Last-minute work

Monday and Tuesday one of the groups of students was having a computer-literacy class, since many of the people here had never used a computer before in their lives, and they really needed these skills to survive the rest of the semester and to be an asset to their employers. There were nearly 30 students, however, and only one teacher, so Sunel and I both went to act as assistants in the computer class. A few students needed some really basic help and it would be detrimental to the rest of the class to hold them up by waiting for them to get up to speed, so we acted as roving personal tutors in the class. These people smell really bad, particularly the Zambians, and the Gambians, and at times I literally had to leave the room because I just couldn't take it. I don't think they know what soap is, nor deodorant. I understand that they come from a rural area, but that's not an excuse for stinking to high heavens. The people in the village don't have running water, and they still know how to bathe. The smell of this group of students was enough to make me glad that I'm not going to have to be here for the rest of the year.

Tuesday, maybe two hours before quitting time, the mail came, and in it, the first shipment of children's books in Tsonga! I decided to stay late that night, cataloging and processing the books. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment that my work really paid off. The books weren't in the hands of the children yet, but they were here. They existed. Books where there were none before. And hopefully soon my successor will have enough books and the proper organization to distribute them effectively. Wednesday I showed the books to Grace, one of the staff members who lives in the village and speaks Shangaan to come and see what she thought of the books, and she was all kinds of excited when she saw them and heard what they were intended for. So I feel affirmed that my efforts have not been wasted, and that soon, the rural children of Bushbusckridge will no longer be in need of reading materials.

My favorite book was called "Ndzhuti" which means "Shadow" and it's about a boy who is afraid of his shadow until he figures out that it's a part of him. It's such a cute book.

Tuesday night was another huge thunderstorm (there'd been big storms at night for almost a whole two weeks), and this one knocked the server out, thankfully after I'd finished putting the books on the system, but that meant I wasn't able to get online to finish any work or let people know I was coming home. By the time I left on Wednesday, I don't think it had been fixed yet. Wednesday morning, Thokozani saw a lioness walking just outside the fence, and he called Gawie to take me out on a last-minute game drive to try and find it, but we didn't see it. Par for the course. I've been just-missing campus lion sightings the whole time I was here, and both times I went to the Kruger they were nowhere to be found. Were it not for Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, I'd still be denying that they exist at all, but I don't think I was ever meant to see them in the wild. I did, however, have a close encounter with a puff adder two nights in a row this week. The first night, it was near the house, trying to find a way in, and Gawie came to remove it. The second night, I was taking a walk around the fence in the evening and nearly stepped on the thing. I think it might have been the same one, too. This thing was fucking huge. Not the deadliest snake in existence (you've got 24 hours before you die, rather than roughly 2 hours like with a cobra, boomslang, or vine snake, or +/- 20 minutes like with a black mamba), but you still don't want to get bitten by one. It's comforting to think that in about a day's time I'll be home-sweet-home in New England where nothing found in nature can immediately kill you.

Last full week

This week the long-course students arrived. This meant that I gave tours of the library, answered questions, and spent way too much time helping people print. I also cataloged more of the reports, and although I didn't fully complete them, I did manage to get up to 800-something out of maybe a thousand done. I was at a stopping point, and I left it so the remaining sections will be the easy ones for the next person to do.

As for the bookmobile project, I'd like to think that I made some progress, because the volunteer who's replacing me wanted to get in contact with me about the project so that she could continue it. I have since emailed her a summary of what I've done, how, and why, and what the next steps might be. She responded with further questions, and we've had a regular dialogue going. I'm now hopeful about the project and I feel a bit better about leaving it without seeing its completion because I know that it will be continued in my wake.

Lame duck

That's how I seriously feel here at the college. Like anything I do doesn't really matter anymore because I'll be gone in two weeks. After them putting it off all week, on Friday I finally had a meeting with the higher-ups about the bookmobile project. We're not doing the Books for Africa thing, but we are going to go ahead with the project in other ways. I'd already gone and ordered some native-language books, but they probably won't arrive until after I leave.

Other things this week have been to re-focus on my standard-operations responsibilities and other projects. So, back to cataloging reports and helping Sunel re-organize the collection to be more standardized in its subject classification. Admittedly, she did most of it, asking me for help only sometimes, because I did have other things to do. We had to ready the library for the incoming long-course students. They're the ones who will be dominating the campus for the rest of the year, and the ones that actually use the library the most. So Sunel and I put together displays for their first two class learning modules, made the shelves neat, organized, and properly labeled, got all their usernames/passwords/printing codes sorted out, and did all other manner of little thing that needed to be done.

The week was not a total bust, however, because I went to town on Wednesday with Tania to pick up some stuff for the library and do some personal banking, and we got to chit-chat the entire ride there and back. Tania's actually really nice, but I hadn't really had the chance to get to know her, since she works on the other side of campus in a department I don't often have cause to deal with. There were game drives all week for the guy making a promotional video of the college, and I got to go on them. Unfortunately we didn't see much, and one of the days we got drenched on, which has made me feel less than stellar all week since then. However, Tania offered to take me to Moholoholo wildlife rehabilitation center with her this weekend, where we'll be guaranteed to see animals, albeit initially sick/injured and subsequently tamed and caged.

Approaching deadlines

This week I've found a fourth NGO to apply for assistance to, who supply native-language books, which is nice, and one of the ones I'd applied to who donate books has responded positively(for those of you keeping score at home, that’s one negative response, one positive response, and two responses still outstanding). These books are in English though, second-hand, and are shipped from America, with the organization who's receiving them fundraising to pay shipping/port fees. You get 22,000 books for just under $12,000.00, which is ten times cheaper than trying to buy that many books. The organization that does this is called Books for Africa, and they work with you to fundraise by hosting your project on their website and your job is to direct traffic to it, and get people to donate, and once it reaches enough to cover the costs of shipping, they send the books. My supervisors were excited when I initially told them about this organization, but after I told them that we'd been accepted and that it's time to take the next step, they're thinking maybe they don't want to go that big. That is a LOT of books, more than one bookmobile can handle, but heck, maybe we can actually DONATE the books to the schools nearby so they can have their own libraries like they've always wanted but never had the money for. The point of the library being mobile was because nobody here has anything and it would be unfair to give to one school and not another, plus we're in the middle of nowhere, so kids can't get too many places besides school and home. But now they're thinking of not going through with it, because it would be too many books all at once. I understand that, but it'll take a very long time to fundraise enough to bring the shipment over, and by then a plan can be made to properly deal with it.

