the cattle on Saturday morning! We're flying in a little plane, which is, by far, the safest of our options (unfortunately, the most expensive, as well... but it's a small price to pay for safety, as far as I'm concerned - Mom, you should appreciate that :) ).
I'll be gone for two weeks, I think, conducting a Writer's Workshop and a week of teacher training for teachers who are meant to be teaching in their mother tongue. It's going to absolutely exhausting, but these sorts of training workshops are exactly what I LOVE to do! So I'm looking forward to it. But it's me, along with three of my "local" colleagues. Great guys, all of them. But I'm hoping I don't get too lonely this coming week! I don't normally go off and do workshops without Jackie, and I must admit, it's always a lot easier with the two of us taking care of things and making decisions (and sharing the teaching load!). So please pray that I have wisdom as to how to spend the money that I'm taking along for the workshop (have to pay for all the accommodation and food for all the participants etc.), as well as that I'll have energy to do the actual teaching!
I know there are a few hotels that have internet in the town where I'm heading, but I have no idea if they are near or far or what the situation is going to be. So I may not be online much. Don't worry, I'll do my best not to get sold off to the participant with the most number of cows...
It's been a bit of a long week, preparing for the workshops and doing a lot of logistical fanagiling to figure out what the best way to get to our destination is. And I think we've got it sorted out. Still haven't quite figured out the best way to get home, but considering that's not for another few weeks, I don't think it really makes a difference quite yet. Yet. One thing about this country is that the situations change SO fast. So all our transportation options this week might be completely different in the coming two weeks! I'll just bring enough money along (I hope!) to cover most eventualities.
That being said, yes, I am going up to the land of the cattle on Saturday morning! We're flying in a little plane, which is, by far, the safest of our options (unfortunately, the most expensive, as well... but it's a small price to pay for safety, as far as I'm concerned - Mom, you should appreciate that :) ).
I'll be gone for two weeks, I think, conducting a Writer's Workshop and a week of teacher training for teachers who are meant to be teaching in their mother tongue. It's going to absolutely exhausting, but these sorts of training workshops are exactly what I LOVE to do! So I'm looking forward to it. But it's me, along with three of my "local" colleagues. Great guys, all of them. But I'm hoping I don't get too lonely this coming week! I don't normally go off and do workshops without Jackie, and I must admit, it's always a lot easier with the two of us taking care of things and making decisions (and sharing the teaching load!). So please pray that I have wisdom as to how to spend the money that I'm taking along for the workshop (have to pay for all the accommodation and food for all the participants etc.), as well as that I'll have energy to do the actual teaching!
I know there are a few hotels that have internet in the town where I'm heading, but I have no idea if they are near or far or what the situation is going to be. So I may not be online much. Don't worry, I'll do my best not to get sold off to the participant with the most number of cows...
Monday, May 17, 2010
Some visitors?
Since today was a holiday today (sort of), we had a couple of visitors come by (sort of).
They came with these feet.
Wearing these clothes.
And looking rather happy to see us!
I was even smiling when they took me out for ice cream at the brand new ice cream shop in town. They had real waffle cones!
It was a good reward after a long hot day of working on a holiday (sort of) (that "sort of" refers to the holiday, not the working!).
It was a good reward after a long hot day of working on a holiday (sort of) (that "sort of" refers to the holiday, not the working!).
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Has it really been 4 days...
... since I last blogged?! Sorry for failing you, my faithful readers (um, yes, that would be... um... Mom and Dad and my sister?!). I've been busy getting ready for a trip next week - I'm going with one of the teams here to their homeland, and we'll do a Writer's Workshop, as well as an Introductory Teacher Training. I'm always a little nervous about going on these trips, because everything is always all new, and I have NO idea what to expect in terms of... well, in terms of anything! And I'll be the "workshop director", so I don't have Jackie to fall back on to help make the decisions.
But it's been fun getting things ready, and I'm looking forward to doing the training itself. I love teaching, but I just hope the right people show up for the training and that our partners over there will be able to come up with their part of the bargain (providing for the transport and accommodation of the participants from the schools in the various counties).
I went out with a researcher here who's studying one of the local languages. We took our resident expert on that particular cultural group with us, and I was so enlightened. At the same time, I realized just how much I've come to know about this group! I've not particularly set out to study them, but I seem to have picked up a lot of knowledge about them - especially about their marriage and dowry systems, and the way the families work and how they keep track of their cows. Because with this group, it really does all come back to the cows! And I'll be going to see some of their cows next week, which I'm also really excited about!
Today I went off to the market with our resident expert and Sean, who's relatively new to this city, but hails from a city near my own hometown! The market was as I expected it to be, and I found part of what I had been looking for. I need a new small pot to cook in, though, and I didn't manage to find one of decent quality :( I did, however, find a new Thermos (no, not a "Thermos" brand thermos - it was just a generic "flask") for the tea that we make for our night watch-men each night. It's a very nice flask, if I do say so myself. And I was pleasantly surprised at the price, which is rather unusual for me in the market. I'm usually surprised at the prices, but that's not generally a "pleasant" surprise!
It seems some of the trucks aren't coming in from the neighboring countries with much fresh fruits or veggies, as they're all looking pretty thin on the ground. I'll be eating a lot of the usual for the next week, I think: eggs, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, pineapple. I saw some carrots, but they were charging $1 for two tiny little carrots!
I came home, though, and made some omlettes with cheese that dear Grace in Uganda sent up for me with a friend of ours who came from there this past week! Mmmm... it was SO nice to have some cheese again after being without for several weeks. The dear girl also sent some biscuits and some popcorn, so I should be set for snacks for the next few weeks!
