It’s bound to happen sooner or later, right?
Well, it hasn’t actually happened yet, but this is a common
household phrase used by Marisa and me daily. Literally there are so many
things that could cause a breakdown at any moment, so it’s best to make a joke
of it, claim it’s our breakdown, and have a good laugh about it. Here’s a brief
list of possible reasons to use this phrase:
- **It’s raining, you have no clean underwear, and
now you can’t do the wash…
- **You decide to lay down and take a brief
afternoon nap in shorts and a tank top, and 15 minutes later you are summoned
from a deep sleep by a neighbor and now must scramble to put on a tshirt and
wrap yourself in a kanga while waking up to answer the door…
- **You wake up to find dead grasshoppers on the
floor in your room…
- **You’ve lost 14 games of solitaire in a row…
- **You’re hungry, so you decide to make guacamole,
but apparently the avocados are bad. And the very few other vegetables that have made it to Thursday are also bad. So the dilemma is what to have for dinner when all you have is rice…
- **Your ankles and back are consistently covered in
bug bites (from what bugs, who knows, where I’m encountering such bugs, who
knows, and why they haven’t gone away in a month, also no one knows) and they
itch so bad!...
- ** Flies…
- **Your feet are never clean, and sometimes two wet
wipes per foot isn’t enough for the amount of dirt…
- **You realize that you left your house keys at
school while on the piki piki home, but you actually can’t communicate with
your driver to ask him to go back...(although by the end of my 15 minute ride,
I was able to figure out what to say: “Simama, nimesahau ufunguo yangu
shuleni”…or something like that anyways. Granted, it was too late by the time
we were already home, so I just prayed that Marisa’s keys would open my locked
bedroom door. My prayers were answered, although that says something about the
security of our belongings.)
- **You are stuck at school in the afternoon because
of the rain, and the teachers tell you the rain might not stop for
hours…(luckily it was only one hour)
- **You can’t sleep because the bats in your ceiling
combined with the frogs in the makeshift pond outside your house are so
freaking loud…
- **You sweep an aggressively large pile of bat poop
out of your house every day, most of the problem being the ceiling tiles over
our dining table…
- **Your phone dies, but obviously can’t charge it
at your house, and the next day it rains so the solar charger at school doesn’t
work either…
- **You’re riding on a piki piki home with all of
your things after a wonderful weekend in Kigali (although you left your
raincoat on the bus, so that’s gone forever) and Mother Nature decides it’s the
perfect time for a downpour…
- **Here’s the most recent use of this phrase,
October 26 7:07AM: It’s Friday morning, and you wake up early to get ready for
school. You look out the window and notice that the students normally running
up the hill to make it to school on time are nowhere to be found. Then, you
receive a text from volunteers in Ngara who say they don’t have school today.
So you call your neighbor and fellow teacher to find out if this is true, and
sure enough, he laughs and says “Of course there’s no school today!” like it
was common knowledge. [insert stomps and frustrations loudly echoed throughout
our house]. Somehow we missed this memo, but apparently everyone knows because
even my driver didn’t come to pick me up this morning!!!….Seriously, how did he
know??? This is one of those times that I just wonder, since I told all the
teachers at school yesterday “see you tomorrow,” but apparently something was
lost in translation. This is actually
the worst news possible though. Mostly because going to school gives us
something to do during the day, and a long weekend in Muyenzi would be cause
for a breakdown. If we would have known
however, we could have planned our getaway to Kigali this weekend instead and
spent more time there! AH! We’re in the midst of planning a little weekend
getaway now, so I’m sure we’ll come up with something exciting…but really…
On the brighter side, if we didn’t enjoy laughing so much,
we’d be having a hard time of it I think. Finding joy in the little things has
taken on a whole new meaning. I look forward to my twice a week bucket bath,
the waves and “Good morning teacher!” from the little school children I pass on
my ride to school every day, the daily delivery of fresh milk (which literally
just came to our door as I’m writing this! J
), the view of cattle from our window as they are herded by our house come rain
or shine, our Thursday night blogging routine, and of course class time with my
students. We’ve made it through our first seven weeks in Muyenzi, and we have
seven more before winter break. Although I’m sure we’ll continue to joke about
our mental breakdowns, I’m confident that between the two of us we’ll keep each
other strong. Just imagine how boring these stories would be if our life wasn’t
so crazy…if I ever write a book, the most exciting parts will be when we’re on
the verge of a breakdown, so might as well just laugh about it now.
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