gosh this a slow slow, SLOW day/week

In the four months I have been in Namibia I have learned that there are many things that I can tolerate and yet little things which really annoy me. For example I can tolerate the odd looks from the community, begging children, no having a clue what to do with eight hours of “work” a day, the power going out at random times, the million marriage proposals, transport problems always causing outreach to be cancelled, Namibian time, Himba boobies everywhere I look, the constant bugs in my flat and feeling useless 90% of the time. These are things have become the norm to me and I no longer really think twice about this stuff. But today as I walked to work, walked because I missed my ride cause well I just wanted a little bit more sleep and knew I would be doing nothing at work today anyway, so anyways, I was walking to work and I realized I hate flies. I hate flies almost as much as I hate ants. The thing about Namibia is if you are walking in the morning you get completely covered in flies. I normally only experience this on outreach days (like my week in Kamanjab) but really today as I was trying to swoosh the flies off me I remembered the hell of Kamanjab mornings and outreach trips in Outjo. I feel like a horse, and I’m surprised more horses don’t try to kill themselves. Seriously for about 10 minutes I try to move my head, wave my arms, do a little dance but the flies keep coming back. After 10 minutes I just deal with the flies crawling all over me (ew including my face and all around my mouth and eyes) and think ah, I hate flies. What is their purpose and why do they like me so much? So after four months serving as a PCV the only thing I realized I really can’t stand but tolerate because I don’t have any other choice is … flies. Is that bad? Shouldn’t I be doing a lot more personal growth, flies, that’s all I’ve discovered…wow.


Dear PCMO and staff,
I got my medications finally. You rock! Guess I won’t die from an asthma attack for the next four months as you gave me a huge supply. Thanks, I will stop calling and smsing you now.
Grateful,
Dar