The other thing is that before they go about putting the project up on the website, they require a down-payment of $1,000.00 towards the shipping, which is a lot in rand, that the college can't afford out of its own budget, especially since they've realized that they need to hire someone to run the bookmobile, thanks of course to my convincing. Otherwise it'd never get done since the people here at the college offices are already too busy, and you're not going to find a qualified volunteer who knows the area and is good with kids and with books who's here for any length of time. And the other argument is that say we do get enough money to send it over, it's more cost-effective than trying to buy books, but since they're in English not the native languages, aren't they worth less? Well, no, they're not. Because they're books that we won't have paid for, and the kids all learn English in school anyway once they get to like third grade.

Anyway, I have a meeting with Sunel, Kathleen, and Tania (two managers and the fundraising director) next week to figure out what to do. In the end, though, I'm not staying here, so if I don't like what they're going to decide, I'm out of luck.

Renegades of Funk

So the title has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all. I just wanted to use the word "funk" in my title. I bet they'd spell it with an "e" at the end of it down here, just to be British. Anyway.

I actually have been in a funk this week, though, so my title isn't completely off-beat. I think it's some combination of job stress and leaving soon.

I'll be home in just over three weeks. I'm just beginning to get used to it here, and now I'll be leaving. I might just have to come back and visit someday soon.

Even if I wasn't dating someone down here, I'd have reason to stay. This bookmobile project is not quite finished yet, and I'm worried nobody will take the reins when I leave. I mean, I've laid the ground-work, but it hasn't been executed yet.

I got the idea and ran with it. I secured book and monetary donations. I came up with a cataloging scheme. I came up with a distribution plan. I convinced the management to undertake a job search for a manager for the mobile library - someone who's local so they know the languages, has a teaching background so they'll be good with the kids, and who doesn't have a job already so that they'll be able to fully concentrate on the library. We haven't found anyone yet, but convincing them that we need to be looking was actually a big step. I developed a list of books with which to build the core collection (once the finance department gives the word that the money has been successfully converted to rand and deposited into the project's account, allowing me to actually buy things). I found suppliers for these books (which you wouldn't believe to be so challenging, but it is when you're dealing in non-English language publications for Africa). I've identified and applied for assistance from several charitable organizations to continue growing the mobile library's holdings after I leave.

Why, then, do I feel so useless? Like I haven't done a damned thing with my time here?

I'll tell you why. It's because my pipe dream is not yet a reality, and I have this fear that it never will become so if I leave before it gets off the ground. I really should set more attainable goals.

This actually started off as just a way to get free regular adult fiction books for the library for staff to use for entertainment. I did that. Our fiction section is double what it was when I got here, and we didn't spend a dime. That's all because of me. But then I got the idea to get books for people who actually really need them. That's where the trouble started. I dreamed too big and got ahead of myself. And now I won't be happy until I've accomplished the impossible. Native-language books for the children of Welverdiend. I want it to happen. But I fear it never will.

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Anyway, beyond this, I've been busy with other things at the library here. Some of them are boring duties, like chasing down students with overdue books...or cataloging those god-awful reports. I'm so sick of them. Nearly 700 now that I've done. My progress on this front has been less than stellar in recent weeks, partly because I got wrapped up in my other, more interesting and worthwhile, project: the mobile library. Also, my lesser responsibilities have been eating up a considerable amount of time lately as well. Planning an Earth Hour event for the campus, researching book prices, processing new materials, and *gasp* even helping students! I've also been going through the collection with Sunel to re-arrange it and re-classify many of the books so that the subject areas are more consistent. On top of this, I'm starting to put together materials about my PFE for my "poster session" which is one of the criteria on which I'm graded for this class. It's all so crazy.

Negative Progress

I'm back to being depressed about this whole library project. I get the feeling that the people above me in the library management don't really understand what a huge undertaking this is, and despite them saying that they're fully on board, they completely expect me to do everything on my own. I realize that it is my project, but it requires things that I can't do without more power in the organization, more time here at the college, more managerial support, more planning, and about a gazillion more dollars/rand. Sometimes I just want to give up and go home. Finish my degree, and be a librarian in some quiet little town somewhere in New England. This whole "making a difference in the world" thing is a load of shit, and I can't do it.

Excitement in the world of the library

So, I'd more or less given up hope on this whole "mobile library" project. I'd called and written to every library in Limpopo and Mpumalanga (the two provinces we sit between), and none of them were of any use. Neither was the department of education. Neither was anyone else. So, I cut my losses, decided I'd bit off more than I could chew, and figured I ought to be happy with what I got, which was adult fiction books for the entertainment of the people who actually use the library (servicing user's needs), and then just carry on with my other library duties.

Then, after handing in my mid-term journal, my faculty supervisor for this internship back at URI contacted me about making a personal donation to the cause, and possibly getting other library students on board as well. This of course was amazing news. You have no idea how elated I felt after reading that email.

The rest of the week went by in a happy flurry of passion-driven library work. After feeling hopelessly rejected in all my attempts to get book donations, here comes a promise of cash to buy new books. There was so much to do!

I spoke with Sunel and our department's supervisor, Kathleen, as well as the finance department head, Sharmain, to figure out how to handle it. We set up an internal project fund for the mobile library, I forwarded donation instructions/banking details to my professor. After that, I did some research and came up with a wish-list of 50 titles in Shangaan to serve as a base collection. It's so hard to find native-language books in South Africa, but I did manage it. Also, with renewed enthusiasm to search, I found some charitable NGOs to solicit for either book or money donations, and began writing up proposals. I've identified three major charities and solicited two of them already. One of them has already turned me down, but I'm not despairing. The third one is pending approval of my supervisor before I send it out, and the second one has not responded yet, but that's okay. There's still hope.

Gosh, I'm so excited about this project now! I feel like now that I've finally gotten the ball rolling on this thing, it's getting close to the time that I have to leave this place, and I fear I won't complete anything meaningful before I go, and Lord knows if the person after me will be able to pick up where I left off. I kind of want to stay longer, or come back later, or something. But I know I can't.

Summary of LAST weekend.