By the time I was finished cleaning up from making lunch, it was just about time to start making supper! In the middle, right before supper, I was meant to go fetch someone from the airport, so I had to stagger my preparations. And since I, for some odd reason, volunteered to take care of 3 others in terms of 'meat' for the BBQ, I had a bit of work to do. And since the 3 others were guys, they also didn't think about things like salad or potatoes or anything to go WITH the mean! So I also roasted some tomatoes, fried some onions and provided dishes for all those guys. I did, however, conscript one of them to do the actual grilling of the meat!
The grilling took place on a cleverly constructed grill made from old gas (propane) cylinders that have been stored on the compound for many, many years! It worked well to grill up the meat, though. We had quite the crew of rather happy bellies following the BBQ!
It's also just a lot of fun to sit around with neighbours at the end of a week and relax a bit and do something that feels completely "normal" (for my own culture, at least!) and not talk about work!
The night was capped by a few rounds of Dutch Blitz, which I did win, but Sean gave me a pretty good run for my money tonight! I think it was all that hamburger sitting in my tummy which was slowing me down. I'm so impressed that there is yet ANOTHER shop in town which is importing frozen meat from Kenya! That means there are 4, yup, FOUR shops in town where we can buy ground beef, frozen chickens and various other cuts of meat. But after going for so long without any place to buy that sort of thing, I've completely gotten out of the habit of buying meat. So for me to have a package of ground beef in the freezer now, and to have cooked up hamburgers tonight is quite the momentous occasion - definitely worth a BBQ to celebrate!
But it's been fun getting things ready, and I'm looking forward to doing the training itself. I love teaching, but I just hope the right people show up for the training and that our partners over there will be able to come up with their part of the bargain (providing for the transport and accommodation of the participants from the schools in the various counties).
I went out with a researcher here who's studying one of the local languages. We took our resident expert on that particular cultural group with us, and I was so enlightened. At the same time, I realized just how much I've come to know about this group! I've not particularly set out to study them, but I seem to have picked up a lot of knowledge about them - especially about their marriage and dowry systems, and the way the families work and how they keep track of their cows. Because with this group, it really does all come back to the cows! And I'll be going to see some of their cows next week, which I'm also really excited about!
Today I went off to the market with our resident expert and Sean, who's relatively new to this city, but hails from a city near my own hometown! The market was as I expected it to be, and I found part of what I had been looking for. I need a new small pot to cook in, though, and I didn't manage to find one of decent quality :( I did, however, find a new Thermos (no, not a "Thermos" brand thermos - it was just a generic "flask") for the tea that we make for our night watch-men each night. It's a very nice flask, if I do say so myself. And I was pleasantly surprised at the price, which is rather unusual for me in the market. I'm usually surprised at the prices, but that's not generally a "pleasant" surprise!
It seems some of the trucks aren't coming in from the neighboring countries with much fresh fruits or veggies, as they're all looking pretty thin on the ground. I'll be eating a lot of the usual for the next week, I think: eggs, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, pineapple. I saw some carrots, but they were charging $1 for two tiny little carrots!
I came home, though, and made some omlettes with cheese that dear Grace in Uganda sent up for me with a friend of ours who came from there this past week! Mmmm... it was SO nice to have some cheese again after being without for several weeks. The dear girl also sent some biscuits and some popcorn, so I should be set for snacks for the next few weeks!
By the time I was finished cleaning up from making lunch, it was just about time to start making supper! In the middle, right before supper, I was meant to go fetch someone from the airport, so I had to stagger my preparations. And since I, for some odd reason, volunteered to take care of 3 others in terms of 'meat' for the BBQ, I had a bit of work to do. And since the 3 others were guys, they also didn't think about things like salad or potatoes or anything to go WITH the mean! So I also roasted some tomatoes, fried some onions and provided dishes for all those guys. I did, however, conscript one of them to do the actual grilling of the meat!
The grilling took place on a cleverly constructed grill made from old gas (propane) cylinders that have been stored on the compound for many, many years! It worked well to grill up the meat, though. We had quite the crew of rather happy bellies following the BBQ!
The night was capped by a few rounds of Dutch Blitz, which I did win, but Sean gave me a pretty good run for my money tonight! I think it was all that hamburger sitting in my tummy which was slowing me down. I'm so impressed that there is yet ANOTHER shop in town which is importing frozen meat from Kenya! That means there are 4, yup, FOUR shops in town where we can buy ground beef, frozen chickens and various other cuts of meat. But after going for so long without any place to buy that sort of thing, I've completely gotten out of the habit of buying meat. So for me to have a package of ground beef in the freezer now, and to have cooked up hamburgers tonight is quite the momentous occasion - definitely worth a BBQ to celebrate!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Some things never change!
At least a few things stay the same here in Jb! I had a really nice discussion over tea today with one of our colleagues here who is so committed to his work. He really knows, deep deep down that God has put him here to do his translation work. And he keeps at it, with such a beautiful attitude. He's an ordained priest in the Anglican church here, and has such a wonderful pastoral sort of heart. I always come away from my conversations with him feeling so encouraged. It's wonderful to know that I am working hand in hand with people like him, doing my small bit to help him in his ministry.
Plus, I was munching on a nice fresh piece of bread with freshly ground peanut butter while we were chatting, which always makes me happy :) Instead of frying up donuts every morning for tea break, Nadia has been selling bread with peanut butter, for which she roasts and grinds the peanuts herself. It is the most amazing peanut butter ever! And she sells a roll with a huge slathering of stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth goodness for about $0.25! That I can afford.
