"I shall go down in history as the man who opened a door!"

Lots of points to whoever gets my movie reference in the title ;)

So, I break doors and locks in this country. I don't actually break them with force, they just seem to break in my presence. While staff and other volunteers have pointed out that people often take shortcuts with construction here, I feel like I've had waaaay more door and lock incidents than other volunteers.

- My first night in the country, at a lodge in Gabs, the key to the door of the room I was staying in didn't work, and it took 3 staff to convince them I wasn't lying/inept and they finally moved us to another room.

- My first week at site the hinge to my bedroom door broke (and it opened to the outside), nearly causing the whole door to fall off, and I had to call PC to call someone in my village to come make a fake wire hinge so I could close and lock my door.

- My bathroom door swelled so I couldn't close it because of the rain.

- My living room door lock would randomly not work, so at various times Rose (another PCV) and a random guy in the village had to break into my living room for me.

- The handle broke off the kitchen door because it required so much force to open and close it.

- All 4 of the doors and locks in that house had issues at some point, which is one of the reasons I wound up moving to a new house.

-I dropped the lock to the gate in my yard in the sand, and then it wouldn't open, which required me to climb  the gate in and out of my yard for 2 weeks until a friend could come and jimmy it open with cooking oil.

- At the new house, the bathroom door decided it wouldn't lock after living here 6 months. Waiting on landlord to fix it.

- At another PC conference in Gabs, Barbara and I could -barely- lock and unlock the door. On day 3 of the conference Barbara couldn't even get the key in the lock, so she went to the front desk for help. They responded, Oh! Try this key! And gave her a completely different one, which worked beautifully. They had REKEYED the door while we were out of the room, and it never occurred to them to tell us or give us the new key.

- My current living room door is swollen with the rain again so I have to yank or push really hard to open or close it.

- A few weeks ago the key to my kitchen door broke, so I was locked out of my kitchen for 36 hours while I sent a friend to hardware stores in Gabs to find me a new key.

All this to say, doors/locks are not my friend in this country. But it makes for some pretty hilarious text messaging between me and Aileen.

Mary: I’ve managed to break the key to my kitchen door and am locked out of my kitchen.

Aileen: Hah, omg, just read your text. How on earth do you manage these things?

M: Teacher friend looking for key at hardware store in Gabs and can’t find it. Facepalm.

A: Urrrrm… not good. Maybe that model is out of stock.

M: He found the key! Now to see if it’s actually the right one… and if I didn’t break the lock too.

A: The fascinating saga of one woman/s search for the key… to open her kitchen door.

M: Houston, we have entered the kitchen. I repeat, we have entered the kitchen.

A: You break doors, I break sim cards.

M: Speaking of which, my living room door has swelled with the rain and it now requires a karate move to get it open.

A: At this point in your career its to be expected.

Swakapmund

Swakapmund is a beach town that looks like a little like an alpine ski resort without the snow. And with mostly Africans instead of Europeans, although there were a fair amount of European tourists.

Some of the architecture made me forget what continent I was on. 

Or if I was in a fairy tale.

We frolicked on the sand dunes, including sand boarding and quad biking.

Quad biking was a lot of fun, although it took me a while to remember I wasn't actually ON a bike, and to go faster on hills.

The dunes were gorgeous.

We celebrated the New Year with some Afrikaners we met sand boarding.

We spent a lot of time on the beach. Not in the water, which was recently in Antarctica and VERY cold, but just on the beach.

Quad biking on the dunes.

Our backpackers, which reminded us of a dutch attic.

We saw seals on the rocks by the beach.

So cute!

Kind of makes me think of PCVs at the end of a vacation. Exhausted, sleeping in a pile, and you still can't get everything to dry out properly.

But the adventure wasn't over yet, as our bus broke down on the way home. Because they forgot to fill the gas tank up all the way. 

.......

Another bus came but couldn't help. Our driver hitched to the nearest village 130km away and got a few liters of fuel and hitched back with it... 5 hours later.

Then we had to figure out how to get the fuel INTO the bus, and obviously there was no funnel. So they used a Fanta bottle.

At this point, we and several Batswana nominated Liz to be the driver if the first one didn't return, but he did. So we got to Gabs at like 12:45am instead of 7pm, but we made it and it was an awesome trip, break down not withstanding. :)

And then Africa Happened

So after my nice cheery post about things going so well yesterday... Africa happened.  You could also call it Murphy's law, but yeah.
We called our driver who was supposed to be free to take us to the store and he was having the car serviced, which just turned out to be a big miscommunication because he didn't know we wanted him to be free.  Then at the mall when we were trying to buy food, my ATM card wouldn't work.  Ack!  I had specifically called my bank* to tell them to NOT shut off my card when I went to Ghana, and I was ticked.  Although I had a phone, I didn't have enough minutes to call the US to talk to them, and it wasn't working on Diana's phone either.   Then I tried online in an internet cafe and the online form wasn't working. Ticked ticked ticked.
Then Diana tried her card and the ATM... ate it.  !!!  When she went to the ATM's bank, they told her they would have to mail the card to her bank in the US, which will then contact her and mail it to her here.  This will probably take months.  Luckily her dad can cover her this summer.  Then I tried that bank's ATM... and my card worked!  So apparently it only works with certain ATMs?  At least it wasn't shut off.
Then there has been the water.
When we woke up the first morning at the University on the 2nd, we had no water because the tank had run out.    We were told not to worry that it wouldn't happen again.  Well yesterday the gardener somehow busted a pipe and they had to shut the water off again to fix it, which they managed to do in only a few hours.  Diana and I had decided to spend the night at her parents house anyway, and when we got there- their tank had run out also.  Seriously?  If there is a water god, I think we angered it somehow.

