mud huts

It happens from time to time. I’ll leave a dish out and then Bam! my hut becomes a dark pit of disaster. Originally upon coming to this continent, I treated my hut much as I treated any number of living arrangements I’d had before. If I didn’t feel like doing the dishes right away, I wouldn’t and If I didn’t feel like hangin my towel, I’d throw it on the ground. However, it quickly became apparent that when living in a small dark mud hut, sloppiness swiftly snowballs into months of not being able to find a second pair of pants . It took me awhile to figure out how to keep this cave of a house organized in such a manner that I could, with reasonable certainty, walk inside and find what I was looking for with my eyes closed. It’s not a battle I have completely won. Every once in a while something will still throw me off my organizational bandwagon and things rapidly collapse into chaos. Such is the current situation. My wonderful family & dedicated readership, was here for the past month. And albeit only in my house for 3 nights as a complete unit and a few with just austin, managed to set off the organizational chain reaction that lands me here, in the midst of a heap of books, clothes, batteries and various useless cords. It’s not that the family was especially messy, it’s that they brought me a lot of stuff. 3 suitcases full in total. Effectively increasing my worldly possessions by 50% and they tended not to have memorized my blindfold proof method of organization. Anyway, there is a mouse running around and I think the mess is hampering Z’s (my cat) ability to effectively hunt. Thus, tomorrow I think I will have to dedicate entirely to the development and installment of a new organizational system—such are the hardships of my life in the peace corps.
My family was here and now they are gone. I should probably write about that. We saw the country for much of what it was, spent time being together as a family for the first time since christmas and took a lot of pictures. My dad has promised a guest blog entry so I won’t spoil all the good stories.
It’s funny how visitors have a way of putting a fresh face on a familiar place. After being here for a year and a half, things have become routine as life becomes, well, life. I feel less and less like writing this blog because the stories feel different to tell when they pertain to people you consider close friends. Back in the states I wouldn’t have felt much like writing about my daily interactions with friends and it feels a bit disrespectful at times to do it here. Having my family here however, has reminded me how damn interesting this place is to those who haven’t tried it before and because of that I figure another blog post or two, in the name of cross cultural understanding, should be forthcoming. In the meantime we’ll have to settle for a post about messy huts as my battery is on its way out and Z has come back inside looking to hunt rats, he’ll need my help—such are the hardships of my life in the peace corps :).


1. a current problem