make it happen

Mr President, could you pass me the grape jelly?

My cousin and I joined the Peace Corps at about the same time, unbeknownst to each other. Each of us had a desire to experience life in another country and to contribute in our own unique special way towards changing the world.

President Bush has been in the news recently on his tour through Africa. He stopped over in Ghana where my cousin is serving as a PCV and she had the pleasure of meeting him and having supper with him. I put on my flickr account a picture from the Ghana paper. That’s her sitting between George W. Bush and Condolezza Rice. How does one get such a seating assignment??

Power Outage

They’ve been replacing the power lines around my village for the past 2 weeks. The power has been off during the weekdays and on during the weekends. It’s really affected the local economy and well being but you don’t hear people complaining about it (but maybe that’s because I don’t understand 90% of what’s being said around me). The fact is that the power goes off and on so often that it’s just a way of life. Frustrating but normal. I can always tell if the power is off during the day because the metal workers who make the gates and barred house windows aren’t welding, they’re hammering or painting instead. The power was off for 4 days straight one week and 3 days straight last week. Those businesses who have generators burn those with fuel that is at $5.80 a gallon right now (no joke). And yet, I don’t hear anybody complain. It’s just how it is here. People aren’t as reliant on power. Life goes on.

“Hey man, nice, uh… outfit!”

That was the greeting I received from Jacob when I walked in wearing my blue Colts hat and my brand new Colts jersey with “Dunn” across the back. It was an outfit, I admit. It looked like I was going to a tailgate party for the pre-game celebration in the RCA dome parking lot. I admit it. I looked like a tool, but I’m in Africa, who cares? Nobody else would think anything of it. At least that’s what I thought. Until…

I was having breakfast at Sky Blue. My normal breakfast of poached eggs, toast and African coffee (instant coffee with boiled milk and not water). It’s $0.10 cheaper to have poached eggs rather than fried or scrambled for some reason. As I’m sitting there enjoying my meal in the warming morning sun, not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR mini-vans pulled up and unloaded 30 Americans who looked like college students. (Granted if they were Ugandans there would have been closer to 80 of them in those same 4 vehicles.) There I was in my ‘outfit’, looking like quite the Colts fan. Not that I’m ashamed of the Colts, but everything has it’s limits and by American standards I knew that I had crossed the line from a fan to a fanatic. I tried ditching the hat to tone it down a notch but I feel like the damage was already done. Of all the days to see a group of Americans…

posted by Brian R Dunn @ 11:40 AM