Humm, Someone Made Me Think

Ok one of my friends sends me 10 questions a letter she gets from a book. I am posting this because other than a few random projects I have been helping on I really have nothing new to post here. I have been in country for over a year now, and not much surprises me anymore. I have realized I may have been here too long, and I still have a year to go. Example: I am laying in bed and it is 3 in the morning. I am awakened to the sound of a mouse or rat rustling through a pile of papers on the floor on the other side of my hut. Most people would just roll over and go back to sleep and hope the trap gets him. Well I went straight up Gambian on his little furry butt. I grabbed my machete off the wall where it hangs with the rest of my tools, and I go to hacking at him like my life depended on it. I did not manage to kill him, just wounded him and my floor. My floor now sports some nice divots from where I did miss with the machete. Ah well the trap got him later that night. I was ok with that.

Ok back to the questions.

1)Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube or roll it? What is the advantage of your method?

101) Are yo a hugger or a non-hugger? Why?

201) What is your favorite ice cream brand and flavor?

301) What is one of your greatest achievements?

401) If you could be invisible for a day what would you do?

501) What does “success” mean to you?

601) What is one regret you live with?

701) What was the last time you cried? Why?

801) Why do you think there are so many different religions in the world?

901) When and how often do you pray? What motivates you to pray?

Answers

1a) I squeeze the tube, and I have no idea why. I am not sure there is an advantage, just the way I have always done it.

101a) I am a hugger, again no idea why.

201a) Seriously- I mean come on I have not had ice cream in over a year and I am suppose to remember brands and flavors. Ok when I left I was a fan of Bryers ( I think this is how you spell it, the one in the black box) French vanilla, but at this point I would take just about any kind of ice cream

301a) Living it right now. I mean come on how cool is this. I get paid to live in a foreign country and just be here. See story above for an example.

401a) Well I think I would want to be invisible on Super Bowl Sunday. Then I would go stand on the side lines and watch, the most watch sporting event, live.

501a) Humm, Well success to me is the process in which character is developed and refined. Let me explain. (These questions are getting harder) Now in life you might get what you want and you might not, but regardless of the outcome. If you learn, grow, and develop skills and talents than that job was successful. So will Peace Corps help me to get the job of my dreams, maybe or maybe not. Will I change the way all Gambians live, probably not. Who knows, but if I learn and grow as a person while I am here than my time here was successful.

601a) I am not sure I have any regrets. I have things I wish I had not done. I have made choice that were foolish and not helpful in any way shape or form, but I don’t regret them. Some of those foolish choices give me insights into people and their motives, so why would I regret something that actually serves me in life. At the time I regretted making those choices, but I would not know what I do today without those choices.

701a) About a year ago. Ask me in person and I will tell you.

801a) Well at the risk of offending a bunch of people. Here goes. If you wonder where I stand read the top banner. The reason for the different religions, IN MY OPINION, is because people as a whole have been trying to find a way to justify our life without god. So basically from the fall till today we have been at war with a loving god. While he wages war with love and forgiveness. We are not so kind. We have raised images, stories, and other “truths”. To justify our life and try to give ourselves purpose and worth. Sorry if this offends, just my opinion.

901a) Well here is a weakness of mine. I do not pray very often. Maybe once or twice a week. I am usually motivated by troubles or problems in my life or others. Which is never what prayer was meant for, and while I realize this I keep trying to use prayer as a repair man call.

So that is the end of the first 10. I have 10 more that I will post some time. I figure this might generate some comments and I might have to explain somethings before we continue. So feel free to answer these questions yourself and

I am back

Well sorry I have not posted anything for a while.  No real reason for not posting anything, other than just being lazy.  I wish I had some new great story, but nothing too great to tell.  Let me see, I have an infestation of  mosquitoes. Now this is not some silly little infestation.  I manage to kill more than 50 a night when I forget to apply bug spray, and when I remember to apply bug spray I only get 20 kills.

Let me see, oh I have decided that my yard needed to be tilled up. I was mowing it with a machete, but my host family and village was constantly giving me crap about my yard.  So I finally broke down last week and started turning my yard.  It was not finished when I left today, but i am more than half way done.  Now my yard while not huge it is decent size.  I would say square footage wise it is about the size of a basketball court.  So right now it is half turned and the rest I cheated and mowed right quick with my machete.  I will finish when I get back.

I have also been managing to read a hand full of book.  I would highly “All Things Great and Small” by James Herriot.  It is hilarious.  I love Sigfried, and I know some of those guys.  Maybe it is just the mechanic in me and having to deal with truck drivers, I have had some of the same experiences as James in dealing with people and I can so relate.  So yea go read it.  It should be silly cheap.  I don’t know when it was written  but picking it up at a second hand shop should be no problem.

Ok so I don’t have a lot more to say, so it is your turn ask questions PLEASE!!

Later,

Matt

EEEP!

You ever had one of those days where you swear animals can sense what is happening and what you are trying to do to them.  Well a few days ago I noticed that we had adopted several mice involuntarily at our transit house.  Now I am not saying I mind mice I just get really annoyed when they ruin my Cup of Noodles, or bag of chocolate candy.  So one day a bunch of us here went out to eat, and the restaurant we were eating at under charged us.  Now we told them they were wrong, but since they could not find the error they let us just keep the money.  Usually this is not a problem, but since we all paid what we owed.  We were faced with the dilemma of what to do with the extra money.  We decided to buy mouse traps for the house, and this is where my problem began.

I was the fool that volunteered to go buy and set the traps, mostly because I was tired of losing food to the mice and thought i have no problem going and buying traps since I am going to the store anyway.  So yea, with our 150 Delasi I went and bought a couple of mouse traps.  Now these were not the Gambian traps that don’t work these were genuine USA mouse killing traps .  Yep that is right sporting a bit of US pride even here.  Needless to say after buying these traps I set them and let the mouse killing being.  It was going pretty well for the first couple of days.  I had manged to get 3 kills and had not even baited the traps yet, so I was feeling like a mouse killin fool. Maybe I should just stop at fool, but I will let you be the judge.

Then they decided it was time for revenge.  You know a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.  Their attempt was valiant, but ill thought out.  They waited till I was blissfully typing away on my computer one night surfing the internet for who knows what.  Probably Facebook stalking somebody I don’t remember.  That is when the madness ensued.  I felt this scratchy sensation on my back, was not sure what it was, my first thought was that my shirt had bunched up and I had found a zipper on a pillow.  Not so lucky.  I still remember the feeling of his claws as they raked my fingers, that were trying to pull my shirt down.

Now I don’t know how many of you can relate to this, but having a mouse trying to crawl into your shorts with you still in them is not exactly the most pleasant feeling.  The feeling of raking across my fingers was not what I was expecting, but I handled it like a good and proper adult male. I jumped to my feet like as if somebody had shouted free ice cream from the kitchen.  This may be something that only Peace Corps Volunteers do, but yea.  Now when jumping to your feet in this manner you will attract attention, but as soon as you start throwing couch cushions across the room and mumbling obscenities under your breath everybody takes notice.

Once I finally laid eyes on the little vermin, I was face with a dilemma how do I kill this little pants sharer.  Like any good PCV, I improvised.  I reach down and grabbed my chaco sandal and begin to beat him and the couch into a pulp.  Finally after about 20 seconds I finally calm down, mostly because I was winded, and partly because there lay the little twerp dead  and motionless.  Haha. (Evil Laugh) So moral of the story, don’t mess with the tubab.