I worked again on the software design and Kensley is off to vila for a few months. Really quiet at the office. At the end of the week I start working on Nandiutu. I think we will remove a wall and start painting.
That's all it's mostly very boring week. Soon we get paid then I will try and get my bike tire fixed. I miss being able to ride my bike. These chinese tires are so poor that its a miracle they lasted as long as they did.
Oh one last photo from last week at the beach... these kids man they followed me around and swam with me. Funny kids.
Luckily we did get paid... that was nice seeing money in my account again.
(24) Tuesday
Man today I had a bad case of sit sit water... sorry being blunt. Hurts a bit feel nausea. Taking it easy today. I was planning to get a new tire for my bike but I am not sure want to walk into town and deal with that now.
Potatoes help thank god. Not a big fan of rice or toast.
Could not sleep my stomach was tossing and turning, well I think I will sleep a bit and go from there.
I miss all my friends back home. I got a long message from my friend Kat Reese... she is so kind. She's one of the best writers I know. She sent me some of her poetry and it's amazing. And I miss volunteering at the Soap Factory Art gallery in Minneapolis. They have so much work for me to do that I never feel bored or wanting for things to do. The people there are so terrific I can't wait till I can return and build things daily and install artwork meet interesting people, laugh and be thoroughly entertained by the crazy things we do. My parents are awesome too. I have dreams about being with my family eating food, real food man... I miss turkey and baby red potatoes and real butter, pork roasts and telling stories and making them laugh. Man there is so much going on back home that makes my mind feel active like painting and working and seeing art or music things that just don't exist here. But I gave it all up to try something different. Who knew that Minneapolis was the best place on Earth? Well I do now. Except the cold. Cheers to all my friends back home. I miss you guys.
(25) Wednesday
I was feeling pretty sick this morning. But I managed to walk over to work and do some stuff. I am going to head into town now and try and find a new tire tread and tube. it would be nice to make my bike work again properly its been 5 months since I did not have to mess with the tire daily.
The products in the country are so inferior its almost like they should not bother selling them. It's only smoke and mirrors.
I am a little sick today. I hate being sick. But I managed to get a new tire... drop off the spices and big bowl to mr. Thomas... he liked them, then I swung by my old school and gave them office 2010 for the N-computing server. That made them happy. Next week they want to continue with the Alma Student info setup. Hope that happens. It was a long process to get them to buy into the idea. Funny how nothing happens when I am there but as soon as I am gone they get it. hehe. They got a new truck too for the school it was really nice riding up the hill in it to my house.
(26) Thursday
I woke up in a nice pool of sweat today... I think maybe the fever broke. I was wrapped in a blanket I was actually cold it was cool last night too 81 degrees. Cool compared to the average 100. I had to cancel my project start tomorrow and reschedule for next week. I was so looking forward to doing something. Now I have to wait a week. Hopefully I feel 100 percent next week. Sucks. Oh well. I decided to rest and get better. With no counterpart at the office and no one to work with for two months it's mostly pointless going anyway. My internet at home is as fast as the junk at work and there is no one there to work with. I have been left to myself again. heh. oh well.
So... then I made some mashed potatoes with my parents masher they sent me... only the second time I used it here... it's a shame but It worked great, they tasted decent... thank god I had some real butter.
Watched the skeleton twins and that cheered me up, we are all fucked up aren't we?
I cleared my kitchen table and spread out my paints which I have not used in over a year and 3 months. I have 5 baby canvases but thats ok I have only a half tube of white. Who can paint without white. I could work like 5 tubes of white 1 blue 1 red and a black... oh well. Friend of mine is working on a poetry book and needs an illustration asked me to submit one... maybe I can do something with this limited set of options. Might have to go into town and take some photos to get some ideas. no easel to work with either. Grr..
There are two babies here that just cry non stop day in and day out. Why? Why? Man I kind of hate babies. Why don't they make muzzles for them? I think we are overdue for that.
The next door mormons are singing... they are kind of annoying. I think I will play some Marilyn Manson or Jesus Lizard... that will drown them out.
The noise and the sickness are making me annoyed. I think its best I take a shower and walk into town and take some photos and chill. That's the plan man.
3pm
I was in town for few hours mostly sitting at Attar Cafe. Had a cream shortcake first then a club sandwich. They make weird club sandwiches... bacon, egg and carrots and beets. I am like come on... its not a club without chicken that is the like the rule... so they made one with chicken for me. It was ok. Their fries were better than the club because the bread is very hard to chew. Leather bread. Oh well I digress.
