Category: Random

Just a pretty flower growing on campus.

I just got a hair cut-finally got most of the bad perm out of my life.  So, I decided to have some subtle highlights and lowlights put in-it’s cheap, might help…

Yeah, subtle.  Right.  Not as drastic as this woman, but still, not subtle.  What exactly was I thinking…

The truck I got was a stock model, so I could get it sooner.  It came with some stuff that I wouldn’t have chosen
, like how it’s turbocharged.  It gives it a lot of power, but that turbocharger is a kind of delicate piece of equipment, very sensitive to low oil and sand and dust.  I live in the north, just under the Sahel.  We’ve got dust and sand, and plenty of it.  Oh well.

It also has some features that make me laugh, like the 120 kilometer per hour alarm.  That’s 74.5645 miles an hour.  Normally I wouldn’t go that fast, but I just had to set off that alarm.  It wasn’t very exciting, just a little flashing light and a beep that I couldn’t even hear because of the noise of my tarp banging in the back. 

One of my favorite features is the three cup holders and four bottle holders.  Very nice.  Gives me something to do with the empties on a long road trip-gotta stay hydrated, you know!

But today’s favorite feature is how the side mirrors flip in without breaking if you happen to drive too close to something.  That’s all I have to say about that…

A few weeks ago, I got a note from a high school kid that I’m helping pay for school.  In exchange, he’s helping me with some language stuff.  The note said that he was really sick, needed help, had no one to take him to the clinic, and might die without my help.  What could I do?  I jumped in my truck with Albert, the man who’s been crafting stories with me, and headed out for the kid’s village.  I had to bring someone so that I wouldn’t get lost.

Of course, in a brilliant stroke of strategy, I drained my huge class of iced tea right before I left.

So, off we go deep into the countryside.  We get to the village, stop, and Albert walked down a path to go to a house to ask directions.  Having adventures like this in rainy season isn’t bad.  There was grass all around higher than my head.  So, while Albert was asking directions I got rid of the iced tea.

When we got to the kid’s house, his father gave me a very valuable gift to thank me for helping.  Oh joy, a rooster.  My German shepherd loves roosters.  He just doesn’t share them.  Thankfully, colleagues that live about a half mile from me keep poultry and were willing to house my thank you gift.  Whew.  Sadly, I just got the news that the rooster fell ill with either bird flu or ‘the plague,’ some chicken disease that sweeps the area periodically.  They wrung his neck and buried him, they wanted to avoid blood in case it was bird flu. 

Yeah, that’s why they did it instead of me.  So sad I missed it, since I LOVE killing chickens, using my machete, all that good stuff.

The high school student went home the next day with some antibiotics, he’s doing fine.

We’re sitting outside watching her moving truck get loaded when my friend Judy says, "Need anything from Home Depot?"  I turned around to see this vendor walking down the street towards us.  It feels like Where’s Waldo-how many different items can you find on the cart?  Is Waldo in there anywhere?  I was shopping for an adapter for my cell phone charger-it cleverly has a British plug but the outlets here take French plugs.  I have one adapter, but I had to steal it from the phone to use on a voltage regulator so that my newish fridge isn’t killed by radically varying electricity.  There’s no transformer in my village-the electricity comes straight from the generator to the customers.  I burn out a lot of light bulbs.

Another interesting tidbit-the cart is called a "pousse-pousse,"  or for those who don’t remember their French, a  ‘push-push.’  My machete  is more commonly known as a "coupe-coupe," which does not refer to a car but means ‘cut-cut.’  (And is not recommended for the killing of snakes .)

The place that I stayed Friday and Saturday had ostriches in the back-I didn’t know that until I saw them walking around.  Pretty cool.  They’re just huge!

My first ostrich encounter was at Fossil Rim, a wildlife park in Texas that you drive through to see the animals.  They’re not in cages, just running around in a nice natural setting.  Fossil RIm actually looks and feels a lot like where I live here., minus all the animals, they’ve mostly been hunted out for food, although I still see the occasional monkey.

Anyway, we drive into the park, and get these cups of animal food with the entrance fee.  Food which you’re supposed to throw far away from the car so that the animals don’t get too close.  So, we’re driving slowly through, with the windows open, looking at the ostriches and the emus.  I’m in the front passenger seat, with my cup o’ ostrich treats in my lap, when all of a sudden an ostrich sticks its head in the driver’s window, across the car, and starts grabbing the food out of my cup with its big scary beak.  Much screaming and cracking up ensued.  Who knew that ostriches were so aggressive?