Friday at about 2:00 (normal library hours are M-F 8-5) students from one of the field guide courses came in and said that they had a huge project due Monday and could the library stay open late that evening and/or on the weekend. This wasn't just one or two, but the whole class. So, because we're here to serve the students, my boss said yes, and “asked” if I could come back after supper, around 7 o'clock, to open the library for these students, and then work an additional 8 hours over the weekend. I mean, I did have plans, but duty calls. We've done this before, and the students were always really grateful. It worked out that I'm working Saturday morning for 4 hours and Sunel is working on Sunday morning for 4 hours and we're both taking half-days on Monday.

So, I get to the library after supper and open it up. I decided not to do anything library-related because this was after-hours and I'd been at work all day. Instead I put together this first draft of my library journal for my PFE instructor. Nobody showed up. This made me so mad, and I'm contemplating not coming in on Saturday for them. They asked if we could open the library for them tonight, we did, and then they didn't use it. They shouldn't be allowed back at all, nevermind after-hours. I had every intention of sleeping until ten tomorrow and then have company over for brunch. But I changed my plans to late-afternoon and I have to get up at 6 AM on a Saturday, and if they don't show up...well, let's just say that I'm not going to be pleased. I'm sure in the final draft I'll report on the outcome of this situation and reflect on “user services” or something of the like.

What happened on Saturday morning was that I found some of the students at breakfast, hung over from partying on Friday night, and lectured them. The whole crew came in to the library and worked diligently all morning. Some of the students had never used a computer before in their lives, and their teacher expected them to use the internet to research some basic ecology questions, which they could've gotten the answers for from books, but their teacher wanted them to go online, so I got to give a crash course in using the google.

After I got out of work, Thabang came over. We just hung out on campus most of the day, he slept over, and in the morning we went to the village. Tukiso, Thabang's brother, coaches a ladies' soccer team, and he really wanted me to come watch them play. Well, last weekend, they were playing on their home turf, so I came and watched the game. It was the last game of the regular season, and because they won (3-2), they get to go to play-offs. I went and hung out with the team afterwards for a bit, and they were all really excited to have me talk to them, but they were shy about responding, even though they do all know English. They liked me because I was a foreigner and I came to watch them play. Of course they wanted to have their picture taken with me, and they even gave me jersey to wear, making me an honorary member of their team. It was all rather strange, but fun at any rate.

After that I got to finally see where Thabang lives and meet some other members of his family. After that, we met up with Thabang's friend, Thabiso, and just walked around and chatted a bit. Then we got chips (fries) and bread, because they make sandwiches out of them down here, and their fries all have chili on them in the villages. These ones were too hot for me, so I didn't eat much. On the way back to the college the sky just opened up and we got soaked. I somehow had to find dry clothes to fit Thabang and Thabiso, which was really rather amusing. We just hung out and chatted while we waited out the rain storm and by then it was time for the boys to go home. The two of them tried to teach me Sotho, but I'm terrible at it. At least I'm trying.

Nobody tell Thabang that I put this picture up of him and Thabiso drying off in my kitchen. He'll be mad at me. It was just too funny to me at the time how soaked everybody got.

I can save your life...theoretically

The library here is one of the first aid stations on campus, and when they offered staff the option to attend a first-aid course, I jumped at the chance. I might as well know how to use it, ne? Besides, being so far away from any kind of hospital facility, knowing basic first aid might just make the difference between life and death in an emergency out here. I hope I never have to use it, but it's good to know just in case. It was all day for two days, combining theory and practice, and I feel better knowing at least something.

This week I went to Welverdiend with Jeremiah, our community outreach director, to take photos and to assess the current state of several local schools we work with, and to meet with the people in charge of those schools and with a non-profit to discuss the possibilities of partnering to improve the infrastructure of these local schools. I really feel like I need more time here to actually get anything done on these major projects.

I've also been cataloging books and reports like nobody's business, to the point where I may run out of labels and book covers soon (we've already ordered more, but Lord knows when they'll arrive).

Can I just say, I hate office politics? Because I do. I'm not really going to get into it here, but sometimes people are really childish in the workplace.

Completely unrelated, but because everyone's been asking, here's a picture of me and Thabang (although it's not a very good one):

I seriously don't have enough time here to do all of this...

This week at the library, I:

cataloged reports (approaching 600 completed since I got here)

cataloged & covered all the remaining children's books

re-arranged the shelves to fit the new books

cataloged, covered, & shelved a steady stream of new books

went through the "Environmental Education" section and re-classified most of them as either regular non-fiction, reports, or children's books, because that section was just a mish-mash of titles that didn't necessarily fit elsewhere

created a children's non-fiction section in addition to the story-books we've got, mostly out of the EE section

solicited department of education for help with village-library project

ordered office supplies

received, checked, and returned unsatisfactory library materials

ordered new library materials

came up with cataloging/labeling scheme for children's books (differentiating fiction of different age groups, non-fiction, and in a way that children would be able to find things)

finished writing the community-outreach report and submitted it/edited it/got it approved by the necessary higher-ups

All of this in between helping a regular stream of students find books and figure out the computers (some of them have never used them before and needed to have things typed or what-have-you).

Eish, that's a lot of work!

I feel like I need an assistant sometimes. Seriously.

In other news, I've got a boyfriend. His name is Thabang, which if you've been keeping up with my blog you might recognize the name from earlier posts, as I met him when he was doing thatching here and he started teaching me Tsonga. He makes me happy, although we both know I'm leaving in two months and neither of us really wants to think about it.

Thabang came over this weekend, and took me out to experience a bit more of the "real" South Africa, as he put it, which included walking through an open market, walking on unpaved roads, waiting hours for a taxi, riding in a taxi (an experience I will elaborate on later...suffice it to say that it's an experience like no other), drinking home-made marula-beer from a stand on the side of the road (that shit is STRONG), being the only white person for miles, getting stares for being the only white person for miles, eliciting giggles and surprised looks when I (a white person) greet people in their language, going to a "nice" black neighborhood (considered that way only because all the houses have running water and the cows don't out-number the people), and meeting some of Thabang's family. And after Thabang went home, I did my laundry the South African way, or at least partially (because I've got indoor plumbing), meaning by hand in a tiny sink and then hanging it out to dry, running out to take it down when it starts to rain, and putting it up again, down again, up again, according to the weather, and in between I cleaned house, which due to the squirrels and bugs, is constantly in need of a good sweep-and-mop job.

And now it's bed-time because I've got work tomorrow. U etlela kahle.

God, I've been so freaking busy!

