Back Log

End April- Beginning of May:

It’s just so tiring, wondering constantly what I’m dong here and if I’ll make it through, I want so badly to go ‘home’. I don’t want to spend two years pining for something else. I’m so used to getting what I want, when I want it though, so I suppose this is strengthening. Besides, I chose to do this. That’s what’s really keeping me here. If I was in this position not by choice, I’d be doing al sorts of work to get out of it. Hm, this sounds worse than I mean it to. I’m not miserable here or anything, I just miss home so so so so so much. I need to get my head on straight and stop thinking about Portland as home. Integration, that’s the word, right? I need to actually make an effort to learn this damn language, rather than wait for comprehension diffusion to occur and one day I’ll wake up and understand what’s going on around me. It’s really lonely being excluded from conversation all day every day. It’s depressing to have children shout “lekhooa” (derogatory term for white person) at me when I walk around town, and it’s depressing to see how little I’m getting through to my students. I’m just shouting at a wall so much of the time. It’s depressing how many of my students are failing their classes, and how difficult it is for them to succeed in this outdated colonial-era styled school system. It’s depressing that my students, co-workers, and friends are attending funerals for loved ones almost every weekend, and it’s depressing to watch my neighbor die of aids; I feel like I can count more of her bones every time I see her. Two of my students have already dropped out of school because they’re too sick and need the money for medication rather than school fees. What can I do in the face of all this? I know I am helping, and am useful here, and yes I know the answer to my question: just keep going, do my best I can, etc. Saying that is a whole lot easier than doing it. There’s just this heaviness, a sadness that’s settled into my chest, and I’m dragging myself around. It’ll pass, I know, it’s just be nice it if passed sooner rather than later. On a more positive note, my dear Madeline’s school fell apart and went defunct around her (that’s not the positive part) so she had to move her site, so now instead of a 2 day journey away, she’s only 2 hours! Woot! And in july we’re going to Namibia and Botswana, and then it’s my birthday, and then I’m sure something else exciting will happen, such as the appearance of cheese in my life, or maybe a letter.
OK, It’s time for another edition of…

Things I Know Now, But Didn’t Before
1. According to an unnerving number of my students, an exoskeleton is “the bone of every person that died before”
2. Unrefrigerated salami will cause me to vomit more than 12 times in a 10-hour period
3. When the ambassador’s entourage is exclaiming over/taking pictures of an elusive sprinkbok, it will ruin the moment to mention that you see them on menus in South Africa all the time.
4. While cats are fun when they belong to someone else, I am not a fan of having one live with me, even if it is a cute fuzzy kitten
5. Feeding a cute fuzzy kitten pasta will give it smelly gas and bad diarrhea, thusly nullifying its positive qualities
6. Raspberry Jam + Feta + Spinach + Sweet Pickles + Honey Mustard + Pringles = Best Sammich EVAR (We went on a shopping spree at the Spar in S. Africa, and just put everything we bought on bread. Ahhh heaven)
7. Indian Summer is a horrible movie and Bill Paxton is not capable of pulling off a mullet
8. Trying to get friends to sleep over at your house all the time because they make the best space heaters can be construed as ‘a little creepy’
9. Ninja baths are >17 times more fulfilling than regularly sanctioned baths
10. Loose wrap skirts are neither appropriate nor professional to wear to work on a windy day
11. Thinking I can curse as much as I want around students/ neighbors/ coworkers/ random passers by because they won’t understand American curses is misinformed, because they tend to comprehend at very inopportune moments
12. Similar to when working with an open flame or printing presses, it is inadvisable to wear trailing scarves/ dangly earrings when attempting to weigh/screen for malnutrition 70-100 babies and small children, because they will latch on and strangle you/ forcible remove your earrings
13. One should not go against instinct and try to weigh demon children, because they will pee on you
14. Sticking mystery fireworks in a fire pit after they fail to light can be fun, as long as one is nimble (a la the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins) and is able to jump out of the way of shooting jets of colored flame. [If you’re wondering: yes, I am both nimble and quick]