Day 39

Dear Mark W- Please forgive me. I can’t live without your comments. I’ll do whatever it takes. Or rather, I’ll make one of my African diamond miners …er, I mean “orphans” do it for me.

xoxo
n

Now, on to business.

This morning on my way to work, I got kicked off the matatu at the halfway point. There weren’t enough people on the matatu so they dumped me and the other passenger and turned around to pick up people who were going INTO town instead of out of it. I had to walk forever until the next bus stage and finally got picked up, only to be trapped in the back like a sardine, a gorgeous hard-bodied sardine, but a sardine nonetheless. When I finally got out I had to yell at the people “Enda tafadali” before people moved. Assholes.

Even with my delay, I beat Clueless. Shocking. Although I have to say she redeemed herself a bit today. She was putting away one of the older boys’ laundry when she came across a bottle of glue hidden under a pile of clothes. I really don’t know much more about it, but Elisa, the head housemom told Clueless to keep it quiet for now and obviously in a country with glue addiction problems, finding a hidden tube of industrial glue under a pile of clothing is cause for alarm. I’m worried, but hoping there’s a logical explanation because my kids are too monitored and such to be sniffing. I think he’s probably selling it or something, which is bad I admit, but hopefully he’s not using.

One thing I haven’t mentioned before is that when cleaning, a rag can only pick up so much. For most cleaning projects, one requires water and paper towels. We have neither at Dickson, so I’ve taken up wiping Ajax off the kid’s sink with my hands. My bare, unworked hands. I’ve been moisturizing like crazy, but without my moisturizing gloves to sleep in, I’m scared the damage to my hands may be permanent. So help me God, if my unblemished hands end up calloused and ungirly-like, blood will be shed.

At 11:55am Emmanuel John directly peed on me. He climbed up onto my leg and I felt the stream start and was soaked within ½ a second. That little fucker is and has been on the bottom of my list for a long time, but today when he opened Mwangi’s clothes drawer and PEED INTO THE DRAWER, I nearly slapped him. I just got up and got Ruth, one of the housemoms, to take care of it. I should have gotten Goretty, the one who WOULD have slapped him, but I was so angry that he had peed on me only to go pee in Mwangi’s drawer that I wasn’t thinking clearly. Ruth just said, “Let’s just put a diaper on him” and cleaned the drawer. She’s a saint, but I really wish I would have gotten the biatch.

Today we couldn’t find Mwangi’s regular shoes, so we put a different pair on him. Now, I know this is insanely cruel, but I couldn’t help it. Mwangi couldn’t really walk in these shoes for some reason, and as a result he kept falling down face first. It was like, Step, Step, Step, SMACK as he bit…it…hard! I know it’s awful and I’m going to hell, but every time he fell, I started cracking up. I don’t usually laugh when someone falls, I actually think it’s really stupid. I know some people find it really funny, but for whatever reason I don’t. Today however, it was just the funniest shit ever. I think it has to do with my talking about the Hank Azaria character in “The Birdcage” yesterday and how he couldn’t walk in shoes, but apparently today Mwangi couldn’t either. He’s such a little fucker most of the time that it was almost like karmic retribution. Obviously once I figured it out I changed his shoes. I mean, I waited like another hour, but then I changed them. Step, Step, Step, SMACK! Hysterical to the max.

Ongeri was a terror today too. He just would not do his work during class. He was totally acting up, and earlier he had killed a butterfly which kind of pissed me off and disturbed me, but then I thought about it and realized that that’s kind of stupid. I mean, a butterfly is just another bug. I wouldn’t care if killed a fly, or even an entire ant colony, but what, because it’s a butterfly and it’s pretty it’s NOT ok to kill it? So beautiful things get special treatment and ugly things don’t? It seemed kind of fucked up to favor beauty, so I got over it, but Ongeri was an asshole even without the butterfly slaughtering. He finally behaved when I gave him the lyrics to “Holding Out for a Hero” as sung by Jennifer Saunders in Shrek 2. I know, I know, I have to stop gaying my kids up, but it’s so easy and fun! At any rate, they all loved it and love this method of working on their English; writing lyrics and then singing along to the song. Tomorrow: “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor.

I skipped my Swahili lesson tonight, which was supposed to be my last one. I just can’t be bothered to go in when I have a ton of shit to do. I’m wrapping stuff up and setting up lesson plans for the next few weeks to make the transition easier, but my time is running out and I’m not even remotely ready. Really, I mean, I’m like Marilyn Monroe, I’m leaving the party before my time. =( So, I have lyrics to print, CDs to burn, and purchases to make. As a result, Swahili had to take the back burner.

By the way, calm your ass down. I’m not really teaching them “I Will Survive”. I’m teaching them “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls.