Despite posting the blog on Monday evening, I cruelly neglected last week’s Monday as I was dashing out in the evening to Canadian Thanksgiving. I’d almost resigned myself to missing out this year, but Gillian came through just in the nick of time. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know there’s nothing particularly exciting that I’ve kept from you. The best bit of the day was sweeping the roofs of the Hospice and the Lab (with a broom which I unfortunately broke in the process) and painting and cleaning some doors and a wall. This was fun, but I’m yet to be convinced that the blue of the touching-up will age quickly enough to avoid some consternation over the current, only slightly different colours. Maybe it looks a bit like hair highlights, maybe I’ll end up repainting the whole Hospice… who knows!
Tuesday started a little strangely due to needing to take a
different route to work, which included a road that was wonderfully dreadful.
Trenches, holes, water jumps and other features of the road conspired to keep
concentration and intermittent braking near the maximum. When I arrived, I
started on the grouting from the week before. Unfortunately, I’d learnt that
you grout by applying the grout liberally, then scraping away the excess and then
shaping the grout with your finger. I followed this plan carefully until I cut
the tip of my right index finger and then used the next finger. Predictably, I
ran out of fingers before the job was quite finished and have still got a bit
to finish tomorrow.
The journey home was more fun but also more tragic. You
often see animals walking around on the streets here. Most hilariously, I once
watched a cockerel and a hen walk together down one of the main streets here,
but that’s another story (one that I’ve now ruined the surprise of). This
happens on rural roads too, it’s common to pass a goat or cow being taken to
market or grazing by the road, tethered to a pole. Unfortunately, chickens are
usually given more free reign. After successfully coaching numerous chickens
out of my path on previous trips, on
Tuesday I killed my first chicken. The comical part of this was that, as I
looked sorrowfully back in my side mirror, all I saw was the cartoonish
feathers, floating in the air.
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| BJH |
On Thursday, I moved house! Dan (the first of the Jenga
boys) was being forced out of the girl’s house and I offered to keep him
company for a week, so I’ve moved across town and am currently further from
work, closer to the swimming pool which seems a fair trade off. Living with Dan
has been lots of fun, though until Sunday it proved pretty socially relentless.
Hosting dinners, playing volleyball, watching the shocking Wales
The third thing going to another place this week was Mr Rat.
On Saturday morning, after we’d finished the washing up and killed a few of the
hundred ants who’d started swarming down the walls and onto the tasty leftovers
of Cottage Pie, I’d taken my seat at the desk in the lounge and was writing a
few replies to some messages. All of a sudden, I heard some rustling. It wasn’t
until the second time I heard it that I put it together with the rat that Tiff
had been telling us about the night before and not until the third time that I
realised it was inside the desk. Still not quite certain, I took out one of the
drawers which had a liberal scattering of rat droppings, peered and saw Mr Rat.
I rushed off and got my camera before fetching my machete (how useful is this
machete) whilst someone fetched Michael, the askari (security guard). I wish I
could tell you that I got involved and dispatched the pest, but my mind
envisaged me chasing a rat around the lounge, slashing at the floorboards with
my panga and generally not being particularly good at the job so, after
removing the files and poking it to the back with the panga, I let Michael
smack it with the side of the blade after which it never moved again (sob).
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| So long Mr Rat |
The other interesting thing about being at the Boy’s Jenga
House is that they don’t have a generator. Whilst I’ve done my best to elicit
sympathy from you all over the regular power cuts we experience here (regular
in the sense of frequent rather than being particularly predictable), in all
honesty at the Dr’s house it’s only during the day (when turning on the
generator to make my toast would be a bit of a waste) and after 10pm when it’s
usually turned off that it makes a difference beyond not being able to iron or
have a hot shower (losing these two precious things being absolutely
devastating obviously). I’m now getting good at cooking in the dark and, even
harder, washing up in the dark – it’s not an extreme sport yet but…
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| I'm realy good at holding things too... |
Today has been a bit of a different day, I participated in a
day to commemorate Philly Lutaaya. It began with a march which, as I’m sure you
can imagine, started an hour after we arrived and we arrived an hour late… No
matter how late you think it’ll be, it’ll often be a bit later. After proudly
marching down Republic Street and waving at the shopkeepers I’m getting to know
(I went in to see a tailor who’s making me an exciting suit this afternoon and
he said he’d seen me; I pointed out I’d always been very good at walking) we
turned down toward the District grounds. The funny things about marching were
that we still slowed for potholes despite being pedestrians and the ‘delicate’
police presence. Today they went beyond their usual automatic rifles and some
were directing traffic to stop whilst grappling with some big big guns that
looked like they could stop any cars that decided to ignore their stony faces.
The event itself was generally wonderful. Some of the children from the home
that Natalie works for (and I went swimming with) did a lovely poem and then
there were other dance and singing groups with varying degrees of relevance to
the theme of the day. Unfortunately, I ran away at 1.30 (which was when the
programme said it would finish!) as my body was starting to notice the lack of
nourishment. Now off to cook up something very random and possibly piecemeal
with Dan…
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| Entertaining but not wholly educational |
What I especially like about this one is how, despite the rat-machete incident being clearly the most exciting, you lead with the thing about breaking a broom...
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