Well my iPod met a drink last night, and after some initial talks they decided they hated each other. My iPod is pissed that I made it meet that drink so now my iPod is refusing to work. It blows. I had a rough day of sittin around drinking palm wine and all I wanted to do was come home and relax from my incredibly rough day. But when I tried to pop in some Mystic Valley Band my iPod would not turn on thus I am now sitting here in my evening hangover listening to a baby cry and cry and cry and cry. Catching the back up drum beats for the baby is the church next door. But I am not worried they only usually play there drums super loud till about midnight, so at least I will get a restful nights sleep…Holy shit that kid is in to crying, African has made me officially decide I never want kids, instead I prefer to treat kids the same way I treat dogs. Play with other peoples, that way I get them while they are fun, but when I am done with them or they shit on the floor I don’t have to rub there nose it and spank them. This kid is really just crying up a damn storm over here, he has a great beat going, and keeps changing up the scream he makes, it keeps me wondering what coming next. Lets see what else is new o we bought another chicken. This one kept escaping though. It had it legs tied up and yet it was still jumping out windows and making breaks for it. I think he had probably watched Fox’s hit tv show Prison Break and got a few pointers. Anywho after walking home 2 kilometers from school being drenched in sweat and have a neck so burned I coulda fried an egg on it all I wanted to do was kill Henry and get my grub on. But lo and behold that ol con artist was gone again. Matt and I narrowed it down to two possibilities either he had jumped out the window again or Mr. Squeakers decided he wanted an afternoon snack. I was fairly confident the latter was the case because a week ago that fucking rat stole a pack of Mefloquin so it seemed only right that the now malaria resistant rat would take another thing I fucking needed. That rat is such an ass hole. Anyways thankfully we found the frisky chicken, frisky is the word they use here for bad or disobedient, but it always just makes think horny so it give s me a good giggle every time someone uses it. Yes I am well aware of the fact that I have the mind of 12 year. Anywho I beheaded another chicken boiled more water, peppers, and salt and ate him over rice. That’s life baby. At least for me, I suppose you probably buy a frozen chicken from Wal-Mart and throw it in some kind of food that isn’t based on rice, peppers, and salt. Lame.
Woof, rough morning this morning. Woke up to my principle calling at about 10 in the morning. Grabbed the phone and gave a hello in a voice sounded like it had been up late last night with people and a bottle of vodka. Anywho he told me he needed to talk to me on the road to which I said roger dodger, but he didn’t understand that so I just I would see him soon. Put my Ghana soccer jersey on and cruised on down to the road to what I think is some kind of actual meeting. Boy was I wrong. I get there and him and about 6 other dudes are just dranking palm wine from a bucket, turns out it was Liberian Thanksgiving! Dude Liberians also love it when they see a white man drinking palm wine, its how I integrate. Seeing as they don’t have a useless bird that makes you sleepy they replace it with a delicious beverage that makes you sleepy! This community celebrates holidays down right perfectly. Anywho after that I made it back home to bed to catch some much needed shut eye. Than I woke up and spent the rest of my day having water fights with the kids. And when I say water fight I mean I chase them around with a bucket of water.
O the ups and downs of Peace Corps service are fun. One day you are sure that there is nothing else you would want to be doing with your life, and the next day you are ready to swim across the ocean just to get back to the United States. I believe there is a quote somewhere about how a soldiers life is filled with long periods of boredom with brief intervals of intense terrors. I believe if someone were to make that about PCV it would go something like a Peace Corps Volunteers life is filled with long periods of boredom with brief intervals of intense naps. You have a lot of time on your hands, even if you work hard, you still have a lot of time on yours hands with not a lot of ways to spend it. I think this is a large part of the emotional rollercoaster that Peace Corps is, you just have to much time to think about it, especially when you don’t sleep. You have a lot of time to realize where you are failing and also I a lot time to realize the important things you are doing. That compressed with all the pressure of leaving everything you know and love, and trying to fit into an entire new culture can really throws one’s mind for a loop. I remember the months leading up to leaving I was crazy stressed out, it’s a truly terrifying thing when it comes down to it. Within a week I had told everyone I love goodbye and flew half way across the world with a group of total stranger to a completely new culture. Than the first few months here were intense, I think that now after being here for 4 months I am really finally starting to get the feel for everything and am settling in. But like I said there are days when I think I don’t ever want to leave Liberia, and there are days where I think I would rather be in America. Those people I flew over with have now become my Peace Corps family and the Liberian people are in general so nice and accepting that it has made my transplant much easier than I thought it was going to be. One of the hardest parts of Peace Corps is the month before you exit country. Trying to pack, get your financial life straight, say goodbye to everyone, and eat as many cheeseburgers as possible really takes a toll on you, but its all worth it. No doubt.
I always love those moments when you realize how absolutely tiny you are. It is absolutely freeing, gratifying and humbling all in one cement mixer of emotion. Africa is great for having these. Tonight I was sitting out on my back cement block, like I do, drinking my heinkens. To be a smidge more accurate I was wizard staffing. All my friends in Denver were, are having Wizard Staff right now. So while I cant be at the actual staff meeting I certainly can still make my own wizard staff, which I did. Anyways I was sitting on my back porch staring at the sky, staffing, and thinking just how absolutely tiny I am. I mean here we are same planet and all that jazz and I could yell as loud as I want and they would never know I did. Its just weird. Sorry I know that this is wacked out and ill explained, but I am certain that most people reading this have had this feeling, this feeling of tiny particleness. It really is a great feeling, you can be whatever you want to be and in the end it really doenst matter. You are just a tiny blip on the screen of existence on earth, let alone the entire damned universe. Anywho what I am trying to say is, well I don’t know, but that feeling is cool. We don’t have a lot of time people so grab onto life however you see fit and just ride and laugh, just ride and laugh. I guess what I am trying to say is life is fucking huge so all you can really do is just enjoy it while you can.
