Home

I'm listening to Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place" and there's a line in the song that goes "Home -- is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there ... If anyone asks, this is where I'll be, where I'll be."

So, that's fitting.

Because this is my new home, as of week one. My kitchen/living room/entry way and my bedroom and the whole compound too.

Both rooms are maybe 10x10, so it's pretty cozy, but it'd be a great find in New York City, or even in Seattle really. You can kind of tell from the picture of the bedroom that there's no ceiling (as of yet, or maybe never, who knows?). I mean, the exposed bricks and rafters are kind of a cool look to offset the kind of intense baby blue walls, but it gets a little warm with just a tin roof.

In the picture of the kitchen, we've got my basins for washing dishes and clothes, my little gas cooker (which I've used three times now without it blowing up in flames, so I'm feeling good about that), and my chairs. So, you're all welcome for a dinner party if you don't mind sitting on the concrete.

I'm also having some shelving units made by a carpenter in town, so everything won't be on the floor, but those are still a couple weeks away right now. Looking forward to that though. Then I can actually unpack completely.

But there's only one other couple living in the compound, so it's nice and quiet, and they seem cool, so that's a definite plus.

I've spared you pictures of my pit latrine, but that and the bathing area are just outside, still in the compound, along with a tap for water, so there's really nothing to complain about. I'm right in town, so like a two minute walk to the market or the shops for food or airtime for my phone or whatever (not really whatever, supplies are a bit limited, but I bought a pineapple in the market the other day, so, score).

Oh, and now that it's raining, I have to admit that I love the sound of the rain on the tin roof. It gets pretty loud.

And yeah, if anyone asks, this is where I'll be (after dark).

(And, by the way, you can click on the picture to make it bigger, I think.)

Stove of Death

Over the long weekend, four friends and I went to a three-day music festival in Eastern Washington called Sasquatch. It was amazing. And I got maybe the smallest of previews of some things I'll face in the Peace Corps. And one thing I hopefully won't.

One small bucket shower (actually just hair-washing) over the course of three long days.
Dirt that wouldn't come off of my hands.
No outside news all weekend.
Squatting over the port-o-potties (because you did not want to sit down on them. I mean, I assume you wouldn't, maybe someone would, but I did not).

The most exciting part however was cooking with a propane camping stove, just like what I might be using for 27 months.

Normally, cooking on a camping stove is not really all that exciting. Normally, I say. Because normally your stove does not explode into flames while you're cooking on it. The second night we were there, the five of us were sitting around the campsite, Emily was cooking dinner on the stove, the rest of us were helping get dinner together and chatting and eating and whoosh the stove went up in twelve inches of orange flames that spread four feet across the grass in a matter of milliseconds so I jumped out of the way of the flames (safety first!) and Katie stopped, dropped, and rolled as the fire singed the hem of her dress and Emily kicked at the stove as the flames spread underneath the hood of Rory's car as the neighbors ran over with water and the flames spread to the propane tank and Zach ran to the burning tank of explosive gas, ran to it, and bent face-first over it and, while we yelled at him to stop, he unscrewed the tank, the burning tank of explosive gas, and we doused and stamped the rest of the flames and then looked at each other in disbelief and all started talking at once about how everything almost exploded and then we all needed a beer.
And that was all in maybe twenty seconds.

So. If we can't make it two nights without our propane stove exploding in flames, what do we want to set the over-under at for how long I can cook over one and still have eyebrows?
Also, should I put "Have experience with exploding camp stove" on the version of my resume that's going to Uganda now? Because it may be relevant.