I was going to march over to the new market which has sprung up in the place of the old market after work with Sean today. But he got busy with something else, so we ended up wandering over a little later to the cafe on the corner instead. I was so happy to see that the folks who run the little cafe and one of the waitresses are still the same. And they still had fresh avocado juice for sale, too! Amazing. I know, it sounds gross - but the avocado juice so so creamy and delicious. I've been craving it since I left this place in December!
So at least a few things haven't changed.
Becka, our 12 year old neighbour, also came along with us. It's quite funny going anywhere with her, because the shopkeepers etc. always ask me if Becka is my "baby"! For one, a 12-year old girl would not, in my mind, be classified as a "baby"! And secondly, I don't feel old enough to have a 12 year old daughter of my own... though it is, of course, completely realistic that I could be the mother of a 12 year old... which then makes me feel really old! And of course, by African standards, I should probably have a 15 or 16 year old daughter, plus a whole string of younger ones in tow, by now. So the folks around here can't quite figure out what's wrong with me when I say she's not my "baby"! I think I'll just start calling Becka "my baby" and see how she likes it :D
Another thing that has not changed is our Tuesday night prayer time with my friends. Some friends have come and gone (actually, a lot have come and gone, but tonight one who had left has come back with a different organization!), but it's still just a really good time to get together with some friends and laugh and share together. So refreshing. It's nice that Tuesday nights haven't changed!
One exciting change is that we're going to get a smoke detector put into our generator shed! We sent out some prayer items to folks who pray for our organization. One of the items on the list was the recurring fires that we have in the generator shed, due to, well, various electrical reasons which I don't all understand. But it's really quite a miracle that the whole thing hasn't gone up in flames yet! Today, I got an email from one of our trusty wise advisors who is based in the UK, and he said, "Do you know if there's a smoke detector in the generator shed..."? And lightbulbs started going off all over the compound - I chatted with three others on the compound today about it and all three of us were like, "D'oh! Why didn't we think of that before?!" I think we've all been living in Africa for too long.
So I emailed back right away, and he's arranging to send us some smoke detectors (don't forget the batteries, Andy!), with someone who's coming our way from the UK. Funny how we need people who are living a bit "outside" of our situation to point out such obvious things to us once in a while. I appreciate those kinds of things, and for people pointing out what should be right in front of our eyes, but for whatever reason, we've missed it. And now a change, for the better, is a-coming! At least SOME things change once in a while :)
Plus, I was munching on a nice fresh piece of bread with freshly ground peanut butter while we were chatting, which always makes me happy :) Instead of frying up donuts every morning for tea break, Nadia has been selling bread with peanut butter, for which she roasts and grinds the peanuts herself. It is the most amazing peanut butter ever! And she sells a roll with a huge slathering of stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth goodness for about $0.25! That I can afford.
I was going to march over to the new market which has sprung up in the place of the old market after work with Sean today. But he got busy with something else, so we ended up wandering over a little later to the cafe on the corner instead. I was so happy to see that the folks who run the little cafe and one of the waitresses are still the same. And they still had fresh avocado juice for sale, too! Amazing. I know, it sounds gross - but the avocado juice so so creamy and delicious. I've been craving it since I left this place in December!
So at least a few things haven't changed.
Becka, our 12 year old neighbour, also came along with us. It's quite funny going anywhere with her, because the shopkeepers etc. always ask me if Becka is my "baby"! For one, a 12-year old girl would not, in my mind, be classified as a "baby"! And secondly, I don't feel old enough to have a 12 year old daughter of my own... though it is, of course, completely realistic that I could be the mother of a 12 year old... which then makes me feel really old! And of course, by African standards, I should probably have a 15 or 16 year old daughter, plus a whole string of younger ones in tow, by now. So the folks around here can't quite figure out what's wrong with me when I say she's not my "baby"! I think I'll just start calling Becka "my baby" and see how she likes it :D
Another thing that has not changed is our Tuesday night prayer time with my friends. Some friends have come and gone (actually, a lot have come and gone, but tonight one who had left has come back with a different organization!), but it's still just a really good time to get together with some friends and laugh and share together. So refreshing. It's nice that Tuesday nights haven't changed!
One exciting change is that we're going to get a smoke detector put into our generator shed! We sent out some prayer items to folks who pray for our organization. One of the items on the list was the recurring fires that we have in the generator shed, due to, well, various electrical reasons which I don't all understand. But it's really quite a miracle that the whole thing hasn't gone up in flames yet! Today, I got an email from one of our trusty wise advisors who is based in the UK, and he said, "Do you know if there's a smoke detector in the generator shed..."? And lightbulbs started going off all over the compound - I chatted with three others on the compound today about it and all three of us were like, "D'oh! Why didn't we think of that before?!" I think we've all been living in Africa for too long.
So I emailed back right away, and he's arranging to send us some smoke detectors (don't forget the batteries, Andy!), with someone who's coming our way from the UK. Funny how we need people who are living a bit "outside" of our situation to point out such obvious things to us once in a while. I appreciate those kinds of things, and for people pointing out what should be right in front of our eyes, but for whatever reason, we've missed it. And now a change, for the better, is a-coming! At least SOME things change once in a while :)
Monday, May 10, 2010
A tail of two cats?!
Sorry, it's a really pathetic title, I know. But the most exciting thing around this compound these days are the cats. Ever since I moved here, there's been a drama involving cats. Of course, you've heard enough about my own Zane, but the poor little guy has been traumatized a little lately by the other cats who are invading his space!