As a completely off topic side note, I graduated from high school 10 years ago yesterday.  And while I've had ups and downs since then... I had no clue on the day that I graduated that 10 years later I'd be in Africa- how cool :D

*The point of this is not to bad mouth my bank, which with the exception of an aggravating online form, did nothing wrong, so I won't mention it by name.

Dude, where's my car?!

If only this were a comedy story.  In hindsight, it's very entertaining, but believe me, at the time it was looking like a tragedy.
So several times I have driven to a shopping center, parked, and caught the bus onto campus.  Now... having seen other people do this, and having done it many times myself with no problems, I thought it was an okay thing to do.  Worse case scenario, I thought I might get a parking ticket. Ha.
So yesterday I come back from class, get off the bus... and my car is not there. !@$@!!! Frantically look around the parking lot, scan my brain- did I drive and park here this morning? I know I drove and parked... it couldn't have been on campus, I don't have a school parking permit... Okay.  I must have been towed.  Trot over to the sign that says such-and-such company will tow if you have been in the lot for more than 24 hours (which I would never do).  It also says private property, will tow if you aren't a customer, etc, etc.  I've seen those signs everywhere and never seen anyone towed. Til now I guess.  So I call the company.  Um, we haven't towed anyone today ma'am.  You should call the police.
....... omg my car is stolen. At this point, I politely hung up and tried not to freak out in the parking lot. Did I lock it? I always lock it, and my car automatically locks anyway.  What else is in my car. @#%! My passport is also in my car from a recent errand.  Who do I call? Roommate to pick me up.
So I call my roommate and ask her if my car is parked outside our place.  She was like no, is your car missing? Yes, I think it was stolen... and proceed to explain. She is also flabbergasted, and agrees to pick me up in a few minutes.  And gives me the police non-emergency number.  So I call and they tell me a different number, which I call and report what happened.  Since I can't recite my license plate number off of the top of my head, they said they will have an officer call me back in a bit and I can give them whatever information they need when I'm home.
So roommate picks me up and drives me home.  Where I proceed to call my insurance company and start the claim process.  I decide not to call my mother until I sort some things out, because I know I'll probably have a break down when I talk to her and need to be professional on the phone to others.  As I'm finishing up with the insurance company, alternating between trying not to freak out and mentally planning how I'm going to live without a car for a while, my roommate comes flying in from her room.  Unbeknown to me, she had been on the phone with the shops where my car was parked trying to see if any of them had a security camera.  About 4-5 calls in, one of them was like, I can't believe there was a theft in broad daylight right in front of our store (this is a very busy intersection).  That's never happened before; are you sure it wasn't towed? Roommate: well, she called the number on the sign and they said they hadn't towed anybody today.  Store: I'm pretty sure I saw a wrecker out there earlier, so someone was towed.  Here's the number we have for a towing agency.

Which is different than the one posted on the sign in the lot.
So my roommate calls the number, describes my car, and low and behold, it sounds like its there.  When she ran in and told me this, I explained it to my insurance agency and said I may have found my car.  They were super nice and were like, that's great!  Call us back and we can either cancel the claim if you have your car, or set you up with a rental tomorrow if it's still missing (presumed stolen).  Geico is awesome, for all of their annoying commericials.
So my roommate takes me into Atlanta into the epitomy of sketch where the car lot is and... it's there!  YAY.
I pay $125 to get my car back, glad to just have my car.  On the way the police calls me back and I explain and they said that's fine, call us back if its not your car, otherwise you are fine, you aren't in the system yet.  This morning I called and canceled my insurance claim.  Still glad to have my car!

So there are a few times that it is not better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.  And I've never been so happy to hear that my car was towed!

Wordless Wednesday

Downtown Atlanta last Wednesday, 3 days after the snow.  Also the first treated road I had seen.

Conversation overheard in a restaurant

Sitting in a cafe-type restaurant on campus at lunch, I overheard snatches of a conversation behind me.

Girl: We think we might be going to Peru next spring because (couple that I don't remember names) is getting married there.  Except that she can't make-up her mind about it and has had several break-downs and blow-out fights about it with him and threatens to call it off and yeah... its not a great situation.

Guy: Are they from Peru?

Girl: She is, he's not.  We don't think this is the best idea for him (to marry her) but... what can you do?

Guy: Yeah, that's hard.

Girl:  We've already made up a schedule of whose house he'll go to when she kicks him out.  I'm first because I'll be the most sympathetic apparently.

Guy: Wow.... that's... not a good sign.

--------------
Maybe you had to be there, but I had to restrain from laughing at his statement, which might be the understatement of the year.  When your friends are already making contingency plans for your marriage -that hasn't taken place yet- to fall apart... that's not a good sign :P