not a christmas post... at all

i was going to post something christmassy last week but the lack of internet (oh africa) kind of stole my thunder.  so instead you get just a very non-christmassy, pictureless (because a friend is borrowing my camera, which i was wasn't smart enough to download the pictures off of before she took it) post filled with nothing super great except some random thoughts.  which aren't really great either, i'm super honest.

are you excited?

random thought number 1:

while africa has definitely been good, it has also provided it's share of non-awesomenesses.  for example:

1. water that sometimes decides to spit out of the faucet instead of flowing happily into the sink.  i often feel like i'm getting attacked by our sink and sometimes (more times than not) almost counter attack with a swift punch in the nozzle.  thankfully my common sense kicks in and i realize this would inevitably hurt me way worse than the sink which probably couldn't care less about how mean my jab cross is.

2. the not-completely-but-consistent-enough-to-be-annoying-lack-ofs, such as... water, internet, and power

3. heat.  i mean seriously, who likes it anyway and why on earth would a girl who hates summer move her sorry self to africa?  these are the thoughts that plague me.

4. the inability to complete a task... any task... without being interrupted with (many) someone(s) asking you for something they "need" (which really just means "want" but you get suckered into thinking they "need" it simply because you are more privileged than they are and that in itself is enough to guilt you into doing way more than you would ever consider doing in the states)

random thought number 2:

i wonder what francine is doing right now.  (oh look!  a picture!  i didn't mean to lie.  really i didn't)

this is the elephant i tried to touch and failed and then named when we went to a game park resort where the food was amazingly good... enough to cause all my clothes to feel super uncomfortable and tight.

random thought number 3:

how in the world am i going to pick out a design and fabric for my chitange suit... and where is this so called kitchen party anyway (i'm thinking it's at the farm and they just forgot to mention that we're hosting)?

mitzi and i have been invited to a kitchen party, which is like a kitchen shower for a bride we've never met only it's a way bigger deal and we're supposed to wear chitange suits which are basically traditional  dresses made out of traditional zambian fabric.  so tomorrow we will go to the market and meet with the tailor and figure out which design for a suit we want and then go to the chitange booth where we always buy our chitange (though we may be daring and go somewhere else) and pick out a fabric and then go back to the tailor and get measured and order our very first traditional zambian attire.  the whole thing sounds terribly overwhelming and super fun all at the same time.  how is that possible?

random thought number 4:

in exactly 6 days this non-teacher will officially be teaching music, art, and drama.  crazy.  i was asked the other day by my new friends at the immigration office what my plans for the new year are.  i said, "teach?" and then realized i was serious and suddenly felt a little frightful of the year to come.  hmm.  maybe i should start planning now...  eh, i can do that sunday night.

my new (well, actually old, but newly put into words) motto (which i'm convinced the rest of this country shares with me): 

    "why plan for today what you can stress out about tomorrow." 

and on that note i will leave you to contemplate the many words of wisdom that were not shared in the previous paragraphs.

happy new year!