three crazy days

I know, I know -- two posts in one week! The mind reels. But truly, the last 72 hours have been such a sequence of crazy, sometimes dramatic, sometimes humorous events that I feel like I have to put them down on “paper”.

I will start back on Tuesday night, which as I mentioned before was my first night in my new house. What I did not mention before was what I managed to do during my first half hour in the house. I’m going to tell about it now because it seems to be the moment when the week started going, as Joe would say, all pear-shaped.

Because I don’t have most of my things at this point, I’m continually making due with not-quite-the-right-tool for various jobs. One thing I did not have (and needed) on Tuesday night was scissors. So I was using a knife to open some packaging. Some of you may be already starting to cringe as you see where this is going.

I will spare you the details, but suffice to say that I cut myself rather badly across one of my right-hand fingers. Unsure where to even go to see if I needed stitches, I washed it as thoroughly as I could and went in search of my little first aid kit. Remember that I had just hauled all my things over to the house and because I was only moving a few minutes away, I hadn’t bothered to pack with much of an organizational plan. Meaning that I really had no idea which bag I had thrown the first aid kit into.

So there I was trying not to bleed all over everything, having the use of only one hand, looking through every single suitcase, plastic bag, etc, in search of some antibiotic ointment and a few bandaids. I did eventually get myself bandaged and the mess cleaned up. Though I’m staying away from knives for a few days and now have a pair of scissors at home. (Let me pause here to say that after a couple of swollen, sore days, the finger is healing quite well now -- just so you’re not left wondering…)

Wednesday morning was humorous and slow as I tried to get ready for work still with only the use of my left hand. But otherwise it was uneventful. In the evening, I went to buy a surge protector/extension cable for my electric oven, since the plug couldn’t quite reach to the outlet. It will become evident in a bit how ironic the word “protector” is in the previous sentence.

I then spent a bit of time with Chantal making a list of Kinyarwanda words with their English translations. I’ve been wanting to do this since I arrived but finally got desperate enough to make it a priority when I moved into my house. You see, Baptiste, who I told you a little about previously, decided to join me at my new house when I moved. He helps around the house and garden a bit, but more importantly provides security since I live alone and travel frequently. Baptiste does not speak English, so we’re quite a funny pair at times. Since my learning of Kinyarwanda is driven by necessity my vocabulary is probably a bit funny at the moment – “rubbish” (umwanda, if you’re interested) was among the first words I learned.

Wednesday night I set about making dinner, excited to cook my first real meal in the house. Only to realize that the tomato paste I had bought required a can opener to get into it. And I don’t have a can opener. Now, I know cans can be opened with knives but we know my history with those at the moment, so I was reticent to try. But I also wanted to eat. So I stood there looking at the knife and at the tomato paste. Thankfully at that moment I was rescued by Baptiste (of course this whole knife thing does nothing to help his view of my kitchen abilities…) who opened the can effortlessly.

Thursday rolled around. I worked. I drove home. Baptiste was out running an errand so I parked the car outside the gate, got my key, opened the little door in the gate and opened the gate. This was my first time to do this by myself and I was very aware of how much amusement I was providing for the security guards across the street as I attempted to look nonchalant and experienced as I struggled through the process. Successfully got the gate open only to find that I had locked the keys inside the truck. Sheepishly, under the stares of those security guards, I wrestled the gate closed again.

Thankfully, my phone was not in the truck so I was able to ring a man called Samuel, who had a spare key, to come rescue me (I am borrowing a vehicle at the moment, since I won’t have one of my own until April). That is not a fun phone call to make though, especially when it is dinnertime for the person you’re calling.

Waiting for Samuel, I decided to work on dinner myself. “Why not test out my oven?” I thought, and got some toast ready to put under the grill. The instructions said to let the grill heat for 10 minutes before using it. During those 10 minutes, Samuel arrived. We visited outside for a few minutes, he unlocked the truck, and I pulled it inside the gate.

Walking back into the house, there was a funny smell. I walked into the kitchen to find smoke. Thinking it was just caused by using the oven for the first time, I opened the oven just to make sure there was nothing wrong. When I suddenly realized that the smoke wasn’t coming from the oven at all, but from the cord of the surge “protector”!! Quickly unplugging and moving things, we got the smoking cord out of the house, and miraculously there was almost no damage to anything else.

Friday (today) rolled around. About 10 minutes after I awoke, my phone started ringing. Barbara, with whom I work, had tried to come into the office early but was locked out -- due to a string of circumstances I won’t go into here. After my little episode last night I was hardly in a position to be upset about it, so threw on some clothes and headed out the door, trying to gesture to Baptiste that I wasn’t leaving for the day, but would be back momentarily. To the office I went, dropped off my key (the one that only works from the outside, if you recall…) and was back home again.

At lunchtime, I had arranged for someone to come to the house to look at something they're working on. Chantal was also meeting me there. Moments after arriving at the house, there was shouting in the street. It was a security guard from one of the houses a little ways down from me. Chantal translated that a child from that house was very ill and they had no transportation to the hospital.

We ran down to the house, where I met my first neighbor, Raffa. Her family is from Madagascar and thankfully she speaks English so we could quickly confer. Within a couple of minutes she and her small son were in my truck and we were headed to the hospital.

Raffa’s husband had been called from work and he was able to meet us there just a few minutes after we arrived. I left them there with their little son in a bed and the doctors talking with them and examining the child. I hope to stop by their house tonight to find out his status, so I will try to give an update soon.

Now I am finishing things up at the office before I head to Ethiopia tomorrow for a week. Next week I won’t be cooking, arranging the house, or driving, so maybe things will be a bit calmer. Incidentally, after my lunchtime experience today I know where to go if I ever need stitches.