Zane has always been a bit of whimp - I think it has something to do with the fact that his, um, well, manhood, was forcibly removed as a kitten. So even though he's bigger (read: better fed!) than most of the wild cats on the compound, he had never been one to win any of the little scraps that he's found himself in over the past few years. And he spent his kitten-hood getting chased up trees by our neighbour's house cat who was also just a big ol' Tomcat. It's most embarrassing, though, that he's scared to death of kittens and baby hedgehogs!
Anyway, when we all returned to Jb from Nairobi, there was a sweet little kitty living on our front step. This little kitty has obviously been a house cat and has been well loved by someone, because she's really affectionate and just desperately wants to come into the house. She just loves people and is always following us around the compound. When she came to us, she had a really infected eye - it was so swollen up that she couldn't even open it! So she was dubbed "Winka". And the name, along with the cat, has stuck.
We've been putting some antibiotic cream on her eye, and she is no longer winking, but actually has an open eye. And she's voraciously hungry all the time! So we can't help but feed her. So she stays. She really is a lovely kitten and so affectionate - you can actually pick her up and she purrs and snuggles. Unlike Mr. Zane.
But Zane is terrified of the little creature. Since she's camped out on our doorstep, Zane has a hard time getting in and out of the house. And to top it all off, our neighbours have two adolescent cats (males, who still have their, um, manhood) who are just now being let outside to wander and play.
So if Zane wants to go anywhere or come back home from anywhere, he has to run this gauntlet of teenage boy cats with raging hormones running hither and yon and a sweet little girl cat camped out on the doorstep!
It really is a difficult life for a cat. Today he didn't even come home for breakfast or lunch, and just before dinner, I found him perched up on top of the tukel - about as high off the ground as a cat can get in these parts! I sure hope he gets over his phobia of kittens soon, because I'm starting to think these other cats are here to stay!
Zane has always been a bit of whimp - I think it has something to do with the fact that his, um, well, manhood, was forcibly removed as a kitten. So even though he's bigger (read: better fed!) than most of the wild cats on the compound, he had never been one to win any of the little scraps that he's found himself in over the past few years. And he spent his kitten-hood getting chased up trees by our neighbour's house cat who was also just a big ol' Tomcat. It's most embarrassing, though, that he's scared to death of kittens and baby hedgehogs!
Anyway, when we all returned to Jb from Nairobi, there was a sweet little kitty living on our front step. This little kitty has obviously been a house cat and has been well loved by someone, because she's really affectionate and just desperately wants to come into the house. She just loves people and is always following us around the compound. When she came to us, she had a really infected eye - it was so swollen up that she couldn't even open it! So she was dubbed "Winka". And the name, along with the cat, has stuck.
We've been putting some antibiotic cream on her eye, and she is no longer winking, but actually has an open eye. And she's voraciously hungry all the time! So we can't help but feed her. So she stays. She really is a lovely kitten and so affectionate - you can actually pick her up and she purrs and snuggles. Unlike Mr. Zane.
But Zane is terrified of the little creature. Since she's camped out on our doorstep, Zane has a hard time getting in and out of the house. And to top it all off, our neighbours have two adolescent cats (males, who still have their, um, manhood) who are just now being let outside to wander and play.
So if Zane wants to go anywhere or come back home from anywhere, he has to run this gauntlet of teenage boy cats with raging hormones running hither and yon and a sweet little girl cat camped out on the doorstep!
It really is a difficult life for a cat. Today he didn't even come home for breakfast or lunch, and just before dinner, I found him perched up on top of the tukel - about as high off the ground as a cat can get in these parts! I sure hope he gets over his phobia of kittens soon, because I'm starting to think these other cats are here to stay!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Typical Saturday
I went to bed last night with a bit of a sore throat and the beginnings of a head-ache. I'm going to bed tonight with a full-blown sort throat and a full-blown headache. I've been taking medicine, tea and fruit juice all day to try to alleviate my suffering (don't worry, it's not THAT bad, I'm just a bit of a baby when it comes to being sick!).
While laying on my little wicker love-seat (closest it gets to a couch in our house!), I realized WHY I'm sick. The young woman who helps to keep our house clean was washing the dishes and sneezing all over everything. We had a little lesson after that in how germs are spread and how to, shall we say, contain one's germs a bit.
I did have a fantastically productive burst of energy this morning, though, before it got too hot. I cleaned out our bottom kitchen cupboards - the ones that Zane has been hunting in lately. I threw away a TON of old plastic containers which had been seriously chewed on by rats. And found all sorts of other treasures. And now all those treasures and nicely organized and placed in such a way that one can see what treasures one has. So now all the coffee making apparatus is together. All the baking apparatus is together. All the storage apparatus is together. And there are boxes for all the un-chewed plastic containers and lids. Our poor house helper was a bit horrified at me because I was throwing away "Jackie's containers". So we also had a little discussion about the fact that this is also my house, even though she has never seen me living in it before :) (Sunday, the woman who used to help us, moved on to take care of her husband, rather than taking care of us, so Evelyn joined us while I was away).
Anyway, while the whole cupboard cleaning thing was going on, we had another little fire in the generator shed. Fortunately, this one wasn't so bad, and we now keep extra parts on hand for when this sort of thing happens, so it only took a few hours to fix. In the meantime, it was getting pretty warm in the house!
The heat, combined with my cold, caused me to spend an awful lot of time lounging on the love-seat for the rest of the afternoon. I didn't even feel up to going out to the market, which is odd for me, as I LOVE getting off the compound and just having an excuse to go somewhere. Instead, I sent along my shopping list with those who were going on the market expedition. And now I'm happily stocked up with bananas, eggs, onions, carrots, and potatoes for the week - and I didn't even break a sweat doing it! So nice to have kindly neighbours!
