| (2003-09-08) A View I knew today would be hard. The group left today... leaving me, the only volunteer left at our hotel. The first mishap... I don't have a place to live until the 17th. My landlord thought I wasn't going to be ready to move in until then, so I have to stay at the hotel, which isn't so bad, but I was really looking forward to moving out. I went to the doctor's today, had another urine test to make sure that the infection is gone. The worst parts about living in a Third World Country are the smells and the toilets. The toilets in the hotel are very Western, but at the medical center, they're horrible. Wet floors (not sure if it's rain, or otherwise), and (luckily) nothing to sit on. It's a squat toilet, which pretty much looks like a toilet, but in the ground. The tank is about head level, and you don't flush. I took a picture. I'll post it as soon as I have access to a computer that I can put my camera software on. Which, hopefully, should be this week. Cravings to be busy, to be in front of a computer overwhelm me. I'm not good at taking vacations. When I get married and go on a honeymoon, there will be hardly any relaxing. I'll be moving every single day. And he won't mind at all, because he'll be perfect (*is* perfect). Last night, we went to a restaurant called, "The Ritz." It was far from what we would normally think of a place called "The Ritz." The only thing I could eat that was vegetarian was garlic bread, which had about eight cloves of garlic on it. I know this because I had to scrape it off in order to be able to eat it. I still have bad breath. The restaurant had another table of Taobabs (what they call white people), and a cement floor. Sticks for a ceiling, with just enough space to let me see the nearly full moon. We had about three different types of flying ants visiting us throughout the meal, and I, being the only vegetarian, killed more of them than anyone. They liked to crawl on my neck- especially the big ones. We won't be back to The Ritz. I'm actually surprised at how much we eat at restaurants. Western world restaurants are dirty enough to make me not want to go in, but we eat out at least once a day. Sampling the local food, and usually one person goes home with diarrhea... which always worries be, because the main cause of it is from eating someone's (a lot, a little, it doesn't really matter) fecal matter... sounds gross- IS gross. The bumsters here are... characters. Bumsters are men that like to talk to taobabs to try to get them to give them money or take them home to their countries or just to harass them. They are very friendly, always ask your name and where you're from, but sometimes their persistance can be annoying and you have to be rude with them. The children are either really nice and smiley or they'll call you a taobab and it doesn't make you feel very nice. I had children follow me the other day asking for support for their fake football team. I had to just keep telling them no and eventually walked fast enough to lose them. But life here is slow. I read a lot, I go to bed early, get woken up by roosters at 7am, and am very relaxed and pretty happy. There's so much beauty in this place... palm trees and brilliant other greenery. Sand roads, and roads that are paved with shells... it's beautiful. I can't wait to start work. |