Lazy Sunday

It's another typical Sunday, which means I'm trying to relax as things slowly go wrong around me.

This week, it starts at 8am, after a luxurious 11 hours of sleep.  A watchman calls me to ask if he can sign annual leave papers today.  I am not his supervisor, and I am not working.  I am not pleased.

I rouse myself, and stumble into the eating area for a leisurely breakfast.  I have to unload and fuel a car at 10am to prepare for the departure of 2 team members for the end of their mission.  I'm grumpy from the early morning wake up, since yesterday had a similar wakeup (three non-urgent problems demanding immediate attention before 8am).  Now that I think of it, it was the same last Sunday, when the generator at the hospital failed.  And the Sunday before that, and before that...

I can't remember the last undisturbed day of rest I've had.  Vacation in Turkey three months ago?

After the final preparations, cash advances, food orders, and packages to be sent to the capital, the car leaves, and I dive back into my book.  It's my one haven from the 100% French-speaking environment that I've been living in for the past 8 months.  I've always been a reader, but I've been devouring books at an exceptional rate during this mission.  I started keeping track in April, and am at 40 books read.  Looks like my average is 6 books a month, or a book and a half every week.

My reading is interrupted by a driver who just lost his sister.  He's seeking a ride to a nearby city, to get to the funeral in time.  Unfortunately, the car going to that city left this morning.  I offer two solutions, none of them satisfactory, and offer my condolences.  As he leaves, I call a replacement to fill in for him tomorrow and the next day.

Back to reading, where I finish a book.  I plunge on to the sequel, only to find that when I downloaded it a month ago (I'm kindle-only here in the middle of Africa--real books are a luxury I cannot access), my trickling internet access corrupted the file.  Sigh.  Back to find the internet modem, log on, spend a half-hour loading Amazon, then the next hour or two trying to download the sequel.

It's a good opportunity to take a break.  Time for lunch.  And probably for the next problem.  We shall see what the rest of the day brings.

Rainy Season

It now rains every day here in Moissala.  The dry, dusty landscape has bloomed into a lush jungle.  You can almost see the brush growing, as each pass becomes harder and harder as the path from the office to the house becomes more and more hidden.  Eventually, we'll be bushwhacking, I suspect.

Before

Late night at the office in the rain

The Barh-Sara River is in the background.

Climbing on top of things

There's a slow leak in the greater water tower at the hospital.  It's a huge cement water tank about 60 feet in the air.  We're bringing in a mason to fix the leak and install an evacuation pipe for wash water.  He'll come this weekend, when the consumption is the smallest.  We'll fall back on our alternate water point, which is a small well just next to our borehole, with a submersible pump installed.  We have a second water tower that's a bit lower and bit smaller for just this sort of case.

In preparation for the work, after discussing finishing techniques and water-tightness, I decide it's a good idea to check out the tank myself.  I mount the 60-foot-high tower without a harness, without a spotter, and without telling anyone where I'm going.  Halfway up, I'm a bit spooked.  By the time I clamber up, I'm shaking like a leaf.

I've never been scared of heights, and I spent basically all of my free time in college at my student job of hanging lights in the theater, 40 feet above the deck, walking on nothing but eighth-inch-thick cables.  I'm no stranger to heights.  But this time, I'm thoroughly terrified.

I have no confidence in the welder who built the ladder I'm clinging to.  I have no confidence in the mason who installed the ladder to the side of a water tank in the sky.  I have no confidence in the cement used to hold it all together.  I have the nasty realization, as I'm up on the top of tower contemplating my descent, that I'm not in a story (or a blog post) where the ending (or at least the continued survival of the author) is assured.  At this moment, there's nothing much preventing me from plunging to my death.  Not even the power of a compelling through-line or an unfinished story arc.

I decide to take a few pictures.  One, to not miss the opportunity, because the view, even as I studiously ignore it to rally my failing spirit, is pretty cool.  Two, to convince myself that I'm not terrified and one step away from becoming a sobbing catastrophe that has to be rescued from the sky tower.  It would work, except my hands are shaking too hard to take a good picture.  Time to face my fears head-on.

As I remind myself that sometimes fears are healthy, and that I'm not guaranteed to survive this, I descend.

After I make it safely to the ground, I continue schlepping supplies to the waste area as if nothing has happened, and quietly ponder a bunch of lessons that I've just learned.