SCREMBO

OK, contest: who can figure out the meaning of the title of this post? I'll give a hint next time if needed, but use your imagination and I think you can get it...

The electricity ration continues, and has started becoming irregular. Fantastic. Every night from 7pm to 7am we have electricity. On Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday it gets cut at 7am. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday are thus electricity days. Well, this past Saturday it was unexpectedly on, and now on Tuesday it was off.... so things seem to be all messed up again. Just another month or so til RAIN = RIVER = HYDRO = POWER.

Quick updates:
I have been running around like a headless chicken, my work schedule is INSANE.

Last Friday and Saturday I went to some villages with a local community group to teach about HIV/AIDS, I was brought along as the 'expert' but I think I did them damage because I'm not sure how many people believed the super random white guy who just showed up in their village...

Highlights:
Villages. Here that means rocks, a 'center' that might have a few stores and a few bicycle taxis, a few houses visible from the 'road'..... and that's it. It is BORING. But the crazy thing is that like 90% of the people in my area live in villages. They just live on farms and in houses in the bush, so it's hard to see them.
But if you want them to get together, you blare loud music in the village center. They come RUNNING.

I think two of the People living with HIV/AIDS that I brought together for one of my projects have fallen in love!! They came with us to tell people about their experiences [incredibly, incredibly brave] and were holding hands and virtually inseperable the whole time.

American aid, in the form of corn, has started arriving after a bad rainy season this year. I was shocked upon the first request for corn [why the hell would I have corn?!] but then it became clear. Though I'm not sure these people would ask me for it, since when does food aid come with an actual mzungu to distribute it?! It's definitely the least personal of all forms of help that I usually see, kind of like "here take this food now go eat and stop your crying, see, we're good politicians, we are helping you"

Everyone here knows EVERYONE. It is insane, it is scary. Because a lot of them are also starting to know ME.

I don't know why, but every time I do any sort of official activity or seminar or something, people really like taking pictures while we eat. Sometimes, if we take a group picture, people bring their food WITH them so that they can appear to be eating in the picture. Huh?!


I saw an old man when we were heading out to one of the villages who was wearing a Wal-Mart greeter's vest. He looked like he was about 80 years old. I see a lot of used clothes from the States that make it over here, and always get a good chuckle at how language misunderstandings can result in young men wearing 'worlds best grandma' shirts or old grandmas wearing one of those obnoxious teenage-girl shirts with 'princess' or 'total bitch' or something written on it.
When I saw the old guy, my gut reaction was HA, how funny, how absurd. But then I quickly realized, oh wait, he's probably about the age of the real greeters. Probably the most appropriate use of American attire I've seen yet...


Whew, not done, still lots more stories, but will have to wait for next week..