I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

That has been going through my head for the past week constantly. Let me explain:

My playground isn’t finished yet, but I think I can finish it tomorrow

Getting all of the needed permission for America Day has not officially been given it seems, but I think I can get it done tomorrow

I haven’t completely kicked my land lady out of my house, but I think I can kiss her goodbye tomorrow

I can be excited about turning 30…no wait, I’m positive that’s not going to happen

So my boss helped me out a ton last week and got my playground all taken care of except for the asphalt-this was a HUGE surprise to me and I was extremely grateful. So I showed up and talked to the new director at the orphanage and she said “I don’t like it. It is too small and our kids can’t play on asphalt.” I have no clue what my faced looked like in response to that, but it couldn’t have been a happy face. I explained that I only had money for that size and that we all agreed on asphalt. She held her ground and said she wanted grass instead. So I went back to talk with my boss about the logistics of expanding the area and switching to grass. He made some calls and we could go from 7meters by 12 meters to 12 by 20 with the amount of money that had been donated. So all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I have been at the orphanage with workers tearing apart what they already did, making it bigger, putting in two huge trucks of dirt, etc. It has been fun working outside during the day and getting messy. I don’t do much physical labor/exercise here (that will change once it gets nice out), so I’m freaking sore all over. The sod will come tomorrow (we paid some guys to literally just dig up 12x20 grass from a random field for us and deliver it. I love this place). We had rain off and on all last week, so that kept things going slow. It is looking really good (although the kids have to play basketball on grass now). Every time a new person comes and looks at the play area they either make a comment on how it is the wrong size, it should be asphalt not grass, or something else. Everyone here has an opinion on everything even if they have no clue what is going on-it drives me insane!!!! But, in the end, this will look good, be big, and will be done this week-all major things in my mind. I made the director promise to me that they would take care of the new field and told her if I come back next year and it is over grown or messed up we are going to have some big problems. I think she understood my seriousness on this matter, so I’m hopeful she will follow through with her promise.

T minus 6 days until America Day Lenkeran is upon us! I thought I had all of the permission we needed from the long list of big wigs in Lenkeran. I called one of them the other day and he told me he never got a permission letter (he told me he didn’t need one 3 weeks ago). So I had to write a request letter to the Mayor asking him to send a permission letter to the head of education so he would call the schools to give them permission to let the kids come hang out with us for a couple of hours on a Saturday after class is finished. AAAAHHHHH!!!!! Simple things are just made way too complicated here and it is a frustration that most of the local people seem to feel constantly. It really makes it hard to do good/productive things in AZ. I am extremely hopefully I can get all of this permission business taken care of tomorrow so Tom and I can focus on planning everything out for America Day on Saturday. I would like to say a quick thank you to Tom’s parents as well as Ron and Becky for the two insane packages they sent us with queso ingredients, tortilla chips, Cinco de Mayo party decorations, etc. You guys are all AWESOME! Our friends will freak out once they get down here and see all of the post America Day munchies we are going to have!

Over the past week I have asked my land lady every single day if she is leaving at the end of the month and she has said yes each time. After I get done writing this blog I’m going to go giver he May’s rent money and make sure she is leaving tomorrow. I can’t tell you how ready I am for her to freaking be gone!

Tom, Tim and I had dinner with the Embassy’s publicity manager as well as a government worker from D.C. last night in Lenkeran. It is always fun to have American visitors, especially when they buy us a good dinner! We hung out with them for about 4 hours at the hotel and had a great time. They gave us a bunch of pictures and books about America for us to hand out at America Day, so that was really cool of them.

I am currently reading a book a former PCV wrote about her service living in Africa about 8 years ago. It is really interesting to read how much different her situation/service is than mine. The differences about living in an African village vs. a city in AZ, being a health worker dealing with AIDS and malnutrition vs. working with Community Economic Development, the things she ate, her daily routine, etc. It makes me wonder how I would have handled/how my life right now would be different in another PC assignment like the middle of no where Africa.

Well that’s all I’ve got this week. I’m sure I’ll have a ton of pictures and stories next week about the completion of the playground, America Day, my landlady leaving, etc.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

This week’s pictures in order are of: the orphanage, the playground size/set up we tore apart, us tearing it apart, the guys putting in the combo basketball/soccer goal, the new bigger size, one of the dirt dump trucks, and last but not least, the color of the water that comes out of my faucets before I distill it.