Earlier that week Dave and I had been talking about music - he studies music (jazz) at Malaspina College in Nanaimo, and I mentioned that I would do anything to hear some of my music (i.e., not string band, as much as I love that stuff) out loud, as opposed to through my crappy little three dollar headphones that I bought at Paddy's market prior to leaving Sydney. So that day, to my surprise, Dave had stolen my cd's from my under my bugnet and arranged for Peter to play them over the loudspeaker that they were using to make announcements during Sports Day. I was ecstatic, and decided that it was time to share the love - the love of country music, that is. We spent that afternoon teaching the kids to line dance to the tune of Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy, and other classic country tunes, and it was way, way more fun than the shower I could have been taking instead. I never did shower that day...
EVERYONE likes country music.I was in the highest spirits I'd been in since arriving in Lambubu, until I had my evaluation with Liesa and Morsen. They said some awful things, and I have been feeling bad about myself ever since. Why did I come here to begin with? What good have I done anyone? I thought that having studied development I would have at least a little bit to offer...but the things that were said to me made me fee so grossly misinterpreted, and I was also quite upset that there was no effort to balance out all those bad things with any sort of recognition of the strengths that I do have, because it's not as if I've done no good here at all, is it? *
On Thursday night I decided to put my bad mood aside (what good was crying next to the lone cow going to do my, anyway?) because we were hosting our final dinner with our counterparts. We had a wonderful dinner, the highlight of which was when we all sang Lean On Me, all together - 3 countries, one song. I was more chipper on Friday, and Morsen had come to apologize to me for making me upset - whether or not that meant he regretted some of the things that were said or not, I'll never know - and I made my peace with him. Jess and I had a good long talk, and tried to come up with a strategy for me to be able to get along better with Liesa and enjoy the rest of our time here - then I got drunk off of 2 glorious beers (this is what happens when your body is void of all alcohol for 5 weeks) and decided that I wanted to be super duper extra nice to everyone again, especially Nicole. ** Our boat sank, or something (communications is somewhat of a problem here...) so we're not leaving until Tuesday. I want to have an exceptional last few days here.
Last night we celebrated Samuel's birthday (with a whopping THREE cakes - thank you Dora), and the construction guys joined us - we had a super late night which involved a bird pooping on Jess' face and watcing a Bob Marley tribute in Jamaica featuring Erykah Badu and Queen Latifah on a contraband TV in the soccer field. Sigh :)
Happy Birthday Samuel!*I don't think it's necessary for me to share any further details of my evaluation here. While I admit that I'm somewhat of an open book, those words will haunt me for a really long time already, and writing them out again will only dredge up old negative feelings that don't need to be revisited. I don't want to highlight the negative in this project, I want to highlight the amazing things, because there were lots of em.
**Nicole, if you ever read this, I was a horrible bitch to you, and the way I treated you while on project is my biggest regret. I was a wench, and I'm sorry. You're an incredible person and I look up to you a lot.
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