Shoot Me Now

Peace Corps life is full of highs and lows, today didn't hit the extremes of emotion that Peace Corps life has but certainly had a shape resembling the same graph. I started out the day at dawn hiking 2.5 miles with my backpack to the main road. I then flagged down what I assume was a taxi??? and made my way into Masaka where my organization operates an office. I met local officials in the morning, got my Warid modem fixed, got a ton of settling in items (I now have a cutting board... real food is in site), and then headed back to Nakyenyi. One particularly low point of the day came when the carpenter I had been working with supplied me with the quote for my kitchen unit. 1,000,000 Shillings. Our entire settling in allowance is about 1.2M shillings.

When I returned to the compound I was intent on heading to the local market as Tuesday is market day in Nakyenyi. I was informed by our director that the market here does not start until almost evening. Disappointed, I did desperation laundry outside my door. I've been trying to hire someone to do it but it is progressing slowly and I am out of clothes. My house is right next to the girls dormitory, and they watched me and laughed as I struggled with my clothes.

Walking though town later I noticed a street I had never walked down and after about a 10th of a mile I found a man working on wood and a sign that said Omubazzi!!! It was a carpenter!!! I had been told there was no carpenter in Nakyenyi. I quickly drew up a picture of what I wanted and he quoted me at 190,000 for the same thing the other carpenter wanted me to pay 1,000,000 for. I put down a deposit for the first piece of a 3 piece set and told him if he did a good job and kept giving me fair prices I would buy a lot more furniture from him.

On my way back I found the market, it was disappointing but I think next week I will buy some mugs and a knife or two from there.

I headed home discovering along the way I did not have my keys. After backtracking for an hour I headed home. What I dreaded the most was that after the lock to get into my home, I believed I had my bedroom locked, and my latrine locked, and all my luggage locked, and the keys were of course all on my key-chain. Well after about 10 minutes with a huge hammer and chisel, one of our orphans got through the lock. On that note... I highly recommend Master Lock. I was getting sworn at in Luganda for putting that thing on the door. After 5 minutes the thing barely had a scratch on it. He joked it would have been easier to knock the door down.

Upon getting into the house I discovered my bedroom door open and my keys inside, meaning I was sleeping in my own bed, wearing my own clothes, pooping in my latrine, and only having to replace one lock in the morning.

To add a little icing to the cake, Michael my counterpart told me that he found someone interested in washing my clothes and that we could talk in the morning. I'm calling it a good day although at one point in the day I was envious of daffy duck in the above picture.