This past weekend I went to Ihanja, a small village near other small villages that aren't really on maps, to visit a very delightful Peace Corps couple and their puppy. I am really quite in awe of these volunteers, since without electricity or running water, they live and eat better than I do while having the energy to farm, teach English at the primary school, and organize blanket weaving projects for children who are required to board at a school without any mattresses. They are working on a grant to get a refrigerator for the local clinic/dispensary so that ARVs can be stored there, and they adopted and care for a very energetic dog.
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Their house has crossed machetes over the door. I am
so stealing this idea. |
Ihanja grows lots of sunflowers, which are blooming right now, so we went for a walk past fields of sunflowers, with a rainbow, and picked up handfuls of raw amethysts off the road. Because we can do that! The (unpaved) road was surfaced with rocks that included tons of quartz-y things. Katie helped me hit the raw amethyst pieces with a hammer to get decent stones and showed me how to wrap them for necklace pendanting using copper electric wire and a pair of pliers. Have I mentioned how I am in awe at the abilities of these volunteers?
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I like amethysts. They are pretty rocks that no one dies over.
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Other attractions of Ihanja include a tribute to dead white guy who was sainted for something or other, and the shell of a gigantic Catholic church that was begun but never completed. Acoustically excellent monument to failure!
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The unfinished church was surrounded by piles of unused bricks.
Morning glories grow out of the bricks. |
It was a weekend of warm showers, because they have a solar heated water bag and a pulley, and breakfasts of warm bread topped with mayonnaise, eggs, cheese, and tomato. Did I mention they live better than I do despite a lack of electricity and water? Not to mention being talented enough to make jewelry out of road rocks and leftover electrical wire. Also, Katie is the Mad Mistress of Pastries who demonstrates excellent usage of food coloring. I made the green. I mixed yellow and blue. I can do things like that.
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Apple pie! Proving we don't hate America. Or something.
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Evenings can be spent playing Munchkin, a Dungeons and Dragons based card game. I didn't win, but I did have a huge rock of +2 to combat, and a hireling to carry my huge rock so I could still use other weapons. We were serenaded by the drunken ladies of the church choir, who warble their way home from the bar every evening in perfect harmony. For creepier entertainment, there is a computer charged by solar energy on which can be played HP Lovecraft podcasts, which left us with Unnatural Urges for Unspeakable Sins and a deep abiding love for decadent prose with many adverbs.
I am now back at site and actually have a class schedule a week after the beginning of classes. But will the students come this week? I don't know.
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