where i've been

warning!

on the wall of our generator house:

adequate warning? skilled interests indeed!!

places to nap

this is one tree folks. ONE. what a fantastic place to take a nap. unfortunately, we went under the tree to have a community meeting. oh well - sometimes you lose. note to god - i want a tree just like this one in my next compound. thanks.

my newest love

and soon to be the newest member of my tiny family (yep, it's just me and the pup). he's not even home yet and he has already stolen my heart.

moments like these..

...make my day.

pearl of wisdom

A friend's pearl for today: If google doesn't know, then I got no other ideas.

What could be truer?

on purity and water tanks

Our water tank is very pure. It's always good to know.

on mosquitoes

remember what a friend of mine said about malaria? i'm beginning to suspect that it's true. i was in thailand over the holidays with my whole family (which involves 4 continents and 3 colours) none of whom obviously have been working in south sudan. throughout the 3 week holiday, everyone, including the part of the family that actually lives in thailand, complained of mosquito bites on a daily basis. i, however, received perhaps all of 5 bites in 3 weeks. i think perhaps the mosquitoes in thailand were afraid of my blood. yay to me and the mosquitoes in south sudan, who, unfortunately for me, are apparently made of sterner stuff. hmm, maybe it's time to move, move, move, move?

all in a day's work

really, it is!! hmm, perhaps i DO need a dog. pictures to follow.
==
T:

so speaking of sitting around all day

guess what i spent my day doing?

S:

what?

T:

sitting around :P

only, in the bush

like literally

because we got stuck

AGAIN

(this would be the third time for me so far this rainy season)

with a myriad of near misses

and of course, today just happened to be the day that i forgot my kikoi, and all the food i usually bring on any journey

S:

WHAT?

you sat in a bush all day?

haha, that sounds like something from far side comics

daaaammnn..

why must you forget ur kikoy on bush day

T:

luckily, our driver had stolen one of my kikois which he likes to wrap around his seat, so we had one which we put on the ground and sat on

well, eventually i fell asleep on it

dude, we got stuck at like 12:00

spent like 2 fucking hours trying to get the car out

then a tractor came and it was a small tractor i guess or something because it couldn't get the car out

S:

holy shit.

T:

so the 2 dudes i was going with to do the work went to the place we were supposed to go and did the work

brought back the tractor

well, another more powerful tractor i guess

they left at 3, and came back at 5.30!

and we got the car out around 6

so i literally sat around doing nothing at all from 12:00 - 6:00

i stayed behind with the driver

so i mean, i guess we did stuff

like walk to where the water was so he could wash his hands and scare away the cows which were kinda scary

and then i fell asleep

for like an hour

then i was bored so we went for a walk until we heard the tractor coming

and then he started to randomly dance

S:

oh wow

did you have a book?

T:

(i think he was delirious from hunger)

no

i didn't have a book

because it was supposed to take 1.5 hours to get there, 1 hour of work, and 1.5 hours back

i wasn't supposed to have time to read

but usually i bring a book, but this time, i didn't have time to go home before heading out, so i forgot my usual supplies

oh man, we didn't eat anything - we were both so hungry by the time we got home

S:

aww

poor thing.

T:

at least i have reserves - he doesn't have any

either way, it's a whole other level of 'oh yes, i'm at work' taking a nap in the bush!

HA HA HA HA

S:

hahahahahha

"taking a nap in teh bush"

hahahha

only you t!

T:

at one point i considered collecting some tadpoles to have some pets but the cows were kinda scary

S:

HAHAHAHHAHAHA

hahahaha

omg.

you really need a dog

music (?)

one fine day in the office, i was playing benny benasi's 'satisfaction' rather loudly on my laptop. one of our drivers comes into the office, hears the music, and starts looking around for the source of the 'noise'. he comes near my desk, but is looking up at the fan (which my desk happened to be very nearly under) with a frown on his face and asks me, 'why is the fan making such a funny noise??' (although it was in broken arabic (for my benefit) so a direct translation would be have been more like, 'what's that?' with wild gestures at the fan.) he was turning to call the acting compound manager to figure out together what to do about the misbehaving fan when he looked down at me and realised the 'noise' was coming from my laptop. he starts laughing and says, 'is that really music?', and strolls out the door still laughing.

lovely :)

came across this lovely (following a theme here!) CV the other day. nothing to say but :) :).