Poop

I haven't updated this week because I'm having a bit of writer's block.  So much has happened in the last week and half, and so many times I've thought, "this would be good to share," but I've got nothing. This always happens when I'm working on new songs.  If I'm song writing, my other writing suffers.  Oh well, I'm ok with it.

This week has gone well... extremely fast because I've been extremely busy.  My weeks always start off looking empty, but they always end up being totally booked up.  Because of my schedule, I don't have much of a life outside of church these days.  Aside from some loneliness creeping in, I'm ok with my it.  All things youth seem to be going really well.  I love my kids.  The young adults have been fantastic and I'm really enjoying our very colorful discussions.  It's been really great to work with them.

I'm still adjusting to life in Jersey.  I still have to explain what pop is about once or twice a week.  East coast cars aren't built with cruise control... that, or people don't know how to use it.  The left lane should be the fast lane, but I guess no one here got that memo.  In Chicago, turn signals never turn off, here people just don't use them at all.  I don't know which I despise more.  People here drink wudder instead of water... I'm not sure the school system is teaching correctly.  Maybe once I'm a sub I can actually make a difference.  I think most of the crickets on earth are in this area... and I think they're here just because I'm paralyzed with fear by the mere sound of them.  There are about 5 or 6 in my basement right now which means my laundry is not getting done.  Thus is the life of a single girl.  Moving on...

Since I can't really remember all of the things I've been wanting to share, I'm going to tell you a story from my day.

This morning when I arrived at work, the first thing I noticed was that there was about 3 little piles of poop.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Poop.  While I normally think poop is quite funny, it's a different story when it's all around your office.  The piles were kind of in a line coming from the window where the air conditioner is located.  Looking at the window, I saw that the make-shift side that had been placed there to close the gap between the wall and the air conditioning unit had been knocked away.  Seeing as though my office windows are at ground level, my first thought was that a squirrel had made it way in, pooped, found no food, and left.

So someone came and resealed the gap as I continued to work.  I happened to be working on stenciling words onto the wall, which meant I was on a ladder about 80% of the day.  Being a little jumpy, not knowing if the animal was gone or if it was going to jump out and scare me off the ladder, I tried to remind myself to keep steady.  Once of twice a fly landed on the overhead projector I was using and nearly caused me to jump ship, but in the end I was able to keep from being startled down.

I leave the office a bit early on Thursdays because I have to be there for about 3 hours in the evening.  I got home around 3, went on a 2 mile walk with Piper, dusted the downstairs, did the dishes, and cooked an early dinner.  When I got back to the church at 6, my desk was a mess.  Things had been knocked over, paper was askew, and yes, there was more poop.  This time the poop was all over my desk... right next to my computer, in my African basket with the paper in it, on my transparencies with some names of God on them.  How rude, right?

So I sent an email and within an hour someone was there with a live trap.  He set the trap and will come back and check it before I go into work tomorrow.  Hopefully the little pooper is caught and gone by the time I go in.  If not, I'll be on high alert as I spend tomorrow on the ladder again.  I just hope I don't have to clean up more little gifts from it.  Although, it does remind me of getting to my classroom every morning in Uganda and finding lots and lots of lizard and bat poop everywhere.  It's a memory you'd think I would try to block out, but a memory of my time in Africa is always something I'm thankful for.  The end.

Speaking of Africa, I get to share about my time there tomorrow evening.  I'm really looking forward to  sharing such a huge part of who I am with my church family.  It has very much shaped the person I am today.  Moyo wangu ni kuna.  Afrika mimi nakupenda.