While I was sitting there it was pouring buckets of rain for about 2 hours. Sitting at the table I watched the people around me. In the big room, next to the outside sitting area, there was the local cult leader and a few maybe new inductees. His cult is pretty weird...
apocalypse cult for sure, world is ending and all that. They brainwashed some twenty something girl into being their "eve" to repopulate the earth once everyone is dead outside their compound. I remember seeing this documentary of their cult... the leader was big shot airline owner who got ran out of town by the big airlines. Then he got all weird religiously believing his purpose was to save the world by forming a survivalist camp, preaching his version of god and such. They eat no meat... and try not to kill a single living life form... not an ant or a bug or even an infection... they think all life is sacred even if that influenza kills you it is sacred life so they take no medicines to save themselves. Really logical and all. Saw them. The man is very old looking and frail looking they eat only certain kinds of plants. and you can tell if a strong wind blew he'd fall over. I wonder why they are allowed to eat plants.. those are alive too until they ate them. Oh well using logic on the completely illogical is not going to work.
I saw Jerry, Mike Hawkins's good friend. I sat and watched him eat a huge pile of rice and boiled chicken.. Man how can people eat that day after day. Really nice guy though. Told me some stories about Mark and Mikey... two guys that are well kind of crazy. Likeable but nuts.
After sitting through that show for a few hours when the rain let up, I went to get some soup at the grocery store LCM and then went to the post office.
Then I took cab home and read a little Dune series stuff and listened the the sweet sweet sound of that HORRIBLE baby screaming its brains out for two hours. Ahh Vanuatu... its never gets normal.
(27) Friday
Still sick... was hoping the worst passed yesterday. Guess it was smart that I cancelled going to work on Malo today. Sad that I can't use my skills to do some meaningful work. I have been waiting for this for 6 months. Stupid time to catch a head cold. I like that joke I heard once... if it weren't for my bad luck I would have no luck at all. I think it was from a movie.
Guess it's time to make some soup and hack and cough and sweat for another day. Eh... not that big a deal lots of people here get sick all the time. Everything here is a petri dish of bacteria waiting to make us ill.
10am
I was just listening to Nirvana and the I thought I wonder what it would be like to have a conversation with Kurt Cobain...man he died in feb 1994... so long ago now. Well since he's dead sort of hard to talk to him so I found an interview him in rolling stone Jan 1994 4 months before he kills himself: kurt-cobain-the-rolling-stone-interview One of his last interviews... pretty Weird how normal he sounding. He jokes around about so many things and yet you can see his life flashing before him. I like the character he makes of himself in the story. He'd be 48 if alive today. He died at what 28. I bet he'd be really funny. He could have written an animated tv series like Rick and Morty.
2:00pm
For not sleeping at all and dripping in my sweat I feel ok. I made some soup and mashed potatoes. Man that masher from the USA is a winner. Fourth mashed I have had this week... I can survive anything with a good potato and butter a splash of milk and that masher. The masher works best in the old pan from the 70's its sort of its counterpart... the thing I mash in here is a shiny shallow pot it has tiny handles so I can really get a good spin on it when I crash the walls. Oh well. They were still decent.
I have done pretty much nothing all day except cough and talk to friends on the computer. Its back up to 91 degrees even though it is cloudy and flirting with rain. I might finish part of my twin peaks story. I have been dragging my feet on it. Or I can go into town and find some more stuff to eat. Another can of the potato and leek soup... or pass on that and do it tomorrow. It's not all that exciting to go into town same old same old. Nothing really to see. There are temptations like the baby docs. I don't really bother making friends with the new baby docs anymore. Not much point even if they are cute and fun and stuff. They are gone in a blink of the eye so then you just wasted your time and you miss them and that is worse than not talking to them.
I need to consider getting some laptop speaks to drown out all the noises. When my laptop plays music non stop and I can wipe out all the crappy human noises and animals its almost pleasant being inside.
4:44pm
I made a quick trip into town taking one of the local buses. It's the cheaper option 100vt, one buck. It was totally packed and when the kid opened the door the little liner fell off. We fiddled around with it for a few minutes putting it back on and around the door. The busses are basically Toyota's that look like big eggs on wheels. I like taking the busses because you can listen to people gibber gabber and stuff about whatever. Always at the end of the day people pack in tons of junk boxes and fruit and coconuts and you name it they shove in those buses. And also they usually have the most round about way to get to where you want to go. This one one made stops before it hit mine.
I got more than enough stuff to last for a while. I kinda wanted some steaks, they call them hi filets. They really are filet mignons. A facebook friend told me to boil bone and make a broth of it because it is good for flu's
Dammit an ant, tiny little guy, just crawled in my vent of my mac pro. I am sure it fried itself inside on some hot component. each one is like another blip closer to frying the motherboard. The bugs here crawl in your shit and kill your electronics. I always put my laptop inside an air tight box. Probably why its lasted a year here. It's almost kava time for the locals. They are just milling around my place waiting for it to start.
