Topsy Turvy

So, as of a few days ago, we’ve been in Dakar for 2 months. It sure hasn’t gone fast, but I don’t think I could say it was moving too slow, either.

Plenty of things have happened for the family, we’ve “moved in”, then settled in, got a car, started school, Anna just broke her arm, and Caleb has decided after a measly two weeks that Soccer is the superior sport to American Football. But for me, I think I haven’t really gotten past the “settling in” part. Sure, the heat seems a little less unbearable, I’m more used to the constant want of one or more good American hamburger, and the power going off constantly just seems almost a tiny bit normal. But every time I start to think anything along the lines of, “okay, maybe this place won’t suck” or, “I think I hate DA maybe a little wee bit less”, something happens that either disappoints me or pisses me off to the point of exhaustion and frustration. That’s a double -tion, if anyone’s counting.

And the biggest problem is, it’s usually something really unimportant or stupid that always sets me off in the end. Like for instance, Anna deciding to scream and cry that I’m “the worst big brother in the world” while my parents have tea and crumpets and chat with some acquaintances. It’s happened a billion times before, so I really should be used to it, yet the fact that it’s now taking place in Africa just makes it that much worse. Or someone who I have deemed a tolerable person decides to spend all of his free time during two classes explaining how the scuba diving trip that select few got to go on in biology was “so fantastic and so great and let me tell you guys how fun it was and I thought there wouldn’t be any fish but there was and it was beauuutiful and you guys had to sit in class with no power and one fan for the entire classroom creating large stains of sweat all over your t-shirts.” SHUT. UP. I am finding it hard to stand this particular person.

Or maybe it’s something that even I truly think is something worth whining about. Like the power going off at 11 p.m. and not coming on until 10 a.m. the next morning, making sleep nigh impossible and comfort a thing of the past. Such an event just gets the ball rolling for a day like today. One big thing happens, and then after having all the headlines of websites I’m visiting about the presidential candidates read out to me by a fat asian kid behind me, I become a more than a little miffed. And it just keeps happening. For two months! I thought it would stop, that I’d find someone with relative interests and not a severely over-developed pain-in-butt lobe that I might be able to connect with once in a while. That was indeed a fool’s hope.

Word to the wise; if you value your life, do not look over my shoulder when I’m on the computer. Just thought I’d let you know.


-Will