Last week I did a bunch of cataloging, covering, labeling, and shelving of children's books and environmental reports. We also got in a bunch of new nature DVDs and some books and magazines that it's my job to process completely. Add to that some more price comparison shopping for potential future books, helping students find what they need, and checking for/deleting missing books, and you have yourself a very busy week at the library.

And on top of that, I've got my community outreach projects.

I helped Jeremiah, the community outreach director, plan, execute, document, and later analyze a community clean-up project. A youth group in Welverdiend wanted to clean up trash on the road leading from the town past the college gate into the park, but they needed resources (transport, trash bags, protection from wild animals, water, food). We, the college, helped, and also brought in other local organizations to back the project. As a librarian, I went along on the actual clean-up day with the library's camera and took pictures and notes. I'm currently in the middle of drafting a report on the whole process for use in future community outreach endeavors, but I had to stop due to the inability to concentrate this afternoon because of the dead squirrel mentioned in the previous post.

I'm also still trying to secure funding and/or books for a mobile library for the village, but I feel like that's not actually going to happen. I keep getting no-responses or “I'm sorry...” responses, and I'm running out of time to set something like this in motion before I return to the States. I finally figured out what I wanted to do here, and I'm not here long enough to actually do it. Ugh. It was stupid of me to even hope that I could make any kind of lasting difference down here.

Anyway, at least the weekend was fun, for the most part. Thabang came over on Friday night. On Saturday I went out with Vivian and few of her friends from the village. We had a braai at a game lodge nearby. There was food, music, drinks, and general silliness. Good times. Sunday Thabang came over again, and gave me a belated birthday present of really pretty beaded necklace, made locally.

I'm so not looking forward to the rest of the week. I need an extra day just to catch up on sleep.

Ah, what a busy week!

Sunel was gone Monday and Tuesday, so I was running the show at the library. It was relatively quiet on the staff-side because everyone knew she was gone until Wednesday so the phone wasn't constantly ringing with people looking for her. I actually got to take my lunch break on time and not plough through my food like a heathen in order to make it to my Tsonga lesson with more than 15 minutes left. I'm sure if Sunel has figured out what I do with my extra lunch time, she'd resent me having more interest in Tsonga than Afrikaans. No offense, but Afrikaans is just too difficult. It's related to English slightly, so you'd think it'd be easier, but it's not. It is easier when I'm reading it, though, because I can see how the word looks similar to an English one, and I can usually figure out the gist of something (which is helpful when I'm cataloging Afrikaans titles). And with Shangaan, it's pure memorization, but the words in Shangaan/Tsonga are so much easier for me to pronounce. If I can't figure out how to say a word, I won't remember it, and the spelling of Afrikaans words compared to how it's said is something I can never figure out.

While Sunel was gone, I basically got a bunch of cataloging done and helped students find/use library materials. Almost like I'm a librarian or something, ne? I was glad when she came back, though, because she brought with her a donation of about 200 books from Middleburg library. There were a lot fewer children's books than I'd hoped for, and of them, more were in Afrikaans than English, which members of the community would appreciate less. The village schools the books are intended for are entirely black schools, and if reading material isn't in their native language (good luck finding free books in Tsonga), English is preferred as it is a common language in South Africa that everyone knows, and it's becoming more and more a world language that will get you more opportunities if you can speak/read/write it fluently. Plus, some black people actually resent Afrikaans because they consider it a relic from Apartheid, and if a kid comes home from school with an Afrikaans book and not also an English one, then some parents might feel that they're being forced to learn it rather than English or their home language.

So, after unloading, unpacking, and sorting the books, I had to assess their content and quality in relation to needs of the intended patrons. In non-library jargon, it means I had to figure out what to keep and what to chuck. For instance, some of the books were in pretty poor shape, but if they were in English and a children's book, I'd keep it anyway. However, if it was in Afrikaans and an adult fiction book, it's also more likely to be kept, because there are a lot more Afrikaaners on staff who come looking for reading material at the library than Shangaanis. After figuring out what we have and what we need, I had to develop a strategy for addressing the gaps in the collection. Which in English means I had to figure out how to get more books. Keep in mind that I have absolutely no money to order things. So, I've expanded my search geographically to include libraries slightly farther away who might be looking to get rid of some discards, and to follow up more directly with the libraries which didn't respond to a written request. Also this week I've drafted a letter to the department of education requesting assistance, and I'm researching community demographics and such to put into my proposal before I send it out.

I didn't actually realize until today that it wasn't just the schools which didn't have books. There's no library whatsoever anywhere near the villages. I mean, the closest public library is in a small town three hours' drive from here, and not many people who live in the villages even own cars. I knew the place was poor, and even after visiting there last week, I realized how poor, but it just never occurred to me that there wouldn't be even an inkling of a library anywhere. Maybe that's just the librarian in me being shocked, but I think even just as a person it's a bit of a culture shock. There we have it, folks, my second real dose of culture shock from South Africa (the first being when I realized that nobody here believes in evolution). I've decided that if I ever win the lottery, I'm coming back here to build a library in Welverdiend. I know nothing's going to happen in the remainder of my semester here, but I feel like eventually I want to have as a professional goal to build a library in rural Africa somewhere. But first I need to finish library school. Some days I feel like that's never going to happen. I've started more classes than I've finished, and anytime it looks like I'm going to get my shit together for a decent semester, I've got some personal crisis to deal with and school sits on the back burner. I was such a good student as an undergrad. In high school, too, and junior high, elementary, even in kindergarten I was ahead of the class. But somehow graduate school has combined forces with the Universe at large to kick my ass. But whatever. I'm going to stop whining about it now.

Looking up pictures of puppies and kittens on the internet was part of my job this week. And that just wins. The 23rd is International Spay Day, and it's my job to create postings to put up on the notice boards, so I got to search for pictures of adorable animals to decorate my informational posters. I like having something creative or fun to do when I get sick of cataloging. I also printed, colored, and cut out little pocket guides to safe and eco-friendly fish choices for people to take away on my biodiversity display (which I actually spied people stopping to look at!). Other things, other things...I'm constantly doing little things for Sunel, whether it's running an invoice down to accounting or faxing something, but I don't mind because it gets me out of my chair. I also researched prices for books that patrons particularly recommended we get, and helped decide which ones were feasible to obtain. I started cataloging the donations we got, and had to figure out a cataloging/labeling scheme for the children's books. That project is ongoing, and I think I'm going to wait until we get more donations before I finalize how it's all going to be.

