May 13th

So first off Happy Birthday to Becca. Today will mark my first full day alone in the village. I believe that it was a success so far, I did not burned Ellen’s hut down which I feel is a good accomplishment since Ellen says it does happen more often than it should. One volunteer took a candle into their mosquito net; fortunately I do have a little more sense than that (most of the time). So far today I have washed dishes, washed laundry, wept the hut, knocked termite tunnels off of hut walls, re-swept, pumped water and carried in back on my head, colored with the children and played Uno, and touched a dead bush baby that one of the children had killed with a sling shot. The poor thing would have looked like a cute stuffed animal had it not been for the bulging bloody eyeball protruding from its face. After completing all of these tasks it was only 1300. Time in the village moves in a bizarre manner; it is not linear. The mornings seem to go by quickly, the afternoons seem to drag on forever and then the evenings fly by. Days seem long here but weeks pass quickly; the progression of days seems even longer when you are by yourself.

As I am writing this by candle light there is a large moth fluttering around the candle flame. It is kind of morbid by I kept hoping that it will fly through the flame and catch on fire. Much to my disturbing delight the moth zipped through the flame wings ablaze crashed into the hut wall only to be caught by a hunger wall spider and eaten for dinner. The wall spiders and I have a sort of arrangement. They stay on the wall eat bugs and I will let them live. If they leave the wall for any moment they will die. So far I have not had to kill a wall spider. I have actually grown a fondness for them; I feel as though they keep me company and the evil that I know and see is much better than the one that I don’t. I am afraid that if they are not there something grosser and creepier will takes its place. Apparently I am just going to miss the scorpion spider season.