We were going to hike over to a local restaurant to grab some avocado juice and some dinner, but it started to rain just before supper time. And it rained and it rained and it rained. And it thundered and it lighteninged for a couple of hours! So we all stayed in and my housemate took very good care of me by cooking up some stir-fried veggies and rice. She even heated up the leftover matooke (plantains) that we had made for dinner last night. It was nice to be taken care of like that and not have to think about supper.
And now, I'm ensconced once again in my mossy net, and I think I will watch an episode of something on my computer before turning off my light a bit earlier than usual. Maybe another cup of tea with some honey will soothe my throat before I sleep, though...
While laying on my little wicker love-seat (closest it gets to a couch in our house!), I realized WHY I'm sick. The young woman who helps to keep our house clean was washing the dishes and sneezing all over everything. We had a little lesson after that in how germs are spread and how to, shall we say, contain one's germs a bit.
I did have a fantastically productive burst of energy this morning, though, before it got too hot. I cleaned out our bottom kitchen cupboards - the ones that Zane has been hunting in lately. I threw away a TON of old plastic containers which had been seriously chewed on by rats. And found all sorts of other treasures. And now all those treasures and nicely organized and placed in such a way that one can see what treasures one has. So now all the coffee making apparatus is together. All the baking apparatus is together. All the storage apparatus is together. And there are boxes for all the un-chewed plastic containers and lids. Our poor house helper was a bit horrified at me because I was throwing away "Jackie's containers". So we also had a little discussion about the fact that this is also my house, even though she has never seen me living in it before :) (Sunday, the woman who used to help us, moved on to take care of her husband, rather than taking care of us, so Evelyn joined us while I was away).
Anyway, while the whole cupboard cleaning thing was going on, we had another little fire in the generator shed. Fortunately, this one wasn't so bad, and we now keep extra parts on hand for when this sort of thing happens, so it only took a few hours to fix. In the meantime, it was getting pretty warm in the house!
The heat, combined with my cold, caused me to spend an awful lot of time lounging on the love-seat for the rest of the afternoon. I didn't even feel up to going out to the market, which is odd for me, as I LOVE getting off the compound and just having an excuse to go somewhere. Instead, I sent along my shopping list with those who were going on the market expedition. And now I'm happily stocked up with bananas, eggs, onions, carrots, and potatoes for the week - and I didn't even break a sweat doing it! So nice to have kindly neighbours!
We were going to hike over to a local restaurant to grab some avocado juice and some dinner, but it started to rain just before supper time. And it rained and it rained and it rained. And it thundered and it lighteninged for a couple of hours! So we all stayed in and my housemate took very good care of me by cooking up some stir-fried veggies and rice. She even heated up the leftover matooke (plantains) that we had made for dinner last night. It was nice to be taken care of like that and not have to think about supper.
And now, I'm ensconced once again in my mossy net, and I think I will watch an episode of something on my computer before turning off my light a bit earlier than usual. Maybe another cup of tea with some honey will soothe my throat before I sleep, though...
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Education Day!
Today was the celebration of "Education Day" - an initiative by UNICEF with the motto, "Let all children go to school!" This is obviously a noble cause, and since I haven't shown my face at the Ministry of Education yet, and since Lynne, who's visiting with us and helping out with some education work wanted to go... I went along to the celebration today. The celebration was being held at the Cultural Centre, which is only a couple of "blocks" from our compound. It was meant to start at 8:50am. Lynne, who's never been to these sorts of things before, didn't want to be late. Um, right. Late. I managed to convince her that we didn't have to leave our house before 9am.
So around 9am, we were munching on some breakfast... and we heard a bit of a scruffle in the bottom kitchen cupboard. We both turned around just in time to see Zane, the mighty hunter, emerge from the cupboard with a tiny rodent in his mouth! I tried to chase him out of the house with his prize, but he was adamant about taking it under my bed... I didn't bother chasing him because that would just make it all worse :( But just a few minutes later, Zane emerged from my room and went straight back into the cupboard... where we heard some more commotion. And he emerged triumphantly once again with a rather large rodent in his mouth... and promptly went straight under my bed.
And just because he's so cute, here's another whilest sleeping off his feast.
At the same time all of this was going on, I noticed yet another wild-life related cool thing in our house:
This guy is about 3 - 4 inches across and has been hanging out on our screened in verandah all day! He's a moth, but looks exactly like the leaves that he happens to be perched nearby. I've never seen anything like this before, ever. Cool, eh?
Right, so once all that fun was finished, it was around 9:30, so we headed over to the cultural centre to see if anything was going on yet.
Nope. Not yet. But we got to sit down and wait. And I did my PR and greeted several people that I know from the Ministry. And then we waited. And waited. And guess what we did then? We waited some more.
Eventually, things got under way with some songs and a few poem recitations from some of the school children.
And lots and lots of speeches by various officials.
We had super good seats - second row! So I couldn't sneak out early :( But at least we were seated pretty much directly under a big ceiling fan, which helped keep us a bit cooler for the next 4 hours that we were planted there. The Minister made a nice speech about the value of mother tongue education and how we need to work hard to implement the language policy. I heartily agree with him on that point, of course! I wish I could have written his speech, though. Maybe I should travel around the world and market myself as a speech-writer to government officials who are advocating for mother tongue based bilingual education :)
Anyway, the Education Day celebrations ended peacefully and on a high note with a little brass band from the police service, who weren't going to let us go away without hearing from them!
On the way back to the compound, we took a detour through a market which has sprung up in the open field behind where the old market used to be, a few years ago. I was amazed to see how much of a market had sprung up! You can buy most basic things there - onions, tomatoes, greens, garlic, lentils, and we even went far enough along to find a few pineapples and some bananas. So I'm quite happy that these things are available within walking distance once again, instead of having to get in the car and drive to a market!
