What a LOOOOOOOONG Day!

Tuesday – July 20, 2004

Primary Day in Georgia. I cast my vote before I left, but I still miss the excitement of election day. I had some trouble refilling the calling card that I bought Richard for use during my trip. Although I’d already successfully used the cards once, trying to refill encountered another round of “verification”. While I appreciate the security measures, they were a pain in my behind since they would only verify to US phone numbers. So I had to call Richard in the middle of the night to warn him that he might be called for verification. Luckily, he was able to go back to bed and verify my purchase when he got up. At least now there should be enough minutes to last the rest of my trip.

Today was pretty slow and boring. Yinka was out most of the day tending to Everard, her new boyfriend from Bulawayo. He had hand surgery. Apparently, he had to show up at 10am, although the surgery wasn’t until 4pm. They gave him drugs in the meantime. I’m not sure the purpose of that, and it seems like an awful waste. Yinka told me last night, he’s in severe pain from the pins they’ve put in his hand to straighten out the bones. They apparently don’t give pain meds here. No thank you. If I was stationed here and needed surgery, I’d get my butt back home to the good ol’ USA where they use lots of powerful drugs and where sanitary conditions are standard. I wouldn’t trust a hospital here, especially if I was going to be cut open. Talk about infection risk, and I’m not just talking about bacteria. With HIV being as rampant as it is, I’d need all sorts of assurances that proper procedures were used.

I heard from Trent today on my way home. He was making sure I was still up for seeing Passion of the Christ on Thursday. I said sure. It was almost funny when Yinka called to ask if it was OK for him to have my number. She said, “Trent would like to call you and stuff.” If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she believed Trent was asking me on a date or something. Puh-lease. Still, it was funny when she asked. At this point, I’m like tell whomever you want what my phone number is. The more calls and invitations out I get, the better off I’ll be.

Africans really don’t handle cold well. I can’t even say cold, because the weather here is NOT cold. It’s chilly, but it starts in the mid 50s and gets into the mid 60s at least every day. But people around here are all bundled up like it’s 30F outside. Some of the secretaries wear winter coats and scarves in the office. And the office I share with Annick and the data management guy is constantly kept around 80F, because they are both “cold”. Even with the room stuffy, Annick is constantly drinking coffee to “warm up”. I mean, please! At least I’m not sweating like I usually do. I think it has to do with the fact there is no humidity here. With as hot as they keep the office, though, I’m surprised I don’t soak my undershirt and shirt every day.

Had dinner with Pet and her family again. It was pretty good. They had some kind of mashed potato concoction that contained potatoes, cheese, and meat. I actually didn’t mind it. They had this chili-like gravy to go with it that I heaped on the potatoes and made it edible for me. We also had some vegetables and salad. They eat pretty well, and I’ve noticed that Pet and her family are likely to be in the upper echelon of Zimbabwean families. Definitely upper middle class.

Pet’s having a hell of a time getting a visa to visit South Africa. Luckily, Morris is from South Africa, so I believe he has a passport from there. But Pet and their son Kirk cannot get one to save their lives. They have to get the visa at the South African embassy in Harare and they must pay Rand for it. As an American, I can just fly into South Africa and automatically get my visa at entry. They have to fill out all this paperwork, pay money, and even then, they can be refused. I guess it’s a way to make sure Zimbabwean refugees don’t flood South Africa, but still. It’s very sad. I wonder if it’s as difficult to get into Zimbabwe’s other neighboring countries? If it is, the people here are trapped.

I called my grandparents too, since they were worried about me. My grandma was working at the nursing home so I got to talk to Papa. He sounded really glad to hear from me, so they really must have been worried. We had a nice chat, and he's busy bottling up this year's stock of blackberry wine. YUM! :) I'll need to call Grandma this weekend.

I got a call from Richard pretty late. I was glad he called even if he work me up. I was feeling a bit lonely, and it was good to hear his voice. He told me about his test scores for the End of Course Test (EOCT) which Georgia ties to the teacher to show results. So while Luella High only had a 69% passage rate for US History, Richard’s kids passed at a rate of 90%! I think we know who the star teacher in US History is, and he even had two sections of “regular” kids last year. This year, he’s got all honors and AP, so he’s shooting for 100% passage. Even kids who had him part of the year but moved to another class did much better on the subject matter that they had him for than after they left his classroom. We need more teachers like Richard.