The recent disturbing trend is one of higher rates of mosquitos. Yes, I have a mosquito net. But more to the point, I have two cats who think it is just something to climb. The mosquitos are slow though, so if I see it first and can actually keep it in view, I can probably kill it. The second disturbing trend is that they are stealth and silent. I sat on the couch in broad daylight, wide awake and wondered what was biting me – in four different places.
So I am surprised the three hour nap I just took, without any bug spray, or net, wasn’t as lethal as it could have been. I guess it helps that my niece, Lucia, isn’t here leaving the windows open without shutting the screens anymore. I took her to Gaborone this morning so she could catch the bus back to Kanye after a three day visit and I could do some shopping and follow up on receipts for this grant we are closing up this week.
Lucia, who is 13, came back with me after Christmas in Kanye to spend a few days and meet my teenage friends. All and all, it went well. They got along fine and all acted like silly teenaged girls, which of course they are. I made apple fritters for them twice (I am convinced they are healthier because, unlike the fat cakes, fritters have on an average of just under ¼ of an apple in each one. Who am I kidding?)
I was unable to access my computer at all when they were here and either using it to play games or watch movies. Lucia watched Twilight and the Twilight Saga two or three times. I finally had to cut her off. I found the last book of the series at the PC office Wednesday when I went to see the doctor and brought it back. Here, I said, you can read the next book. Nah, she wants the movie. I said, “Well, I don’t know when it will be out here.” Then I started reading the book and she started watching the original all over again. In Gabs today I saw the first part of Breaking Dawn is in the movie theater. So much for her ever reading the book.
The girls walked all the way to work with me Wednesday to access the internet so they could look up the test results for the people in Form 3, which is roughly equivalent I think to 10th grade. But don’t quote me on this. I have never seen so few A’s and so many D grades in my life. And the one guy who got an overall “A” got a “D” in PE, so where does that leave us? I asked the girls, “Is it because they are stupid, aren’t studying, or are the teacher’s not teaching?” They are too naïve to get the concept of bad teachers being a potential cause of bad or non-learning, so they felt the kids were just lazy and not studying. This was also the grade level that one afternoon decided to beat up some of the younger kids, so maybe they are just trouble all the way around.
I asked the girls what the kids thought they would do if they didn’t do well enough to graduate and go on to college. The girls just shrugged their shoulders and said, “nothing, or crime” like it was a foregone conclusion for some of the kids. They know them better than I do, given that many are cousins or neighbors or both, but it is too bad that these kids aren’t being instilled more with the importance of education as the only thing between them and poverty. Problem is that even when people DO get a good education, they don’t always find work, so education isn’t ALWAYS going to keep poverty away. And how many 15-18 year olds think that their life as it is, all fun and games, can’t stay that way once they are an adult with no money?
At some point during Lucia’s visit, and as a result of their ongoing infatuation with my computer, I told them, “if you ever want a computer like this, you need to do well in school so you can go to college and get a job where you can afford a nice computer like this. Otherwise, the only way you will get one is if you sleep with a really disgusting old man who has promised to give you one.” Oops. Maybe that was too blunt. They looked disgusting up in the dictionary and while the word there didn’t fit perfectly, they got the point. Hope it sticks.
This week I have only been to the office briefly Wednesday. We had Monday and Tuesday off, and the only thing I need to do this week is deliver two checks to vendors so we get quotations and invoices with a December date on them, and re-write the narrative report after the EU representative came last week and edited my report for me. So you can see how hanging with teenagers eating fritters and watching Twilight over and over won hands down for activities.
I stopped by the local water utilities office, where we had gone over two months ago, to ask them what the heck was taking them so bleep bleepidy bleep long?!!!!
They said they had measured it already. Fine. “Did you TELL the office in Ramotswa what the measurement was so that they could produce a bill so that when we kept sending people there to get one they could actually give them one?” We will go re-measure today and then call them. OMG. I smiled, thanked them and left. So tomorrow at 8 am we are off to see the wizard and see if anyone has figured out how to take the information, put it on a piece of paper with invoice written on top, and hand it to us before the end of the year.
I know it can be done because lots and lots and lots of people have given me quotations and invoices just like I ask. It is just for some reason we are having problem with the basic necessity of water. Well, and the other less basic necessity, but nicety, of electrical current being hooked to the Otse support’s group’s office building. It took three trips by three different sets of people (well, I went as my own singular self, un-set and unsettled) before I got them to take the check from me and give me a receipt showing they have our money. That was to pay for the electrical hook up. Maybe after the country is out of December, otherwise known as the “Month No One Who Doesn’t Have to Work Does” we will get us some power.
Add to all this another fact: I have absolutely no clue what to write in the narrative report. I mean, I have written my share of grant reports and reports of all kinds. I have written both fiction and non-fictionalized accounts of things that did happen, might have happened, could have happened, and no way in he—ever should have happened. Still, I am stumped. I wrote our report, turned it in and the representative came and edited it. Not only edited my “draft” final report, but also my “final” interim report which I thought was, well, “final.” Apparently nothing is final until someone sings. God knows it won’t be me – I’m down to 144 pounds now and with THIS voice, it just isn’t advisable. I think the problem is I write in 100% American, and they want something more understandable, something more English.
So instead of doing that, I kept my house full of crazy teenagers all week, then came home today from Gabs and took that 3 hour power nap. It is now close to 9 p.m. and no narrative report will be written by me today. Maybe tomorrow, after our nice trip to the Land of Water and Utilities I will have been given the brain and courage to go on. I still have the heart.
P.S. Nope. The trip to the Land of W and U was too crazy to describe. I came back to the office at 1:30 to find everyone gone baby gone. I organized some of the financial paperwork, checked my email, and sent you all this update. I am going home for either another 3 hour nap, some Twilight or to write a narrative report. Not sure which at this point.
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