By the time we got back to the compound, I was pretty sweaty, hot and hungry! A quick slather of margarine and garlic on some bread in the oven, plus some tomato and cucumber salad, and I was good to go back to work... once the generator was switched on, that is, since the electricity left us for several hours today, too!
So around 9am, we were munching on some breakfast... and we heard a bit of a scruffle in the bottom kitchen cupboard. We both turned around just in time to see Zane, the mighty hunter, emerge from the cupboard with a tiny rodent in his mouth! I tried to chase him out of the house with his prize, but he was adamant about taking it under my bed... I didn't bother chasing him because that would just make it all worse :( But just a few minutes later, Zane emerged from my room and went straight back into the cupboard... where we heard some more commotion. And he emerged triumphantly once again with a rather large rodent in his mouth... and promptly went straight under my bed.
Here's a photo of the mighty hunter after consuming his feast. I couldn't get him to show you his mighty fangs, but at least he's sticking his tongue out!
Right, so once all that fun was finished, it was around 9:30, so we headed over to the cultural centre to see if anything was going on yet.
Nope. Not yet. But we got to sit down and wait. And I did my PR and greeted several people that I know from the Ministry. And then we waited. And waited. And guess what we did then? We waited some more.
Eventually, things got under way with some songs and a few poem recitations from some of the school children.
Anyway, the Education Day celebrations ended peacefully and on a high note with a little brass band from the police service, who weren't going to let us go away without hearing from them!
On the way back to the compound, we took a detour through a market which has sprung up in the open field behind where the old market used to be, a few years ago. I was amazed to see how much of a market had sprung up! You can buy most basic things there - onions, tomatoes, greens, garlic, lentils, and we even went far enough along to find a few pineapples and some bananas. So I'm quite happy that these things are available within walking distance once again, instead of having to get in the car and drive to a market!
By the time we got back to the compound, I was pretty sweaty, hot and hungry! A quick slather of margarine and garlic on some bread in the oven, plus some tomato and cucumber salad, and I was good to go back to work... once the generator was switched on, that is, since the electricity left us for several hours today, too!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Reality's setting in already?
I'm not quite sure how to write about all my stories from the past few days, because, well, I don't want to come across as "disparaging" of my host country... but man, I really had forgotten how crazy things can be around here some days!
Yesterday and today, I was out with a colleague (a local fellow), who we'll call "R", doing some errands, and the thing that struck me the most was that I just attract a lot of attention around here. For starters, I stick out like a sore thumb because, well, I'm a wee bit on the pale side. But somehow, it seems to be more than that over the past few days!
R had to procure a travel permit for someone (not me) from one of the offices yesterday, so that was one of our stops on our mega-errand spree. We got the pass for the person with no problem at all, but for some reason, the guy in the office demanded to see my passport. There's no reason why he should ask to see my passport, and there's no reason why I should carry the thing around with me at all times. But he noticed me, and just decided that he wanted to see my passport. But of course, I didn't have it with me... and it turned into a big thing, which R had to go back later to deal with (along with my passport - I stayed home!). It just sorta soured the rest of the day, because we were both annoyed that we'd had a run-in. And it makes me feel bad, too, because it makes extra problems and extra work for R, just because I happen to stick out like a sore thumb!
We got some other errands done, thankfully, without any hassle - including going to the "garden center" on the River bank. It was so beautiful in there - just row upon row of little seedlings in various buckets and bags, happily sitting under the shade of the mango trees. It was so quiet and peaceful - the closest thing I've seen to a real park in this country! I was tempted to ask them if I could bring my picnic lunch, a lawn chair and my book next Sunday afternoon! It was just lovely. And I got a lovely little houseplant to call my own. I've never had a real houseplant here before, but I thought it was about time! I just hope I don't kill it.
In the midst of the errands, we also had to have our lunch somewhere, so we went to a local little eatery, which I've passed several times and never gone into. It's usually full of men-folk, so I try to avoid going there without my own man-folk in tow! But since I was with R, it was ok. While sitting there and chewing through our bits of goat, washed down with peanut butter soup, we got a phone call from my fellow-countryman, Sean. He was wondering where R was, because, well, he had just squished a snake in his front door. As he was leaving his house, the snake decided he wanted to go in. The snake attacked Sean's broom several times, before finally getting his head squashed in the door! Sean was looking for R to ask about the best course of action with the snake, thinking that R was on the compound and could come and rescue him. Little did Sean know that when R sees a snake, he normally calls his wife to come and deal with it! Good thing for R, we were far, far away from the compound, munching on a bit of goat.
Then, this morning, R was catching a flight to Uganda, so I went with him to drop him at the airport, doing some errands on the way. He was driving, and ended up getting pulled over by the traffic police. As he was pulling off the side of the road, the police started asking him, "why are you parking here and why aren't you parking straight?". To which R replied, "well, you pulled me over, I'm not parking!". So the policeman asked for his driving license, but before he could actually get it out of his pocket, the police officer waved him through. And then, a few blocks later, when we got to our destination, I got followed by a rather eager old man. He wanted to walk right beside me, so I kept switching sides with R, to try to keep R between us. I didn't say anything, but he kept telling R that he wanted me to be his daughter... at least, that's what I could understand from his Arabic!
