So, the hard day. Let me get into some of that. The roof in the house I live in has leaks everywhere. One right in my room. It’s been leaking for over a week, and it’s been raining everyday, off and on throughout the day and night. There’s carpet in my room. So, I was having to deal with not only a leaky roof, but a wet and stinky carpet. It was SO DISGUSTING. Not only is stepping in wet, squishy carpet disgusting, the smell was just horrendous! Words can’t even describe. Finally, my ‘host father’ or brother or whatever decided that it was inhuman and I had to move rooms. Really?? It’s been over a week my dear! But, I’m out of there now so I’m happy. But, also due to the rain, none of the doors in the house seem to close? It’s very bizarre. So I have some stuff in the room I’m sleeping in and still a lot of stuff in the room I was in. The door the room I’m sleeping in wouldn’t close and lock, and since there are workers that may be coming in and out, they want me to keep my stuff locked up. So….I toted shit back to my old room to lock it up in there. That door wouldn’t close all the way and lock. So I tried to open it and close it again, the door handle completely broke off! Also, the front door doesn’t close or lock. So here I am, with a broken door handle and no doors in my house that will lock. When it rains it pours! Here I’m using that as both literal and metaphorical lol. So the day just kind of sucked after that. The kids were bad today. And there’s a teacher at my school who I just seriously hate. He’s way too immature and the way he acts is just completely and utterly inappropriate! Seriously, you just don’t even know. He’s always trying to stand too close and touch EVERYONE. Today he asked me how I was going to go two years without sex? Excuse me? I don’t even know where to being to explain how fucking wrong this is. We’re at WORK mind you. WTF! If I come home early, know that I just couldn’t fucking stand him anymore!

Two years is suddenly seeming like a really, really long time! I know that I can make it, but yesterday I had a scary thought. Do I WANT to? First time I asked myself the want question. I do, it’s just hard to remember sometimes. I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere with the teaching, and sometimes I wonder if the kids even respect me. Which begs me to ask myself, why am I here? To help kids who don’t want my help and who aren’t getting any real benefit from me anyway? They warned us that the first three months of service are the hardest and the oscillations of highs are lows are both fast and drastic. Sometimes you just have to remind yourself why you are here, what made you come in the first place. Sometimes I even need to remind myself of the personal goals I had for myself when I came. Personal growth and all that shit. Anything to get through the hard times, because I know they come and go. I think also that I’m both glad and not glad that I know what one of the volunteers who just left this past December said. She said that “all” of the group going home were miserable….partly because they felt they were ineffective. Glad I know that so when I feel that way, I know I’m not the only one. I’d be really depressed if I thought I was ineffective and thought I was the only one. Not glad because it makes you wonder wtf you’re doing here! LOL. One thing is for sure though, I will be so much more appreciative of everything when I get back home. Seriously. Indoor flushing toilet, shower, washer and dryer, friends, family, electricity, movies theaters, coffee shops, food! The list can just go on forever. I never realized how much I loved my home until now. And by home, I mean the USA. You seriously appreciate things a lot more when you don’t have it anymore. And I don’t just mean material things and modernity. There are some cultural aspects about back home that I love and miss. This one is a bit more complicated to explain so perhaps I’ll leave that for another post (it’ll also include all the great and wonderful things I love about Africa and Namibia, I don’t want to give the wrong impression here). But yeah, indoor flushing toilet, heaven man. It’s weird how it’s like, when I have to pee, it’s sudden and with a vengence, it must be only cuz I have to go outside the homestead a few hundred yards lol. And um, yeah….can we say turtle head? It’s a good thing I don’t have to poop much lol. Funny thing though, I’m not nearly as germaphobic or bug-aphobic (haha, I know, made up word) as I use to be. I have a spider as a roommate. In the states, that would have been a big hell no, I even didn’t like daddy long legs. Here I’m like…wall spider? Eh, whatever. They stay away from people and eat bugs LOL. Germs. Psh. I will have a stomach made of steel when I get back, I will never get sick LOL.

Ok, I will have to stop this long and rambling post. If I post more often, I wouldn’t have to feel like I need to fit everything into one post huh? I hope to keep it up more often now.

