Oct 21, Revelations from frustrations
Today was more frustrating for me than previous days so far. I woke up to a gas-less generator and with no power comes no water. No water again for about the third straight day. No power means no internet, which means a lot b/c the books that are here aren’t enough information for me to form any sort of a decent lesson plan. With these constant problems floating around me and the fact that if I am supposed to work at the school, then I miss the chance to learn the area that day from one of the other DI’s; which just adds to my frustrations, because I am starting to feel like I am never going to learn how to get around this place. So today I made an agreement with myself (b/c there is really no one else I can talk to) that I am going to memorize the local school map and within the next two weeks teach myself the routes to the different schools. I also found some Chichewa translations and will start to teach myself a little bit of the language, just enough so that I can greet the villagers and ask them simple questions. I can’t rely on other people here, the next two and ½ months have to be about what I can do. If you wait on other people here, you will never get anything done. Time doesn’t mean a whole lot to some of the people here, but it means a lot to me. I need to become self sufficient or I am going to lose my mind and run away. I have started doing every exercise I can think of while I wait on people. If I don’t change something now, I’m going to return home in a homemade orange jumpsuit and a couple of Paul made prison tats. Ahh! Oh well, but in other news I have been having crazy dreams. Not bad dreams or night terrors if you will, but ever since I got here I have just been dreaming. Every night I have vivid dreams, to the point when I wake up I just want to fall back asleep so I can go back to the dream I was having that I was enjoying so much, but I don’t. I have officially been here for two weeks, so two weeks down- ten weeks to go. I am going to Zomba on Friday for a partnership presentation, and Lawrence gets married on Saturday. Then next weekend is my B-day, so I am excited for the weekends here and until I change something I am just treading through the weeks.