Hey, you know what I haven’t done
in a while? Written a blog post. Or a letter for that matter. For all of those people who I was in fairly
regular mail correspondence with, oops.
This lack has been totally my fault.
I dropped the ball on that one. I
plan to resume that soon.
Well, anyway, I was trying to
figure out what to write for a blog post, and I have had people tell me that
they like my list style posts as some of my best. So now I have a new list for you. The 5 biggest WTF moments of the past couple
months. All of these have happened since
I moved into my new place. So while they
may not be the strangest moments I have ever had here, they are the most
recent.
5. On one of my walks back into the village from
doing some errands in Gabs I managed to get lucky and snag a ride. In the back of the truck with me was the
health education officer for the village.
She had gone grocery shopping that day too. We dropped at the same spot and walked
together for a bit since we live in the same area. Well, she eventually got around to asking me
why I was not at the Male Circumcision workshop the week before at the
Kgotla. Well, first of all, I try to
avoid the Kgotla like the plague, not my favorite place to be. I find it boring and tedious when I could be
doing something much more useful. But I
probably would have gone to it for that workshop. While I know about SMC from a bunch of Peace
Corps stuff, it would have been nice to see what messages were getting
out.
The real reason I did not go was
because I was not invited. The health
officer hosted the workshop and I told her that I was not invited to go. She told me that she had dropped off the
invitation at the school inviting the Guidance teacher, one other teacher, and
myself. Now, I did see her a little before
the workshop drop something at the office, but when the announcement came from
the school head, all she said was, “There is a workshop at the Kgotla on Monday
and Mma Thupe (the Guidance Teacher) is going.”
No one inquired any further; it seemed like a done decision. I did not even know until later what the
workshop was. When I explained this to
the health officer, she still said I should have been there. Somehow, it was my fault I missed it. These kinds of things happen a lot and I know
how to brush them off pretty well, but they still make me scratch my head for a
little while.
4. Those of us over here in Bots are aware that
the weather is starting to cool off (at least in the mornings). This is one of my favorite times of the year
here-not summer. But for some of my
teachers this kind of weather has a different significance. This is a conversation I was around, but
thankfully not a part of between two teachers.
Teacher 1: Do you know what they
call this weather?
Teacher 2: No, I don’t know.
Teacher 1: BMW.
Teacher 2: BMW? Ah, why do they call it that?
Teacher 1: What does BMW mean?
Teacher 2 guesses: “Be My Wife?”
Teacher 1 laughs and asks me if I
know what BMW means. I am as confused as
Teacher 2 is and shake my head.
Teacher 1: No, not be my wife,
baby making weather.
I walk away, still confused by
why that happened.
3. So while my new house is far and away more
posh than my old place, it is still missing a few things. Namely, a front door that opens, and a gas
tank for the stove. The door is not a
huge deal; I can just go in and out through the kitchen door. But the gas tank has had me borrowing another
teacher’s hotplate for the past 2 months.
Which does my school management think is the bigger problem? The door of course. When I say that I need gas they say I have
they hotplate. I say the hotplate is not
mine, plus when the electricity is out, I cannot cook. But when I say that the door does not matter
because I can get in and out they say that “it is not healthy to only use the
back door to get into your house.” Once
again, mystified, I ask why. Answer: it
just is not healthy. Still mystified.
2. I always have a hard time picking a winner
for things like this. I usually waver
between something monumental or something that is perpetual. In this case, I am going with the monumental,
so the perpetual gets second. All in
all, this instance is not really that impressive, except for the fact that it
happens to me at least twice a week it seems.
People asking where I am…when they are not there. For example, this morning I got asked by a
teacher why I did not see them yesterday.
I said I did not know. I was at
assembly like I am every morning and I was back in the afternoon for PACT
club. Usually everyone is supposed to be
at assembly. Then she said, “Ah, I was
late yesterday. But I needed to talk to
you and I did not see you.” I asked why
she did not come see me at PACT club then.
“Ah, I had to go early.”
Huh? How is this somehow my
responsibility to divine when you want to talk to me? But my absolute favorite is people saying
they did not see me…when they were actually out almost all day and just came
around 3pm to sign a log book at the school.
And yet somehow that happens so often to me…
1. This one actually happened to
me the day after I wrote the first draft of this blog. I had to alter my list and make this new occurrence
number 1. I was on an hour long combi
ride, in the front seat area. The
conductor was two people away from me with a woman in between us. Now, the conductor clearly wanted to get with
this woman. Also, they had never met
before. At the beginning he tries and
arm around the shoulder. After a few
rebuffs the woman I guess decides “what the hell” and goes with it. Within 10 minutes he is grabbing her
boob. Full-on, right in the front of the
combi. All the while I am stuck next to
this. Eventually things cool off for a
minute when he starts to take money from everyone. At this point the woman pulls out some lip
gloss. As she is putting it away the
conductor takes it from her. And puts
some on. Yeah. And it gets weirder.
Finally my destination is in
sight. Just a couple more minutes and I
will be off the combi. And of course,
the conductor picks this moment to go for broke. He puts his hand up her skirt. And she lets him!!!! Right in front of everyone he is feeling up
her skirt. And she is just
laughing. At this point she is getting
off the combi too, so what do the new lovers do? Exchange names and phone numbers. Yup, didn’t even know each other’s names till
that point. People are weird.
Finally, I just want to end with
just a couple general updates. For a
week in early April I will be off to Mozambique to enjoy some time on the
Indian Ocean. As far as work goes, the
school closes for a few weeks at the end of March. I just host a training for the teachers on
Infusion of the Life Skill books (basically my main purpose here) and we are
supposed to be implementing them starting next term, so we will see how that
goes. And finally, in just two short
months I will be back in the US for a few weeks. I have a special game that everyone can play
when I am back, details to come in another blog post. J
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