Anyway, after finally getting him on his plane and safely making it back to the compound, it was time to figure out where to park myself to work for the next few weeks. My poor little desk is getting rather weathered sitting out in the sun and rain. I scouted it out yesterday to see if I could come up with a way to protect it, but I think it's beyond help already :( And since everyone has moved offices, most of the people from three different offices are "camped out" in our Conference Room, which we have started to affectionately refer to as "the village". Jackie left today for a workshop in a real village, so her desk in our village is un-used at the moment. But I'm not sure that I want to work in the village. For one, it gets super hot in there in the afternoon. For two, I'd be sitting with my back to a whole bunch of people and staring at a dirty white wall, and for three, one of the people who sits in there is constantly asking me for computer help, so I'd be answering his questions every 10 minutes and not getting anything of my own done.
So, today, I chose to work in my own verandah. Sitting on the couch, with my laptop :) Not such a bad way to work... but I should probably find a real place to work so people can actually find me if they need me for something! I'll see what I do tomorrow. Might spend half the day in the village, and the other half in my verandah! At the moment, I'm checking through a primer that a team has been working on while I've been away, so it's a bit of fiddly detail work... but all I need to do it is my laptop, so really, I can do it anywhere. Too bad there aren't any air-conditioned Starbuck's with wireless around, though :(
Yesterday and today, I was out with a colleague (a local fellow), who we'll call "R", doing some errands, and the thing that struck me the most was that I just attract a lot of attention around here. For starters, I stick out like a sore thumb because, well, I'm a wee bit on the pale side. But somehow, it seems to be more than that over the past few days!
R had to procure a travel permit for someone (not me) from one of the offices yesterday, so that was one of our stops on our mega-errand spree. We got the pass for the person with no problem at all, but for some reason, the guy in the office demanded to see my passport. There's no reason why he should ask to see my passport, and there's no reason why I should carry the thing around with me at all times. But he noticed me, and just decided that he wanted to see my passport. But of course, I didn't have it with me... and it turned into a big thing, which R had to go back later to deal with (along with my passport - I stayed home!). It just sorta soured the rest of the day, because we were both annoyed that we'd had a run-in. And it makes me feel bad, too, because it makes extra problems and extra work for R, just because I happen to stick out like a sore thumb!
We got some other errands done, thankfully, without any hassle - including going to the "garden center" on the River bank. It was so beautiful in there - just row upon row of little seedlings in various buckets and bags, happily sitting under the shade of the mango trees. It was so quiet and peaceful - the closest thing I've seen to a real park in this country! I was tempted to ask them if I could bring my picnic lunch, a lawn chair and my book next Sunday afternoon! It was just lovely. And I got a lovely little houseplant to call my own. I've never had a real houseplant here before, but I thought it was about time! I just hope I don't kill it.
In the midst of the errands, we also had to have our lunch somewhere, so we went to a local little eatery, which I've passed several times and never gone into. It's usually full of men-folk, so I try to avoid going there without my own man-folk in tow! But since I was with R, it was ok. While sitting there and chewing through our bits of goat, washed down with peanut butter soup, we got a phone call from my fellow-countryman, Sean. He was wondering where R was, because, well, he had just squished a snake in his front door. As he was leaving his house, the snake decided he wanted to go in. The snake attacked Sean's broom several times, before finally getting his head squashed in the door! Sean was looking for R to ask about the best course of action with the snake, thinking that R was on the compound and could come and rescue him. Little did Sean know that when R sees a snake, he normally calls his wife to come and deal with it! Good thing for R, we were far, far away from the compound, munching on a bit of goat.
Then, this morning, R was catching a flight to Uganda, so I went with him to drop him at the airport, doing some errands on the way. He was driving, and ended up getting pulled over by the traffic police. As he was pulling off the side of the road, the police started asking him, "why are you parking here and why aren't you parking straight?". To which R replied, "well, you pulled me over, I'm not parking!". So the policeman asked for his driving license, but before he could actually get it out of his pocket, the police officer waved him through. And then, a few blocks later, when we got to our destination, I got followed by a rather eager old man. He wanted to walk right beside me, so I kept switching sides with R, to try to keep R between us. I didn't say anything, but he kept telling R that he wanted me to be his daughter... at least, that's what I could understand from his Arabic!
Anyway, after finally getting him on his plane and safely making it back to the compound, it was time to figure out where to park myself to work for the next few weeks. My poor little desk is getting rather weathered sitting out in the sun and rain. I scouted it out yesterday to see if I could come up with a way to protect it, but I think it's beyond help already :( And since everyone has moved offices, most of the people from three different offices are "camped out" in our Conference Room, which we have started to affectionately refer to as "the village". Jackie left today for a workshop in a real village, so her desk in our village is un-used at the moment. But I'm not sure that I want to work in the village. For one, it gets super hot in there in the afternoon. For two, I'd be sitting with my back to a whole bunch of people and staring at a dirty white wall, and for three, one of the people who sits in there is constantly asking me for computer help, so I'd be answering his questions every 10 minutes and not getting anything of my own done.
So, today, I chose to work in my own verandah. Sitting on the couch, with my laptop :) Not such a bad way to work... but I should probably find a real place to work so people can actually find me if they need me for something! I'll see what I do tomorrow. Might spend half the day in the village, and the other half in my verandah! At the moment, I'm checking through a primer that a team has been working on while I've been away, so it's a bit of fiddly detail work... but all I need to do it is my laptop, so really, I can do it anywhere. Too bad there aren't any air-conditioned Starbuck's with wireless around, though :(
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Must be getting used to the place....
It's a whopping 26 C in my bedroom at 10:41pm. Too cold for a shower. I turned off the fan, went looking for an extra sheet for my bed ('cause I know I'll need it in a few hours) and put on pajama pants and a full t-shirt (no tank top tonight!). Brrr. I'm already planning to heat some water tomorrow morning in the kettle for my "shower".