But on to more important things. Tonight I was chatting with Matt about our rat problem. We have one. That’s how our chat began. Anywho I was telling Matt that I didn’t really have a problem with it. The way I saw it was that as long as the rats didn’t trouble me I was not going to trouble them. That goes double true for Squeakers. Actually I am just scared of him, and he knows it. Today I saw him in the kitchen and he started scurrying up the wall to his getaway hole in my ceiling and right before he went in he just stopped and looked at me as if to say yea what the fuck are you gonna do. The answer of course is nothing because he is a disease carrying rat that I fear. Anyways just as I was saying I wouldn’t trouble them if they didn’t trouble me a little mouse ran across my toes, which caused two things to occur 1 me to have the reaction of a little girl and pull my feet off the ground and 2. To say well those fucks have accosted me, now its war. Now I have declared war on the rats before, obviously it did not go well otherwise there would not be a need for the second war. So tomorrow starts a new day and a new war with the rats, which is why I must get to sleep and by sleep I mean lay awake all night listening to the rats scurry about my room. I mean I don’t mind the scurrying its just they do it so loudly, I mean be a little fucking courteous and I probably wouldn’t be trying to kill you. Anywho I gotta get ready for war.
So sleeping didn’t really happen, I think the mice and General Ratton (Mr. Squeakers in military form) stepped up their plans of attack. I think they knew my strike was imminent, so they struck first. Last night as I was laying here in bed, half asleep, I was startled back to full on awake by a little mouse crawling on my gosh durned bed! These little fucks are getting brave to say the least. Anywho today, I am gonna do something to stop them, I am not sure what, seeing as they out smarted all my tricks (coke can rat traps, rat poison, and sticky pads). Apparently you have to get bony fish and cook its head for a bit than rub the scales on the poison and the rats just cant resist it. I might try that. Bony fish is exactly what it sounds like, really bony dried out, gross eyeballed fish. More bones than meat. Anywho that’s my new plan.
So last night whilst not sleeping I realized two things, not of particular importance, I just realized them. They were this. 1. You cant sit out under a clear Liberian night for more than 5 minutes without seeing at least 2 shooting stars. That’s totes rad. I mean it really blows my mind how many there are, I am worried that I am gonna get sick of them over the next two years, than I’ll be that guy who is not impressed by shooting stars, and that guys an asshole. 2. I really enjoy telling small lies to get a good laugh. They don’t really hurt anyone, but they make me laugh. For example when I worked at the zoo I used to drive a tour, and on this said tour I spouted off large amounts of facts about a wide variety of animal. Well, every once in awhile I would say the pelican can hold 10 gallons of water in its beak, rather than just three as it actually can. No one really knows, and it doenst really hurt anything, in fact I think it helps because they dig on nature way more when it’s crazy and maybe that might inspire them to help out a bit. Buts probably not. Anywho yesterday I was telling one of my Liberian friends that in America we call someone who travels a lot a yackadoo. Mostly just cause I like the word yackadoo and I saw a chance to get it into circulation. Another harmless little fib, but goodness it makes me laugh. I guess that means I am a terrible person, or something, but what can you do. Maybe its just means I am a fucking yackadoo.
Ah the weather of Liberia! Its fucking weird. Yesterday I was kickin it out on my front porch trying to catch a breeze, because I was sweating crazy balls in the house. So I was sitting there in shorts roasting in the hot sun, and about 10 feet away from my house it was raining crazy hard, hard enough that if I wanted to speak to someone I had to raise my voice. I mean it was raining the proverbially cats and mother fucking doggies. Of course eventually the wall of rain settled over our house for an hour or two. YEA DRY SEASON!
The other thing that is crazy banana brain outta this world tripadelic is that its fucking November and I am roasting like a super market rotisserie chicken. Yesterday matt was yelling at a kid “Bro why are you wearing a turtle neck its Nov…” Right there he realized that it is November, and generally speaking November is turtle neck time for those suckers who wear them. But here it is most defs not turtle neck time, its fuckin 90 degrees homie, like e’eryday. I think I am gonna build a pool here. Than get some tequila, sugar, lime and some sweet/sour mix and spend the rest of life here. It really just gets me that it is November 7 and I am gonna be out on my porch tonight drinkin beer in nothing but my shorts, and even them shorts are a maybe. I mean it should be like 30 and snowing. Welcome to always summer, I think that’s why they all look so young here. No stress, and always summer.
And final random thought for this post of jumbled thoughts. You know how there is that saying that Hallmark makes a card for everything, well that’s not true, yet. However, thanks to Max, and I it soon will be. You see there is a Hallmark card for almost every occasion that you need to tell someone sorry there life sucks, there are I am sorry I was an ass hole cards, sorry someone you loved died cards, and even sorry that you had a kid cards. I don’t care if the cards saying congratulation for the kid what it is really saying congrats your life is totally fucked over now! Anywho there is yet to be a Hallmark card for “Sorry I gave you herpes.” Insert any STD in for herpes and I’ll make a card for it. Imagine a hilarious little bear in a suit on the front holding a letter, than you would open the card and it would just be the bear saying “Sorry to be the ‘bear-er’ of bad news but you have Herpes. Get Tested!. Love (your name here).” No one likes awkward situation but everyone loves getting Hallmark cards! And fuck 1/3 people have them now so this shit is gonna be a booming business, and yes I am taking investors. Well its Sunday and my iPod is broked so its time to settle in for a long time of listening the church beat drums and party till all hours of the night. Enjoy your Sunday funday!
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