Category: Random

How do you like my recording studio?  A lot of the people on my storycrafting team work or are in school during the day, so we’ve been crafting and recording at night.  It’s cooler then, which is great.  But, the electricity comes on at 6 pm, so all the bars start blasting their music at that time too.  So, we started recording in my truck.  Lots of foam, no echo, a sound engineer’s dream.

The main thing I’m selling in the market is these calendars, mostly in mmm-BELLY-may, but also in other local languages.  People are really excited buy them for about 15 cents each.  I’m selling them at cost-it’s actually a team from the south that publishes them, and I buy them from them at their cost.  No one is making any money, but people are getting excited about reading their language, and that’s a cool thing.

The best part of the calender selling is selling them to the herders that come to market.  They speak another language, and are often treated pretty poorly.  They come to my stand just to see what on earth this goofy lady is doing in the market, but their eyes light up when I pull out a calendar in their language.

This is fun.

What does a person want to do after a long day selling book in the market?   Why, go home and chase kittens for three hours with the friendly neighborhood vet, of course.  I’ve slowly been sending my kittens to their new homes.  Girl Grey (formerly Earl Grey, but needed a name change) was the first to go, followed by Milky Way and Commander Data (he has yellow eyes.)  Milky Way’s twin, Twix, was pretty wild, so she didn’t want to be caught.  It took three towels, two adults, one hour and a tablecloth to lift up the sofa, catch her, wrap her, worm her, and put her in a basket so that she could go to her new home.  Actually, she’s gone to a halfway house to be tamed before she goes to her new home.  Seriously.  Kittens.  So cute, so cuddly…we’re taking a break for now.  Not, however, to go out for a drink with the suddenly overly friendly neighborhood vet, though.  Never a boring day here…

I feel very accomplished today. My bathroom sink has been slow draining for
months. I bought some stuff at the store
(please don’t anyone tell me how bad it was to dump hydrochloric acid down my
pipes) that took care of it for a few days, but it slowed up again really
quickly.

So, this morning, with my friend Rachel there for moral
support, I plumbed. I unscrewed
something –a trap, maybe?- while Rachel held a bucket under it. A little water came out, but not much. I gingerly reached around above it, but
encountered no frightening clods of crud. So then, I used the classic plumber’s tool. I poked a cuticle stick down through the
holes in the drain. A little crud and
the backed up water poured into the bucket, and the drain has been draining
beautifully ever since.

Market Mamas are women who have made so much money selling at African markets that they drive around in Mercedes-Benzes.  I’m not in that class, but I do now have my very own market stall, selling literature in mmm-BELLY-may and other local languages.  Totally exhausting, totally fun, never boring, and really hot (it’s 110 degrees these days.)  More market moments soon, for now, just this picture:

I had a crisis-going on vacation to a cold climate from Africa with nothing to wear.  So, I went to the market and bought some jeans.  But, when I got them home and tried them on, there was a problem.  A big problem.  My jeans were extremely dorky.  The worst was that they were tapered , like the jeans I wore in high school, and a little bit too short.  Thankfully, someone cooler than me was available to solve my dilemma.  A Peace Corps volunteer cut slits in them for me. 

She said that when she was really cool, she’d cut whole wedges out, but now it’s just slits.  In the interest of cross-generational exchange, I demonstrated tight rolling of jeans, which was cool when I was in junior high.  Otherwise, how would you get the jeans into those leg warmers? 

Can you imagine my surprise when I discovered that tight rolling is also the done thing in West Africa?  Seems to keep the millet dust from flying up your pant legs.