A Cosmic Joke of a Day

This post is completely off Peace Corps topic really, but as it is (apparently) rare that I get inspired to write something I figured I'd go for it. Today has been one of those days where I sit back and think to myself, "Wow, my life is a cosmic joke." Allow me to explain...

Really, it all started yesterday evening. After several days of dark skies, the humidity finally broke last night and a major storm ensued. When it rains the temperature drops easily 5-10 degrees in a matter of minutes, which is always a welcome break from sweating to death. So I was excited to grab a quick shower, and curl up in bed for a movie and a relatively comfortable (temperature-wise) night's sleep. Not so fast there, Elizabeth. This is Senegal after all...less than 5 minutes after the rain really got going, POOF...there goes the power. Obviously a bit of a disappointment, but I figured it'd come back on before too long and decided to go ahead with my plans. I hoped in the shower (by the light of my cell phone's flashlight) and then crawled into bed with my laptop for movie time.

One movie and one episode of TV later...midnight and still no power. Bite. Still trying to be optimistic, I grabbed my hand fan and started fanning myself to sleep. I drifted off sure that the power would be back on by morning.

4 AM...awake again because, in spite of the rain, it was still HOT (in the vicinity of 90 F) in my room and the electricity was no where to be seen. In an attempt to get comfortable enough to get back to sleep, I decided to take a quick shower. After a brief conversation with my mom who was trying (and failing) to beat the heat by sleeping outside, I went into the bathroom and turned the water on. Thankfully there was still enough water pressure for the shower to work, but the water was barely more than trickling out. BAD SIGN. You see if the power is out for too long (which at this point it had already out for 7 hours) the water pumps stop working and pretty soon...no more water. Hoping for the best, I climbed back into bed and tried to fan myself back to sleep.

8 AM...wake up and still no power. Wah wah. So rather than my normal bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I ate summer sausage. I had a feeling this was going to go on forever, which meant that all things perishable in my fridge needed to be consumed or lost. Thank goodness I hadn't yet opened the giant jar of salsa my parents brought for me...losing that would've been truly tragic.

After my super nutritious breakfast, I was faced with a dilemma, aka what to do with myself. Pretty much everything I had planned on doing today (work, laundry, cleaning) required either water or electricity. Both of which were still nowhere to be seen. So much for that productive day I was going to have...

In the end, I settled on packing my bag for the trip down to Kedougou for the 4th of July. When that was done, my mom and I spent a while discussing how we could get our hands on some water. Losing water is so much worse than electricity...can't flush the toilets, bathe, wash your hands, cook, clean, do laundry, NOTHING. In the end, we found out that there was still water at my uncle's house and called a horse cart to take a bunch of buckets over there to fill up. Problem temporarily solved, I decided to kill some time by painting my nails...

Lunch. Sweating. Being angry about the power still being out. More sweating...

Finally, a whopping EIGHTEEN hours later, the power came back on. HURRAH! By this time its nearly 4 PM so I scrambled to get some laundry done (thankfully the water kicked back on shortly after the power) so that it would have time to dry before the sun set. Then I dragged my bike out of storage for the first time in months to wash and get it ready for Kedougou. Water and power restored...I figured my day had turned around. Again, not so fast, Elizabeth.

First, my bike was all screwed up because someone (cough little brother cough cough) had been playing with the gears while the bike was stationary. After lots of grease and chipped nails (grr!), I finally managed to get the chain back in place. Then I tried to pump the tires up only to find that my bike pump doesn't fit. Great. So I decided to call Katherine and ask for advice as I know her bike sees a lot more action than mine. I had been listening to music while I did laundry/cleaned so I went to go turn my iPod off and POOF...iPod breaks. Tried everything I could think of to bring it back, but no good...bye bye iPod :(

Disheartened, I call Katherine to ask about the bike pump and again...no luck. She doesn't have the same pump as me. Figures. After another 30 minutes of messing with it, I finally get the tires pumped up. At this point I figured a little American food binge was necessary with the day I'd been having. So I shoved far too many Goldfish in my mouth and decided to tackle repainting my nails. I had just gotten them finished for the second time today and POOF...nail polish falls off my desk. Cue black nail polish splattering all over my desk, floor and brand new shoes. Great. So I ran around trying to clean it all up before it dried and half-succeeded...my shoes and desk still have lovely black spatter marks everywhere.

That mess (mostly) dealt with, I went to grab my laundry off the line and what do I find? A bird pooped on my clean bra. COME ON! Talk about when it rains, it pours. So I wash it again and hang it up to dry in my bathroom (a hopefully bird poop free zone).

And finally...we're sitting down at a lovely dinner of rice and peanuts and I reach up to tuck some hair behind my ear, only to find a HUGE grasshopper in my hair. Yuck. My family, of course, got a kick out of me freaking out about it. I may live in Africa, but bugs in the hair is never something I'm going to be OK with.

So to summarize. Today...

- 18 hours without power
- Roughly 12 hours without water
- Broken iPod
- Nail polish debacle
- Bird poop contaminated laundry
- Bug in hair

Mostly, (except for the iPod) its funny and a little silly now that I've bothered to write it all down...but you know how those kind of days are. In the end, you just have to throw up your hands, have a laugh and accept that the universe has won this round. And now I'm going to bed before anything else can get screwed up!

Nu fanaan ak jamm!! (roughly translated: Let's pass the night in peace)