Some Thoughts to Start off Week 4

Just a few thoughts at the state of Week #4:

• I was in a weird mood today.  Not sure if it’s actually the case, but maybe the honeymoon phase is starting to fade.  I’m still very happy, but I’ve found myself into be a little irritable as of late.  Maybe it’s the medication for my eye?  All I know is that I don’t like being irritable.
• I’m not sure the bottoms of my feet will ever be clean again.
• There happens to be a really good reason my host family keeps a collection of multi-gallon containers around the house. Our water source (a spout in the yard that is connected to a municipal distribution system), is inconsistent at best.  You never really know when it’s going to be functional, and as a result, it’s good practice to fill up every single container you can with water so that you are stocked up when your spout inevitably goes dry.  Don’t worry folks, we don’t just leave that water sitting around days on end for the mosquitos to breed in.  My family actually uses the water in the containers daily for their every-day needs, refilling them as necessary.  This actually serves a secondary purpose, allowing a lot of the particulate matter that’s in the dirty water to settle to the bottom. Pretty smart!
• I just discovered an entirely new reason for why it is a good idea to take my evening shower prior to it getting dark out.  Namaacha (and I’m sure the rest of Africa) has random power outages.  You really can’t predict it.  Maybe it’s because you didn’t buy enough credit to last you through the night (Side Note: Mozambicans buy their electricity much like they buy cell phone minutes.  You go to the market and buy a code, which you then punch into a machine that’s hooked up to your house.  The machine has a meter that counts down to zero as you use up your electricity credit.  It’s kind of a great system and I think I like it a whole lot more than the estimations that US companies use.), maybe it’s because the wind is blowing, or maybe a dog started barking and that was reason enough to cut the power to the whole town. For whatever reason it actually is, the power comes in and out.  Tonight, we conveniently had one of those black-outs while I was just finishing up my bucket shower (on the bright side, at least I wasn’t just starting it).  Let me set the stage for you:  So there I am, just finishing up when all of a sudden the light bulb in my steel bathing shack goes black.  I’m alone, naked, wet, and trapped in a box with what is most likely an even bigger karma spider that has moved to replace the last one.  How does the story end?  Well, obviously I survived, but not without nearly laughing myself to death first. This country is starting to grow on me.
• It started raining like 13 or 14 days ago, and it really hasn’t stopped since.  They mean business here in Africa when they tell you it’s the rainy season. After a week of sun and an overdose of dust our first seven days here, it’s been Matope (mud) Central ever since.  It was hot and sunny earlier today for a few hours, but it just started coming down again, and it’s coming down hard.
• When it rains, my room leaks.  Sometimes (if I remember), I use my xi-xi bucket to catch the water dripping from the ceiling.
• I wish I had brought more pants to Pre-Service Training.  I think one of these days I’m going to write a list of what I wish I had packed in my ten week, PST Bag.