I'm kind of annoyed that my knee still friggin' hurts. The doctor was supposed to call me today with some test results and a plan of action, but he didn't, and when I called, the receptionist kept insisting that he would get back to me today. I'll be pissed if he doesn't call me tomorrow. In fact, if I don't hear from him by lunch time, I'm going to call the office again and get obnoxious until I get to talk to the doctor.

*Update* Doctor finally got back to me, and sent my prescription to the pharmacy, which I couldn't get to. However, my boss's husband's brother's wife was coming through this weekend, so she went and picked it up for me, and I'll pay her back whenever I next get to the bank for some South African cash. Someone I've never met is picking up drugs for me and taking it on faith that I'll pay her back. Ah, the kindness of strangers. I mean, it's not totally random, but it's kind of out there. I'll be happy when I'm healthy enough to exercise and not need to sleep all weekend.

Slightly improved week

I feel like I probably over-reacted in my last post. Don't get me wrong, it was quite annoying, but I think I was letting my irritation at the situation get the better of me. Plus, my week got better slightly.

The college is getting audited, being a non-profit, it has to happen every so often to keep that status, so it's not a huge, scary thing. I mean, the managers and financial people are kind of going crazy, but I've got no stake in the matter, so I just go about my day as normal. But for me, it means four more people to eat supper with for a week who aren't creepy Africans wanting to marry me or people old enough to be my parents. Pieter, Andrea, Hayley, and something like Sorelda...I don't know...they can't remember my name either, but they know who I am. And three of them who are going have invited me to go with them to Phalaborwa tomorrow on a day-trip, which will be fun.

So, even if I don't go to the muchongolo (I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong) on Sunday, I'll at least have gotten off-campus this weekend. Getting a ride there/back is proving to be difficult. Thabang and Kaas, the ones who invited me, don't have their own transportation (they get to/from the college every day via a taxi which takes them along with a group of other construction guys from Welverdiend in a group), and the guy who drives them said he wouldn't drive me and Vivian, non-workers, to/from the college. Can you say, "lame"? I should ask Thabang what "lame" is in Tsonga. Speaking of which, I learned my first real "click" word today. Before, there were sounds that were almost clicks to my American ears, but they were really just t-l-h said together, but today I actually clicked. "Saturday" in Shangaan is Muqivela, where the q represents the click. This is so darn cool to me. I'm sure I sound like a moron to them when I try to speak their language though. And yet, they all say avuxeni to me every day, so at least they've got a sense of humor.

And back at the library, things are going well. I've been doing a lot of cataloging (over 400 reports so far, plus a bunch of books and magazines). I also had a meeting with the director of community outreach at the college to discuss my involvement with upcoming programs, arranged pick-up of a bunch of library donations, ordered take-away materials about the surrounding areas for students, and played office cupid. Valentine's Day is Sunday, when most people won't be working, so we decided to ask everyone to wear red to celebrate it on Friday at the office. Then Sunel went home and made a bunch of heart-shaped chocolates and I designed and hand-made cards for everyone (from recycled paper, because I'm eco-friendly like that). We went to the office early today to deliver them, and we even made ones for ourselves so that at tea time we could ponder aloud who might have left us all these adorable little Valentines. I think some people figured it out, though. But it was nice to surprise people like that. I loved watching people react to finding cards and candy on their desks. It makes me smile to know that I've brightened someone's day and they don't even know it's me.

::sigh::

Ah, Valentine's Day. How I used to adore thee so.

No longer may I taste the sweet without the bitter in tow.

/sappy poetry about my sad life

I still haven't seen a lion, though. I'm quite upset by this. Even on the bushwalk, we barely saw anything, missed a leopard by about ten minutes (found all the signs of one, but no predator itself). Ah, well. I've still got time. I haven't said no to a game drive yet, and it's only a matter of time before my chances of NOT having seen a predator are higher than having seen one.

Vivian wants to take me to church with her. She goes on Sundays whenever she can get a ride there. To be honest, I lost interest in church a long time ago, and I stopped going completely when my mother died; now I only go for weddings, funerals, and the occasional Christmas or Easter I'll get guilted into attending a service by a family member. I'm still spiritual, but the whole praying-in-a-group thing never really sat well with me. But I might go to church with Vivian sometime, purely because they sing in Tsonga and Zulu. I love music in other languages, and to hear it sung live by its native speakers is not something to miss. I don't care that it'll be all about Jesus or whatever and that I'll likely be the only white person there, because I'm enthusiastic about hearing the music. I think it's pretty much decided. Not sure when, but I think me going to church down here has to happen. Simply for the music.

Not all sunsets and elephants

**WARNING: This will be an offensive post. You may not like my language nor what I'm saying with it. If you're sensitive, stop reading now. Because I don't care if you're uncomfortable. You've been warned.**

So my weekend was less than stellar. Since we live in a fenced-in area, anyone who comes to campus has to be let in by a guard, and they radio the people at reception whenever someone shows up who's unexpected, and they figure out whether to let them in or not. Well, reception isn't open on weekends, so everyone who stays on campus full-time has to take turns doing that job. They do it by household, and this weekend it was our turn. Radio duty wasn't that bad, and it's even kind of fun to have a call sign, but then of course there's always some unexpected crisis when the newbie is on duty, and that was a lot of fun to deal with. People are stupid. That's all I'm going to say about that. I took Saturday, well, most of it, until things happened that I didn't know how to deal with, at which point I turned it over to Vivian, who handled it with grace and skill. And then she took most of Sunday while I went to the park.

Then it was 40°C (104ish°F) on Sunday when we went to the Kruger, so all the animals were hiding in the shade not moving or submerged in water. It was slightly boring. And incredibly hot. And humid. And did I mention that it was really freaking hot? I really was hoping to see something exciting. Well, I did manage to get a good picture of baboons and a few other animals that I'd seen before but didn't necessarily capture up-close. And I'm pretty sure I found Rafiki's tree. This thing was fuckin' massive.

Work on Monday was pretty much just eight hours of cataloging. Ugh. I mean, really? I do not want to be a cataloger for the rest of my life. I don't mind it sometimes. In fact, I actually like cataloging in small spurts. But when there's nothing else to break up the day, it gets old pretty quickly. Such is life. Next week should be better.