When I got into town I tried to get money out of the ATM but it was down so I wanted in line at the bank with 20 other people. Another amusement sort of. Some guy there knew me and shook my hand. Might have been a teacher. Who knows. Everyone remembers me I remember some.
I feel almost human at the moment. Lets hope the stupid coughing fits are over for a bit. I have a long night of listening to men clearing their throats of kava making an virtual orchestra of hacking spitting and mind numbing throat clearing that could make anyone in the state gag. There must be a river of spit flowing down the block. Heh... well they might use the spit catch thing.
Tonight a band is playing at the kava bar in front of my house. The band is called "Fantastic" heh. I met the singer in his cab the other day. He sings in French, English, Bislama and language. I said that is great and smiled this HUGE smile. heh. He was funny. Very sincere. But I am going to get an earful all night of his band. I probably will be going insane from it inside.
(28) Saturday
Facebook reading done, NPR reading done, eating soup done... so next step blog a bit. Then who knows nothing.
I spoke with Rich for a while on the confuser (slang my brother made up for computer) and then took a shower... must now immediately play music again to cover up the noise from annoying screaming child next door. She or it... only can speak in screams. Low drawn out screams for being "happy", high pitched horrible for everything else.
Let see sleep again or read? I think reading wins.
It was not a reading day a mostly talk with friends on facebook day. Which is good. I am excited about all my friends adventures back home. I am looking forward to see them again. I have some pretty great people back there. Mr. Mitch is one. He's like a brother to me. Soap Factory family. Not popular with some of the basement folk but only because he was always the bearer of bad news, telling people why this or that won't pass fire code. And artists don't like doing stuff over very much. I miss hanging out with with Mr. Mitch because he has this serious side and he scares most people, but when we hangout he can be really goofy. I mean we were rocking to some terrible 80's big hair music and lip syncing last year while building fixing shit in the haunted basement 2013... it's hilarious. He is a cool guy if you get to know him.
Today I made a baby easel for painting on. And I took off the retarded door from my bathroom and will work on putting it on the right way. They hung it going inside to the tiny tiny bathroom it bangs into the toilet... when it was logical to hang it doing outside and there is a huge wall that would give it plenty of clearance. So I will do that tomorrow? Paint maybe. I need to paint. Also I will visit college luganville on monday and work on their SIS app... for recording grades.
They are playing childrens music at the nokemal near my house... it sounds like something on barney or a childs tv show doo duum da do.. doo dum da do... over and over with some overly dramatic pan flute to give it really sappy sounds. Barney and crew... you should make a road trip here you'd be the biggest hit ever.
March (01) Sunday
3:13 am... good time for a pack of stupid island dogs to bark their heads off as any time. They are night time creatures for sure. I am sure a person had to take a piss and made one dog barked and that caused the neighbor dog to bark and then the next and the next and then 30 dogs later the whole place is lit up with them barking. And it's normal occurrence. I am supposed to not hear it and sleep right through it like everyone else. NOPE. Not buying it. If it were in the USA I would either go outside and club them all their owners death or call 611 or something and report a shit dog barking and after 3 or more complaints they mail them and tell them to correct the issue or a fine will be imposed. Of course the first idea is just a delusional dream while the latter is the actual action.
Yeah I like sleeping. Sleeping it never happens here. Like never. Almost every night is some annoyance, roosters or dogs or a cockroach crawling on me, or a centipede in my hand... in my HAND.. or always something mostly dogs and roosters. I need some speakers to play music 24/7 then I can make the world outside disappear. How do the others in Peace Corps in the remote places handle it?
9:00 am
Back to facebook... Lillian is online. She is one of the great ones from my hometown. She had her tonsils taken out. I remember doing that. But I was a kid when it was done. Hurt worse when you are an adult I hear. Lillian was the vol coordinator and then program manager at the Soap Factory. I loved volunteering for her. She always made you feel important and gave you meaningful and luckily for me endless amounts of work. If I am bored like I am now, its not good for me. I should always be working.
Guess I can make some food. and write and read some more after.
Pretty much a quiet day again. Went to Bryan & Kate's and ate some curry... watched some terrible movies. Wow... just terrible. When I got home I heard the neighbors argue and fight sounds like someone got punched. When men and women here fight they go for hours yelling over and over the same thing, with an occasional fuck or wanem. Not fun to listen to. Speakers tomorrow.