So a few highlights before I sign off.  Yes, I’m happy.  Believe it or not.  Even when I have shitty days like today (woke up to find my ceiling leaked and a BUNCH of my shit was soaking ass wet, luckily nothing of too big of importance was damanged).  Oh, which reminds me, I’m at permanent site now (hence leaky roofs).  In a village out in the bush!  It’s beautifuly and quiet, lots of open space.  I started to jog again, which was scary a few times because I almost got lost a few times.  There’s no road, just tire tracks all over.  It’s somewhat hard to jog though, it’s all sand around where I live.  My camera is dead so I’m waiting on a transformer to get here to charge it, then I will take pictures of my homestead and school. 

Well, Tate is almost here.  (Tate = father, but you refer to any guy as Tate as a title of respect).  I better be ready to meet him since he was nice enough to pick me up on his way home from work.

Will be blogging next week.  Hopefully since I have time, it will be a good one haha.  But definitely will post pictures.

There’s so much to learn.  Gender roles are very different.  There are no such thing as casual relationships between men and women in Namibia.  In Namibian standards, I would be considered a “floosy” (is that spelled correctly? LOL). 

I’m meeting a lot of great volunteers and we are all good friends already.  One offered to both lend and give me a little bit of money when I didn’t have any more South African Rands and when we were still in DC and I needed bus money, and one of the guys also offered to carry my bag when I complained it was heavy.  So yeah, we are all in this together and have bonded accordingly.  Not to say everyone is best friends, of course, some get along better with one than another.  But mostly, we are already all friends and close even though it’s only been a week we’ve been together.  Granted it’s been just about 24/7 we’ve been together.

This Thursday we will be moving in with a host family for the remainder of training.  We met them last night and I’m a bit tentative.  My host mother seems very friendly and nice, but seemed very quiet.  But I think there was more of a language issue with us than some of the other volunteers whose host family’s English was quite impressive.  I also found out we will be living with host families for the first 3 months of our permanent site.   I also think, if I understood correctly, that we will all be in rural areas, no electricity or running water in our homesteads. 

I don’t have much more to update.  I miss everyone even though I’m having a blast here so far. 

Please post comments for me here and on facebook!  I will be having internet on my phone!  Yes, internet on my phone, but no electricity or running water.  This is Africa.  =D

In other news, I’d really like to thank my friends for making my time in Huntsville enjoyable.  You guys are really making me miss you guys already.  Or, I’m just using that as an excuse to finally FEEL something about going to Africa.  That and, my mom was totally fine all day Friday until I told her I was going to go on through security to my gate, then she just started crying.  I felt so bad.  It almost made me start crying, I couldn’t say anything or I’d cry too, so I just stood around, not knowing what to do, but I felt bad that she was crying.  Until now, moving to Africa felt just like when I moved to Arizona.

I wonder how much things will have changed when I get back.  Will the rest of my friends be married when I get back?  That would totally suck if I was the only single person of all of my friends!  I might have to make all new, single, friends.  Will the already married ones have babies? How different will I be?  What kind of job am I going to get?  Where am I going to live?  Blah, Blah, Blah.  I probably won’t have any of these thoughts once I officially start the Peace Corps Tuesday.  Thank Goodness.  But, I’m just hanging out, kinda bored right now, so I have to fill my mind with something to worry about I guess.

Anyhow…I had a fun time hanging out in DC today, seeing the sites.  Here are some of the pics from today:

The Capitol Building

Lincoln Memorial

Gump wuz herre.

Gift left at Vietnam Memorial

Korean Memorial. 19 statue soldiers, 19 reflected off of the wall for a total of 38 soldiers; representing the 38th Parallel.

The Korean War Memorial wall is covered in etchings such as these, etched from real photographs.