Then today I had to go back to the doctor, and there was no one to drive me separately, which meant I had to go on a town trip, which meant that I spent 90% of my day waiting. That, and the driver wouldn't pick me up at the doctor's office, because he had "too many other things to do" and made me walk to the mother-fucking Pick 'n' Pay, at which I still had to wait several hours for him. Keep in mind that I've got a gimpy knee (which should be fine, but it still does hurt sometimes), and even though it's only a few kilometers, I've got a gimpy knee. Plus I've been to town all of three times and I really wasn't sure how to get there, and the way there wasn't exactly the safest place to be hanging around. Even my roommate who knows the area doesn't like walking through that way by herself. I got friggin' cat-calls from the locals while I was walking by. I'm not sure what this driver has against me that he made me walk to get picked up, but he refused to come get me at the doctor's office.

And then he friggin' picks up some random people who aren't even from the college and drives them across town. I fucking hate this driver. I'm never going to town with him again, if I can help it. The entire time there and back, he refused to make conversation with me, he was LATE in leaving the college, which, in turn, made me late for the doctor. AND he made me WALK. I'm not sure he quite understood what I was going into town for, even though I'd been limping around campus for two weeks with a bandaged knee and he was dropping me off at the doctor's office. I think he's slow. Or maybe just evil.

I mean, really, what kind of dick-head makes a gimp WALK across town? Fucking seriously. Asshole. If I were a more vindictive person, I'd report his ass and get him fired. But I'm not like that. To be honest, I think it's because I'm white. I've seen the way he interacts with other white people here, and it's very curt and minimal, and just something in his eyes tells me that he resents the fact that he even has to talk to them. However, the way he acts around other black people, he's the most talkative, friendly, smiling human being you've ever met. You'd seriously think he's got multiple personalities. And it's not just people he knows, either. People he's never met before are the same way.

But, whatever, I've tried playing nice with him, and clearly he's having none of it, so now I'm just going to avoid him altogether. There are plenty of people here who don't care about what color you are and will be friendly to you regardless. Most of them, in fact, have moved past the whole 'race' thing. This guy, apparently, hasn't. I'd like to say perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions and give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe his English isn't that good so he just didn't understand what I wanted to be done, but I've got a tough time believing that, because having to walk across town like that really just pissed me off. It didn't help that it was hot outside too. Not nearly as hot as it was Sunday, but no brisk autumn day either.

Anyway, I eventually got back to campus and worked for a few hours. Thursday they're moving the printer to my desk area and installing publisher on my computer, which will allow me to do more interesting projects from time to time, which I'm happy about, and supposedly next week we'll be finally getting those fiction books to sort through and give to the local schools or put in our collection.

Found out they half-fixed the screens in our house. They replaced the actual screens, but just put new mesh in the same old frames, and the frames were the bigger problem than the holes in the screens because often they wouldn't open or close in the windowframe because they're all bent out of shape. They're a little better, because the repair guy had to get the screens to move in order to repair them, but they really just need to be replaced. In fact, the whole building should just be replaced. Bulldoze it and start over. Make it critter-proof. Some days I just want to shoot the fucking squirrels. My roommate has taken to throwing things at them when they don't shut the Hell up and let her sleep. I'm not above poisoning them if they keep this shit up. Seriously. I hate these freaking squirrels sometimes. I've woken up at least half an hour before my 6AM alarm for the past three days because they're making so much noise, fighting over nest space in the morning.

Ah, well. Life goes on. I'm looking forward to Thursday, because not only do I get to do more fun things at work, but I'm going on a bush walk in the wee hours of the morning, which is the best time to catch large predators.

I really should upload more pictures, but I'm so damn tired. Maybe next time.

Progress? Perhaps.

Today went by quickly. I put a few more things on the bulletin board: an article about the college that appeared in a local sponsor's magazine, a flyer about world wetlands day, and a bunch of suggestions about how to go green for Valentine's Day. The newsletter recently was completed, and so soon I'll print that up and post it too. It's nice not to have bare notice boards. It's also nice to do something besides cataloging to break up the day. I helped Sunel move a few things around/clean out a few cabinets and spaces today as well. Because the students are here now, I got sent home for a few hours in the middle of the day and came back after supper to keep the computer lab open into the night. I took a nap, which was nice, and did some cleaning too. It's easier to work at night. I got a lot of cataloging done this evening. I also answered my first real reference questions today. “Is this just a mosquito bite or should I be worried?” “What do you have about the towns nearby?” “Where should we go on our week off?”

I've also gotten a couple of the guys doing the thatching for the roofs to give me Shangaan lessons at lunchtime. I'm terrible at it, but it's still fun. I think I'm too old to learn a new language. They did invite me out with them, though, not this weekend, but next weekend, to a traditional dance in the village, which should be fun. Vivian might come too.

This weekend, though, I've got radio duty on Saturday, but on Sunday Sunel and Gawie are going into the park for the day and are taking me with them, so that should be fun. Tomorrow is Friday! Yay! (Yes, people still get excited about Friday on this part of the globe, heheh) 'Til next time!

Weekend fun

I did actually get out this weekend, which was nice. I could practically walk normally too, because of the medicine the doctor prescribed for my knee. On Saturday, Sunel and Gawie went to Nelspruit, which is a city maybe two hours away from where we are at the college, and it's where anyone goes for recreation around here. It's the closest mall, movie theater, and decent selection of restaurants. I went with them, and I enjoyed it. I walked around the mall on my own, which was incredibly American for the most part, which was a bit depressing, bought pretty African things for my sisters, got a snack, and met up with Sunel and Gawie to see a movie. Nothing was playing that any of us wanted to see (they import almost all their movies from Hollywood), so we just left. We went out to lunch at this seafood place, which was actually really good, and I had kingclip, a traditional white fish from the oceans around South Africa. It was cooked in a lemon-butter sauce and some herbs, and it was fantastic. I've had my fish fix now, so I'm happy.

We stopped at a couple of other places on the way there/back, which were more African curios shops, and more of what I'd been looking for to get for people back home. There's also this store we went to called Trappers, which sells all sorts of things for life in the bush: camping equipment, weapons, tools, clothing, shoes, etc. I'm not normally much of a clothes-and-shoes type of girl (I wear them because I have to, not because I'm into fashion), but I really enjoyed the wares at this place. Lots of khakis and muted earth tones, high-quality handmade leather shoes from local villages, and of course it's all really expensive. Worth it, because it's the type of stuff that will last forever, but expensive. I didn't get anything, but I know where I'm spending my next check. I'm going to come back from Africa dressed like a freaking ranger. I'm sure my fashionista younger sisters will cringe at this, but I enjoy the practical elegance of bush clothing.