We had a beautiful rain storm this afternoon while I was cooking up a pot of pasta with vegetable sauce (some tomato paste, green pepper, onions, carrot and eggplant!) and it's been cool ever since!
And I know I'm getting used to the place, too, because it didn't even faze (by the way, I originally wrote that "phase") me to dump the mess that the rats had made in the bathroom drawer. How many other people in the world do you know of who come home to find half eaten chicken bones and rat droppings in their bathroom drawers? But I happily got out my little bowl of bleachy water and got to work on that and a few other things that have been chewed upon over the course of the last few months. At least it's a good excuse to give things a good scrub now and again!
I'm also realizing tonight that some things around here haven't changed - the band that plays at the cultural center nearby on Sunday nights is exactly the same! They're even playing the exact same songs that they were playing 4 months ago. Sigh. Even Celine was better than this band. But at least they're one thing that's familiar, and they do a pretty good cover of "Hotel California"!
We had a beautiful rain storm this afternoon while I was cooking up a pot of pasta with vegetable sauce (some tomato paste, green pepper, onions, carrot and eggplant!) and it's been cool ever since!
And I know I'm getting used to the place, too, because it didn't even faze (by the way, I originally wrote that "phase") me to dump the mess that the rats had made in the bathroom drawer. How many other people in the world do you know of who come home to find half eaten chicken bones and rat droppings in their bathroom drawers? But I happily got out my little bowl of bleachy water and got to work on that and a few other things that have been chewed upon over the course of the last few months. At least it's a good excuse to give things a good scrub now and again!
I'm also realizing tonight that some things around here haven't changed - the band that plays at the cultural center nearby on Sunday nights is exactly the same! They're even playing the exact same songs that they were playing 4 months ago. Sigh. Even Celine was better than this band. But at least they're one thing that's familiar, and they do a pretty good cover of "Hotel California"!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Back home
I arrived late yesterday afternoon, and have been enjoying being back "home"! Of course, it's not without it's shocks... it always takes me a few days to get used to the dust and the grime everywhere. But I'll get used to it once again. It did seem quite normal to me already to wipe the rat footprints off of the container of cooking oil and the bottle of Nutella that I took out of the cupboard today, though. It also will take a few days to get used to all the changes around here!
First thing I noticed is that our organization has a new LandCruiser in which to drive around town! Instead of driving around in our two old pick-up trucks with people stuffed in the box, we can now all drive together in air conditioned comfort! Amazing. 8 of us went out last night for dinner in one truck and we didn't all arrive dripping in sweat! How cool is that?
The second thing I noticed is that we drove nearly the whole way from the airport to our house on pavement! Yup, tarmac roads have come to within about 3 "blocks" of our compound! However, I do have to change all the maps and directions that we send to people to help them find our place, because the big blue container that we always use as a landmark is gone! And the little blue police post is now yellow! And the little village that used to mark our driveway is gone and our driveway has expanded - our gate is now right even with the main road. So we turn straight into our gate off the road, rather than having to ford our way through the ravine to get to the gate. Truly amazing. I will have to post some before and after photos - but I'm too lazy to do so at the moment :)
There's also a new office being built on our compound. So all of our old office has been moved to a temporary location, and my desk is currently upside down stored on the verandah of the conference room. So, we'll see where I end up working from come Monday!
And in our house, there are a few changes, too. I now have a working light bulb in my room! For over a year, the light didn't work, but no one seemed to be able to fix it for me. And now, it works :) We also have a new house-helper to keep us clean and organized. She probably thought I was nuts this morning, as I was unpacking and taking things out of cupboards and moving things around as if I owned it all... because she had no idea that I actually do! Anyway, I introduced myself and explained to her who I am and why I've been away and all that, and she seemed to get it, but she was wondering what in the world I was doing for a while, I think, and why I was going through someone else's stuff like I was!
After a quick trip to the market today to fill our fridge with fresh fruits and veggies again, I came back home to continue my unpacking. Which is what I'm off to do now!
First thing I noticed is that our organization has a new LandCruiser in which to drive around town! Instead of driving around in our two old pick-up trucks with people stuffed in the box, we can now all drive together in air conditioned comfort! Amazing. 8 of us went out last night for dinner in one truck and we didn't all arrive dripping in sweat! How cool is that?
The second thing I noticed is that we drove nearly the whole way from the airport to our house on pavement! Yup, tarmac roads have come to within about 3 "blocks" of our compound! However, I do have to change all the maps and directions that we send to people to help them find our place, because the big blue container that we always use as a landmark is gone! And the little blue police post is now yellow! And the little village that used to mark our driveway is gone and our driveway has expanded - our gate is now right even with the main road. So we turn straight into our gate off the road, rather than having to ford our way through the ravine to get to the gate. Truly amazing. I will have to post some before and after photos - but I'm too lazy to do so at the moment :)
There's also a new office being built on our compound. So all of our old office has been moved to a temporary location, and my desk is currently upside down stored on the verandah of the conference room. So, we'll see where I end up working from come Monday!
And in our house, there are a few changes, too. I now have a working light bulb in my room! For over a year, the light didn't work, but no one seemed to be able to fix it for me. And now, it works :) We also have a new house-helper to keep us clean and organized. She probably thought I was nuts this morning, as I was unpacking and taking things out of cupboards and moving things around as if I owned it all... because she had no idea that I actually do! Anyway, I introduced myself and explained to her who I am and why I've been away and all that, and she seemed to get it, but she was wondering what in the world I was doing for a while, I think, and why I was going through someone else's stuff like I was!
After a quick trip to the market today to fill our fridge with fresh fruits and veggies again, I came back home to continue my unpacking. Which is what I'm off to do now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)