8 July 2005 - 12:25
I made it back to Tidjikja in record time on taxi brusse (13 hours instead of the average 19), which I guess makes up for having to wait an extra day for it. It actually felt nice to roll into town and know that soon, I wouldn’t be living out of suitcases anymore (at least for a couple weeks). Tidjikja seems to have survived in my absence, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a SECOND gas station being built, the town dump (which was located adjacent to the main road into town, between two graveyards and across the street from the medical clinic) had been mostly cleaned up, and it actually looks like work is getting started on a new market building.
However, our Peace Corps house wasn’t in such good shape. Between my psychotic plant-eating dogs, dust storms, and residents’ apathetic attitudes towards cleanliness, the place was pretty torn up. Apparently, I’m the only one who knows how to put trash in bags, move it to the burn barrel, and set it on fire, so taking care of a month’s-worth of trash was project number one (our mice problem is bad enough as it is). I was so energized from my swift ride home that I had it all cleaned up in a couple hours. I set the load ablaze, did a little more tidying up, then contentedly headed off to a nice shower that was interrupted by persistent banging on my front door. I toweled off and threw on some clothes to answer the door to find several of my neighbors and about 20 other people who had gathered, thinking that my house was burning down (I forgot that everyone knew the house had been empty for a week). It’s nice to know that people care (or want to watch my house burn down). Cleaning up the rest of the house is going slowly but surely, but the duststorms that come every couple of days make it difficult to keep things clean. Now if I can just figure out how to fix the broken pipe that is leaking by the front door and turning our entrance into a swamp…
Word spread quickly amongst my friends that I had come home, so the first couple of days of intensive cleaning were constantly interrupted by friends passing by. A couple people brought me dinner, several other people invited me to dinner this coming week, my barber stopped by to tell me that Jesus loves me, and my National Guard Commander friend called to ask me if I could come over for lunch on Saturday (that story later).
Most importantly though, I managed to borrow a bicycle pump from a car shop and get my swimming pool inflated (after about 10 hours of on-and-off pumping). I got the back porch cleaned up and set up barriers to keep the evil dogs away from it, and tomorrow I’m going to start filling it up. Now it’s time to go interview some guys for the pool boy position…