The countryside between the college and Nelspruit was gorgeous. Rolling hills dotted with village houses, mountains in the distance, river running through it. I mean, really. Picturesque. And I did take pictures, and I will upload more to the blog at some point, I promise.

Sunday I did laundry (which consists of hand-washing everything in the scullery sink and hanging them out on a line to dry), and later went on a game drive. We didn't see too much big game this time, but there were a lot of birds. All the rain of the last few days caused a termite hatch, which means easy pickins for all the birds who live around here. I can't tell you how many different kinds of eagles I saw. Cranes, too, and waterfowl, and lots of little birds. I really don't know that much about birds, so I can't really get into it, but I was with some people who were really into their bird-watching, and they were quite excited about what we saw. I also tried a wild fruit called sour plum, eaten the same way as the marula fruit, by squeezing it out of its skin and sucking the fruit off the pit, and it was good. Tastes just like the name suggests: sour, but good. Apparently you can eat termites, and according to Gawie they taste great pan-seared in butter, and are very high in protein. I have yet to partake in such a delicacy, but supposedly they taste like peanut butter. I'm sure I'll let you know if that's at all true should I ever happen to consume them.

We also saw some more of the damage the rains had caused. Earlier in the week, I'd seen the flooded roads first-hand, but inside the park the roads are not paved, so in places they were completely washed away, sometimes taking underground pipes and wiring with them, which accounts for part of why we don't always have power and running water on the campus, particularly after a bout of bad weather.

Yesterday the resource centre got sprayed for termites, which means that all day workers were drilling into the foundation of the building to inject poison, which means that it was loud and smelled awful all day, and there were points where I just had to leave and go for a short walk because I had a headache and the fumes were making me sick. Hopefully they're done, now, though, because that, on top of the incredible heat yesterday really did not make me a happy camper. After work I ate and went right to bed. It was that bad. It rained overnight, so it's considerably cooler today, and hopefully the library will now be bug-and-interruption-free. And maybe today I'll actually do something after work besides sleep.

Library Prattle

Oi, so, me and internet, haven't really been getting too much quality time together. I have just been far too tired, or else the weather's been bad, which precludes me sitting outside the library to use the wifi.

Quick PFE note: Minus the 14 hours taken out for town trips/doctor visits/etc. I've worked a total of 106 hours in the past three weeks at the library. I work regular days, 8h00 to 17h00, minus an hour for lunch, so I don't count that as part of my credit hours. Because my schedule is regular, I've been summarizing the day's activities every so often rather than date-and-time-stamping a journal to keep track. I'll have completed my 270 hours (6 credits) long before I actually leave here, but I'll still keep a journal of my activities at the library and incorporate them into my coursework.

So the other day, one of the administrators from the training department at the college asked Sunel if she could borrow me for a little while to help with a filing project. Sunel reluctantly agreed, and I spent maybe an hour doing some really pointless, boring secretary work, which I probably screwed up at first while I got used to their filing system. The next day the same administrator asked to borrow me again, and Sunel said no. I'm very glad she did, too, because I'd have had to say something in protest, and quite frankly, I would rather be at the library. Sunel ruffled a few feathers when she explained that I'm the resource centre's volunteer, not the college's all-around grunt. That I've got my own projects to do at the library and if I'm constantly off in other departments, I'm not doing what I came here to do, which doesn't help me any, and doesn't help the library any. I think this is an important aside because it speaks to the organization of management in the college itself. We are a small college, and often departments will collaborate, and if one is overloaded with work and another is running dry, they'll help each other out, because we're really a cooperative, community-oriented workplace, not too tied up in drawing steadfast lines between administrations and whatnot. Which is fine, but there are certain people here who just come to expect that other people will help do their work for them, and Sunel needed to make it clear that I'm not college property. I'm here to learn and to help the resource centre, and my responsibilities lie here at the library, first and foremost. If another department is in dire straits and really, really needs an extra body to do some task, then, yes, I can help, but I'm not to be constantly running all around campus helping everyone except the one person I'm actually here to help. I'm glad that Sunel went and made that argument (and probably an enemy for a few days) because inter-office grunt work was never part of my job description. Sure, there's the ever-vague loophole of “other projects as assigned”, but if it got to be to the point where I was doing office work outside the library on a regular basis, I'd have to have a not-so-pleasant conversation with my supervisor regarding the nature of my job.

I think this kind of thing happens anywhere, because I experienced something similar at my undergraduate internship at Yale. I was working in electronic collections, and my supervisor was the database librarian, so I spent the majority of my time working with journal databases and licensing agreements related thereto. However, there was a digitization project that electronic collections was collaborating with the archives department on, and I wound up helping on this project for a while. This was fine, because it was a change of pace, reflected real-life collaboration which I'd have to deal with in a library environment at some point in my career anyway, and I did learn while doing. However, after the project was finished, the archives librarian asked if I could help with another project, and my supervisor said no, that I was not there to do everyone else's odd jobs. I was here to have a learning experience at electronic collections and contribute to productivity there, not to do other people's dirty work. I think that there is something that goes off in people's heads when they hear things like “intern” or “volunteer” that automatically translates to “free labor” and that anyone who knows the intern exists will try to commandeer him/her to help out in their department, forgetting what the intern is actually there for. Interns and volunteers contribute valuable time to the productivity of libraries and workplaces in general around the world, but because they're not being paid, there have to be learning/experience benefits that justify the work being done.

Every single thing that I do here, I have to justify in terms of learning, meeting educational outcomes or whatever, and not just because it's a technicality, but because I want to get as much out of the experience as I'm putting into it. Sure, an internship at XYZ company will look great on paper, but if the intern spent all their time doing tedious tasks and didn't learn anything, then it wasn't a valuable experience, and it won't actually do them any good if they get hired because of their time spent working at XYZ company and then don't actually have the job skills that the internship there was supposed to provide. Therefore, it is important for both supervisor and intern to have an understanding of what is expected of the intern, and if the supervisor is not going to adhere to a learning agreement or is not assigning tasks that are productive learning experiences for the intern, s/he must stand up for themselves and their rights.

Case in point: Yes, I piddled away an hour doing stupid filing work, but, it offered me the opportunity to reflect on the nature of management structures in the workplace, and I'm pretty sure that these reflections help to satisfy the “Professional Ethics” requirement of the PFE course. So it wasn't a complete waste of time after all. Although I'd be loathe to repeat the experience. I'm a librarian, not a damned secretary.

