Stories: The Week from Hell (and then redemption)

On the 3rd of November, my students came to school threatening to go on strike. Why? Too hard of tests? Poor performance by teachers? Low quality cafeteria food? Not a good enough football team? Ha. No. They wanted to go on strike because their teachers hadn't shown up since the beginning of school, one month before. During the month of October, approximately 5 teachers showed up consistently, including me. Out of 19. (It seems to have gotten better in the last week or so, but teacher's are incredibly inconsistent.) I'd want to stop coming to school if I had to get here at 7:45 every day and then wait 2 hours to see if my first teacher would come at all, too.

On the 4th, I had stomach cramps and a headache. Actually, I think I may have had those every day in this week I'm talking about.

On the 5th, nothing terrible happened. Woo. Well, I bought a phone. And as we'll see, that was a mistake.

On the 6th, I broke my Kindle. In the middle of Battlefield Earth, I left it on a chair arm with the case open, stood up, and it hit the ground, cracking the screen inside. It's irredeemable. Luckily my parents are incredible and sent me a new one, so I won't go crazy without books. Nonetheless, the loss of my Kindle was rough. Reading is my one escape here, my one feeling of familiarity, and it's been my favorite activity since age...4?5?

On the 7th, my phone and its "new" Nokia battery turned out to be a total ripoff, so I had to take host brothers to sort it out. Independence=not possible. While at the phone place, I got stung on the elbow and palm by bees. Ouch. When I came back, I got a killer headache, so I popped out to get some bread and bananas while my ibuprofen/large amounts of water kicked in. Coming back, I tried to step over the cement water runoff ditch and couldn't get a wide enough stride with the wrap skirt I had on. I went down hard, crushing my bananas, dirtying my bread, and bruising myself. More than pain, I felt anger. Why did I have to wear this restrictive skirt? Why was my head hurting so badly? Why couldn't I just buy a phone and trust that it would work and the people selling it didn't cheat me out of a real battery? Why did this country hate me so much? I straight up bawled. Loudly. Usually I cry quietly, but the damn (sic) walls broke and I just let it all out. Which led to my host mother and sister asking me to stop, telling me nothing was wrong, and threatening to cry too if I didn't stop. I'm aware falling in a ditch is funny, I know the incidents were all small, but I was past the point of no return on crying, and I just wanted someone to pat my back and say "Let it all out, it's hard here, we know you're not used to this." But it was nice that they tried to help anyway. It was just a bad day.

On the 9th, my luck changed. Stacey brought me Battlefield Earth from Conakry, and we got permission to go to Conakry for Thanksgiving. It was what I needed to cheer myself up and turn around my attitude.

On the 10th, I was homesick for regular things. Restaurants with everything on the menu in the kitchen. Neighborhoods with addresses. Parks. Public transportation. Water fountains, or running water at all. Nbd, just a small backstep.

On the 11th, I had an 11/11/11 in Fria, had a nice day, and then lost my new, expensive cell phone. Due to the date, it didn't get me down as much as the Kindle, but geez, what a week.

the broken kindle. my broken heart

a beautiful sky on 11/11/11