Happy Monday

October 17, 2005

So much is happening and it’s only Monday! Tomorrow I have two new students arriving; one fourth grade boy and one second grade girl. That doubles the number of girls and the number of fourth graders. Overall that is a good thing. I am excited about the possibilities. The two new kids are new to everyone, they are not returning from holiday. Tomorrow will be a brand new day (I even rearranged my room!). I will have the opportunity to remind my kids what it means to be a community and they will get exposure to kids they haven’t met yet. Who could ask for more in October?

They have been playing around with the power here. Everything is connected and powered by diesel generators. We lost power for about an hour this morning and when it came back on line, I had no outlets. That means no A/C, no computer, no music. It was a sweaty few hours until the five guys showed up to install a new breaker. FIVE GUYS! What the hell they needed five guys for I will never know, but they fixed the breaker and put me back in coolsville (not that I had ever wandered far).

I took Zachary to the market in our bike trailer. He loves to ride in that thing. We just went to pick up a few items for this curry recipe I wanted to try. Zman was in one of those moods. People would say hello and he would say NO! and look away. He refused to talk to anyone. I hate it when he is in those moods so the store trip was turning pretty annoying. The line was huge and I really just wanted to get out and get back home. Outside the door of the market there has been this fellow selling stuff. It’s pretty cool stuff; leather boxes, masks, chess sets, knives, swords, that kind of thing. He has been bugging me all week to buy some stuff and today after haggling with him, he gave me a good price and I took home our first Malian souvenirs.

We hadn’t been home for more than three minutes when the mechanic rolled up driving our newly repaired school vehicle. It’s a beaut, with a rack that's to die for. I haven’t figured out exactly what year it was made, but it looks to be about a ’55 Land Rover. No frills, no A/C, barely any brakes, and it’s all ours. They are still waiting on brake parts and until then we can drive it. We don’t need to drive it far, just far enough. Even if we take it nowhere, we now have the power to go somewhere. That makes all the difference.

The curry turned out great. I picked some tiny little peppers out of our yard. They look just like cayenne peppers only smaller. Holy cow do they pack a wallop! Those things are hot. Before we had figured out just how hot they were, Zachary got a hold of them. He has been running around half naked for potty training purposes and, well, he touched his butt with hot pepper hands. He didn’t cry, he just said,”my butt is burning.” Mama had to rush him off and hose him down. Having been in a similar position myself, I could empathize with his plight, but that didn’t keep me from snickering about it.

I have hot peppers, papayas, two lemon trees, and a brand new family of frogs in my yard. Can you believe that? We add lemon to everything; the beer, the rum, the tea, the curry, it rocks! When the dry season arrives and the plants shrivel up I will be sad. Until then I will have to keep drinking so as not to let any lemons go to waste.

Not a bad Monday. All the good things helped me to forget the fact that Mohammed accidentally threw away a key piece to the bread maker, I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing in PE tomorrow, and it’s really friggin hot here. If tomorrow is only half as good as today it will still be a really good day.