Other than that, though, I've been pretty productive at the resource centre, mostly cataloging this big collection of reports we have from different environmental organizations. The reports are broken down into subject categories, which each get a three-letter code, and then the first three letters of the author's last name make up the rest of the call number (unless there are too many authors/none are listed, which is rather common when an organization puts out a report, in which case the call number comes from the title). So, for example, something put out by the IUCN entitled “Empowering rural communities to conserve biodiversity: A case study in Zimbabwe” which does not list an author would get the call number “COM Emp”. The COM comes from the subject it falls under, which in this case is Community-Based Natural Resource Management. And the Emp comes from the title, because no single author or editor was listed. IUCN is considered the publisher in a case like this, as quite often these reports are not proper books with ISBNs or anything, even if they are professionally printed/bound.

We shall see

It has now been a week since my injury, and while I can walk and have been gradually getting better, I feel like I'm not healing fast enough, and then today it started hurting pretty badly again, so tomorrow I'm going to the doctor. This entails taking time out of work and getting someone to drive me to town, which is an hour away, and paying out-of-pocket to be seen by a doctor (I'll be getting reimbursed eventually, but this means I'll have no spending money this weekend, and I was planning on actually getting off-campus this time). They'll probably tell me I'm fine, keep off it, wrap it, take painkillers, and you should've come sooner just to be sure. That's what I'm hoping anyway. You have no idea how upset I'll be if I lose full use of one of my limbs. I'm probably just being paranoid, but I just want to be sure.

This past weekend I was going to go to town on a little souvenir-shopping spree, but there was a problem with accounting and nobody got paid until Tuesday, so the people who were going to town this weekend and were going to take me with them didn't go, and that, coupled with my injury, made me restless and annoyed all weekend. I slept and read and got a little bit of cleaning done when I could stand long enough. I couldn't even enjoy the scenery because that involved walking around, which I couldn't really do for any extended period of time. And I was not feeling creative at all either. It would've been okay if I'd felt inspired to draw or write or something, but I wasn't. Believe me, I tried, and nothing really happened. All I wanted to do this weekend was get out and be able to walk, run, climb. Or dance, because I've been listening to tango music lately and it's kind of made me want to get back into ballroom dance upon my return to the States. But clearly that wasn't happening.

I was kind of glad when Monday came. I'd only taken Thursday out of work, and Friday I couldn't do much, but by Monday I was feeling better. At the library, I've been printing and binding the manuals that the students use for their coursework, which is rather tedious, but it must be done. I've also been cataloging, covering, and shelving new materials, re-cataloging some old materials that were done poorly, and it's going to be a semester-long project to catalog a collection of reports which have been hanging around for a while, on top of my other responsibilities.

Speaking of, none of the books promised to us by neighboring public libraries have come in yet (meaning they're not ready to be picked up yet, because we're the ones who have to arrange transportation). I'm rather anxious to get started on these so that they can be in the collection for the majority of the time that the students will be here.

Another thing which I'm in charge of is displays. There are four altogether: a case, a table, and two bulletin boards. The display case is for the whole semester, the table changes to suit the unit topic that the students are working on that week, and the bulletin boards change whenever there's new stuff to share, which is approximately once a month. The students haven't actually arrived yet, so all I've had to do so far is take down last year's crap on the bulletin boards. Sunel is in charge of the college's newsletter, and when that's done I will put it up on the bulletin boards, but since there's not a lot happening here without students, those will remain bare for another couple of weeks. Next week I'll put together a unit-themed display for the table, because thus far I haven't been told what topic they'll be studying first. I did, however, figure out what I wanted to do for the year-long display, and it's actually nearly finished.

The only thing I've been able to put up on the bulletin boards so far is 2010's environmental calendar, which, just like it sounds, has all the dates in the year which have environmental significance, such as arbor day and earth hour and such. For community outreach/environmental education, I'm working with the community outreach director to pick a couple of important environmental days and come up with some activities to do with people in the community related to those days which will foster support for environmentally friendly living. God, I've turned into such a tree-hugger.

Anyway, the United Nations has declared 2010 the year of biodiversity, so that's what I'm doing my semi-permanent display case on. I've collected resources on the topic of biodiversity from the library's collection as well as from environmental organizations in the region and put together a display encompassing what biodiversity is, what the initiative means globally, and what is being done locally to support biodiversity (and ways in which everyone personally can help). I'm almost done with this one. I've got a couple of really pertinent reports from local organizations to print, bind, catalog, and add to the display, but I've more or less got this one under control.

So, other stuff...Tuesday I went to town in the morning with Sunel and Gawie, because, as I mentioned, that's when everyone got paid, so we took a half-day in order get some grocery shopping done as well as pick up some things for the resource center. I made sure to get a ton of chocolate. I'm serious. I was dying without it. I mean, I had some, but it was precious little, and with the last two weekends not being able to go to town meant that what I had needed to be stretched. Chocolate is not a non-essential item to me. I mean it. So, anyway, after the town trip I was happy. I also think that walking around as much as I did is what made my knee start hurting again. But, I was able to procure most of the correct ingredients to make a 7-minute microwave chocolate cake, which isn't half bad, considering. Not what I'd call a masterpiece of dessert dining, but when it's what you've got, it works.

Also, I've mentioned this to a couple of people personally already, but I just wanted to share that there's a fruit here called marula. It kind of tastes like a mild cross of a plum and a kiwi. You bite a hole in the skin, squeeze the innards into your mouth, and suck the fruit/juice off the pit and then spit it out. It's really good. Apparently it makes good liquor too, because that's what amarula is made from, although I've never had it.

Aside from the injury, I'm doing pretty well down here. I'm getting used to the heat and the bugs, the scenery is beautiful, the animals are great, and I like my job. I do miss people back home, and having a reliable/convenient internet connection, and the ability to consume seafood on a regular basis (we're pretty far inland and it's really expensive so I haven't had it since I got here almost a month ago...which is tough on someone who grew up in the Ocean State). Once I am fully healed, I'll be able to go on weekend excursions like the cheetah rehabilitation center or the shangaani village or whitewater rafting or horseback riding or hiking through the bush. I'm sure I'll like it here a lot better when I'm able to do those things instead of sitting at home like a cripple.

And tomorrow I go to the doctor, which I'm not precisely looking forward to the experience of, but I do want to know what the Hell is going on inside my knee.