It was the first time I met my friend Mike’s girlfriend.  I don’t know exactly what their relationship is, but I’m saying girlfriend.  On Friday night, she kind of segregrated from the group and I heard a lot of not so great things about her, and one of the women there and I had some fun at her expense.  (Who in the world leaves their panties laid out in the bathroom for other guests to see? Seriously.  Us two women decided she was trying to clearly mark her territory.  I was told by EVERYONE that she is extremely jealous and does not get along with most of Mike’s female friends.  She won’t even speak to them!)  On Saturday I got the full force of her and I can tell you, I DO NOT like her.  First of all, she’s just kind of rude and nasty (to women), secondly, I find it very creepy how she is with men.  She was all kinds of hugging up on all the men there.  She was kind of belly to belly with her arm on this one dude and I thought I was going to puke.  Gross.  And you know what? She’s not even cute!  Good thing that’s the first and last time I’ll ever have to hang out with her.  I’m hoping that Mike finds someone else by the time I’m back!  Especially if I end up getting a job in Huntsville, lol.  I’m evil, but it’s just true.

But I didn’t really have to deal with weirdo girlfriend very much and just hanging out with Mike and the other people there was just fun and it’s what I miss about Huntsville the most, the good friends.  Mike is one of my really good friends and probably hanging out with him and my other good friends here would be my only saving grace if I were to ever move back here.  It’s not exactly my first choice when I get back from the Peace Corps, but it is one of my options.  Mike told one of his friends at the party (who happens to be a big shot at a company I’ll remain nameless) that he needed to hire me. LOL.  He works out of California though, which I would NOT mind moving to hehe.

Anyway, this is me already starting to miss my friends and family before heading off into the unknown.  One more week left!

I finally got my staging kit after over a week of drama!  Apparently the Peace Corps didn’t write my apt number on the address and so it took forever for it to be forwarded to my brother, and the a few more days for him to send it to me.  But, he was able to tell me what all was in it over the phone and made my travel arrangements to DC.  My dad wants to see me before I leave so I’m going to DC a few days early.  I’ve never been to DC so I’m excited to have a few days there to sight-see.  I’ll be staying at my dad’s hotel from Oct 31 to Nov 3, then paying for my own hotel room on Nov 3 because I can’t check into my peace corps hotel until Nov 4th.  That sucker is costing me $251.something!!!  Oh well,  c’est la vie.  I also found out that the flight from DC to Johannesburg is 15 hours.  Oh the HORROR!

Oh, I almost forgot the mention the nearly $500 I spent at REI the other day, that’s in addition to the $200+ I’ve already spent there plus the I don’t know how much I spent on clothes.  I really feel sorry for the kids who are coming right out of college and don’t have money!  Or…the kids that don’t have the money nor have the parents that’ll pay for it.  My mom has been nice enough to have bought me some more clothes for the Peace Corps and a bunch of my Shiseido face care products to last me a while in Namibia, so if it weren’t for her, I don’t know how much I would have spent. Sadly, I still have a lot to buy!!!!

PS

**Everyone’s been asking me about what I want to do when I get back.  I don’t know people!!!  I will either go back into engineering, or do something different LOL.

And I reply, “I’m moving…out of the country.”

This obvious lack of details doesn’t detour anyone from continueing to ask me questions.

“Oh Wow, that’s awesome!” They say with genuine enthusiasm. “Where?”

“Africa.” I say matter of factly.

Then one of two things happen.  They either ask as if this is highly humorous, “What’s in Africa?” or they ask as if this was the most bizarre thing I could do, “What’s in Africa?”  Either way, no on apparantly knows what is in Africa. I wonder if I said Europe if I’d get the same reaction, “What’s in Europe?”.  Probably, but nontheless, I end up having to confess that I am joining the Peace Corps, which can become either an embarrasing or frustrating thing to fess up to.  I either get loads of undeserved awe and accolades, or disdainful reactions as if I just said I volunteered to become a leper.

Sometimes, though, I get fairly enjoyable reactions such as the man at the post office while I was getting my no fee passport who exclaimed, “Aren’t there lions there?” and “Do you think you’ll see giraffes?”

I’m starting to wonder if I’m really going to make it out there in Africa.  I’ve gone without TV and only sporadic access to the internet for barely two days and I’m just seriously bored!  I still have DVD’s though (!!!), which is just sad commentary on how much I relied on mindless TV watching for entertainment in the past!  I foresee that I will be a vastly different person when I get back from Africa.  But of course, I was always kind of counting on that.  Let’s hope that I’m not a sugar addicted freak anymore when I get back too.