18 September 2007

PS

The previous post described many "first-world" problems. I'm sure that some people will read it and think: Jess is whining about things like getting sunscreen in her eyes?!?! When she lives in a country where half the kids are orphans? In a country where people are dying from AIDS (and malaria, and TB)? Where girls are forced into marriage? Where nice clothes and or a cell phone are given in exchange for sex? Where the beating of children is encouraged in church? Where men sit and drink all day? Where people with severe deformities from polio beg in the streets?

Lest you all think I am callous or unkind, I debated taking the post down- but decided against it. I'm leaving it up because I think that it's hard for Peace Corps Volunteers to admit that it's often the first-world problems that make the experience difficult. Because--however backward it may seem--you can accept the fact that there are huge problems in the world, but it's sunscreen in your eyes that makes you cry. That lets you cry.

17 September 2007

Little Things

The little things, little things / They always hang around / The little things, little things / They try to break me down / The little things, little things / They just won't go away / The little things, little things / Made me who I am today
-Good Charlotte


Sometimes, you just think that the world is conspiring against you... so many slightly-bad-but-not-too-bad things happen all at once that it's almost comical, and you just have to laugh and think, "Oh yeah, world? What else ya got?"

Here is a list of small but frustrating things that happened lately, in the span of just five days:

Oh, but first, here is the scale of frustration:
* slightly upset/frustrated/annoyed
** pretty upset/frustrated/annoyed
*** extremely upset/frustrated/annoyed

Day 1:
My counterpart and I were going to have a possibly important meeting in town.
*My counterpart's 20-year-old niece died in a motorcycle accident.
Needless to say, we didn't have our meeting.
*No one sat with me at lunch that day.
There was a hospital staff meeting that afternoon.
**The staff meeting was 4 lengthy hours long.
***It was really bad for many reasons I can't post here.
***REALLY bad.
***On top of its other badness: at the meeting, it was announced that working with HIV-positive community groups is no longer a priority, and everyone is supposed to focus on other things.
(Working with HIV-positive groups is what my counterpart and I DO.)
I was supposed to go work at my friend's house the next day;
I decided I should stay and talk to my counterpart about the staff meeting instead since he missed it.

Day 2:
My counterpart came back the next day-
He had scheduled to go meet with a community group that day.
***The hospital wasn't going to let us go, because "community groups are not a priority" any more.
Very late in the afternoon, the community group called.
They said: WHERE ARE YOU? We're here waiting...
So then we got to go.
***(And they were all there waiting...at least 50 of them. If they hadn't been able to find a phone to use, we would have been forced to stand them up.)
*We left very late to meet with them, so we didn't get home until very late in the evening.
***I had a yeast infection.
I was going to get up early and still go to my friend's house the next day.

Day 3:
*I overslept.
*I couldn't concentrate on what I needed to pack.
*My backpack zipper got stuck.
I locked up my house and walked out the door,
*And then realized I hadn't brushed my teeth.
*(Which also means I almost forgot my toothbrush.)
I stopped in town to check my post office box:
*My sister's package that was supposed to get here a while ago still didn't come.
*I had to wait an extra long time for the taxi to fill.
*I read a Newsweek article while waiting and felt very disconnected and mystified by Western culture. (Do you know what "Second Life" is? CRAZY.)
***On the ride to my friend's, I started getting very nauseous.
I stopped in a town near my friend's and went to an internet cafe.
**The internet was INCREDIBLY slow.
**It was also really expensive.
***I saw pictures of my hotter-than-ever ex-boyfriend having fun with another girl.
*(Ok, so that one was my own fault, for using up my internet time on facebook.)
*I got in a very very full car to my friend's house.
On the way it was really windy so my eyes watered
*This caused my sunscreen to run into my eyes and burn, a lot.
*I couldn't wipe my eyes because I was sitting squished in the same seat as the car driver and couldn't really move.
***I was still feeling very nauseous.
I finally got to my friend's house.
***I had diarrhea.
I sat on my friend's couch and cried about work, Uganda, and life.
When we sat down on the floor to eat dinner that night, my friend sat in a basin of water that I had left out.
(Well, that was more hilarious than frustrating- to her too!)
***I tossed and turned all night.

Day 4:
My friend was being amazing and tried to fix me pancakes the next morning.
She got to the last ingredient- flour-
*She dumped it in to the other ingredients...and found a bazillion little bugs in it.
*All ingredients wasted, and no pancakes.
***I had more diarrhea.
***And more nausea.
*I had really really wanted to work at my friend's site, but was feeling too icky. (I read instead.)
Later, we tried to make a cd of pictures for me on her laptop-
*The battery died while the cd was burning.

Day 5:
I came home the next day-
I was supposed to go to a wedding ceremony in the village that afternoon.
It poured rain for an hour.
*The rain stopped, but the road was too muddy- I couldn't go.
I was still feeling gross anyway.
I took a shower.
*When I got out I discovered I had run out of clean underwear except for thongs.
(And, underwear must be hung indoors to dry, so it takes a few days.)
*I was really bored.
I wanted to talk to my brother, so I texted my parents, asking him to call
*My parents called- my brother wasn't with them.
I was very happy to talk to my parents, but the reception was terrible-
**We didn't get to have a conversation. And...
*Then I discovered my ceiling had leaked.
In the very place that they "fixed" it after the cat fell through.

So, those were my five days. Nothing awful, but lots of little tiny frustrations that all seemed to happen at once- so much so that I just have to laugh about it and shrug my shoulders and say...
You don't scare me, Uganda, BRING IT ON.