in the end, it was a pretty decent day.
It actually started with waking up at 5:30 a.m. due
to a knock on the door from a person that I've been
doing some computer work with. He needed to go
to his office to download a document that was sent
to him. It was an itinerary of activities of receiving a
pretty high up visitor.
So, off we go to his office and in a rush I might add.
To the point of putting that cup of coffee off with the
idea that we'd be finished by 6:30. This would give
me enough time to get to the garden while the water
was running.
But first, on the way out I wanted to check to see if
the next door neighbor (aka the 'mess' family, mostly
due to bad life decisions as opposed to what is
shown in picture above) brought back the pot that
they borrowed last evening. They did bring it back which
was good (pot isn't mine, belongs to people I'm staying
with) but as you can see, they made porridge in it and
didn't clean it (inside pot, outside is from cooking fires).
It was very clean when they took it. Porridge cooked
in a pot and left to dry overnight is like trying to clean
cement.
So, the 'mess' family struck during the night and it took
45 minutes to bring the pot back into a usable condition.
Then we get to the office and the main computer has
viruses and doesn't want to function. We were able to
power an old computer (one of the dinosaurs) and
eventually download the document and just when we
placed the flash drive into the computer that has the
printer attached, the generator shuts down as a result of
some malfunction. This is at about 8 a.m. and the person
had to leave the village without the document and we lost
2 and a half hours.
Then went to the garden and found that someone took the
key and it took another hour to track it down only to find
that there wasn't any water as the people in the morning
used it all to water their plants.
On the docket was also to plant two poles that would be
used to get the volleyball court up and running as we
promised. Only problem was that the youth office people
that were going to help get this thing going, were up to their
rearends in work as people were coming to have them help
fill out application forms,
At this point, nothing is going right and there was a real
meaning to the term 'Blue Monday'.
That's how it goes sometimes in this crazy Peace Corps existence.
In fact I thought, I am going home, pulling the covers over
my head and power up the iPod Touch and play Sodoku
till the battery needs recharging.
But first, it was clean the pot to be able to make dinner, so
the pot came back to life. After eating, the youth office guy
contacted me and said we were going to work the volleyball
court till finished.
The lady who is basically the netball organizer came around with
new ideas to repair the netball hoops and also maybe start
a netball league. She also had a girl that was willing to be her
assistant. To get anyone willing to lead here is like pulling teeth.
Also, a woman whom never gardened before asked me to
help her get started and we planted some tomato plants. And
the nurse at the clinic called me in a panic because her computer
was a little on the fritz. Fixed that in a matter of minutes. Also,
a milestone in a personal sense, was that after forgetting my
little LL Bean windup flashlight at the house, was able to find
my way back in almost total darkness with only stumbling
over some type of objects twice.
So, what started off in the blue zone ended in the rosy zone.
Volleyball court is ready and we came through with our
promise. We are building some confidence that I hope will
result in more participation and I know that it will help turn
this village around. If we can get the kids on the positive side
of life, then who knows.
This Blue Monday just came out ok in the end. Hopefully
turquoise Tuesday ends up half as good.
Just can't let the 'mess' family borrow the pot, or maybe
having a cooking pot with cement in it was some form
of crazy good luck charm.
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