I'm often frustrated by the slow pace of things around here, by how long everything seems to take, and by how I can spend a long time doing things and then feel like I accomplished absolutely nothing. Part of this is my distinctly American value on productivity; I feel that time not doing some productive is time wasted; I tend to see myself as valuable to the extent that I am doing something useful. But part of it is also just that everything here is a little more complicated.

Taking care of a vehicle, for instance, is a little harder than in the States. We don't exactly have local garages. In fact, there's not even a particularly competent mechanic inside of a three hour drive. The Zoolander (the mildly affectionate nickname for the vehicle the singles share) has been having electrical problems recently, so that the wipers come on at random times (but not when you want them to) and it can only be started from a roll. We've kept it parked at my house, on the edge of a hill, so that it's easy to roll-start with few people. We decided that it can't really wait much longer and we needed to have it worked on, but this is a pretty difficult proposition. So, in order to have work done on the vehicle, Heidi and I had to drive for more than three hours over the mountains on a dirt road with a broken shock absorber in a vehicle that won't start. We also had to make sure that we never stalled or turned off the vehicle, as we'd have quite the time trying to roll-start it with only the two of us. When we got to Fort Portal, I left a long set of problems and instructions for the mechanic, we grabbed lunch, and hitched a ride with Pat and Pamela, who were driving out to Bundibugyo, where we arrived just in time for the team pizza dinner. So, even just getting the car to a mechanic turns out to be a full day affair, to say nothing of having him work on it and somehow getting it back out here.

Another humorous-but-maddening frustration occured Friday night. It started when I awoke in the middle of the night to the fiercest storm I've ever experienced. I've never been scared of a storm here, but the thundering of the wind-driven rain and hail on my roof made me seriously curious about the durability of my house, and made me think a few times about how close to my house various tall trees were. I could barely even think, as the roar of the rain on my roof filled my head - it was a sound that I could feel. Eventually it faded and I feel asleep again. Tim woke me up again in the dark of early morning, saying something about water on the floor. I got up and walked into the next room, where I found myself standing in a half inch of water that covered about half of my house. So there we were at 3:45AM, our headlamps on, mopping the floor with towels and ringing them out into a bucket. We filled this bucket probably 10 times - there were gallons upon gallons of water. It made me especially glad for two things: first, the fact that Doug and Tim are living with me this summer, so I didn't have to deal with this alone. Second, the fact that I have concrete floors, so that the standing water didn't really matter.

I'm sure that everywhere, things seldom go as smoothly as planned or hoped, but it sure seems like Bundibugyo is special in that regard. One thing is certain - living here has helped expose my performance mentality and the way I define myself by what I can accomplish, as what I can accomplish here is often very little. It's not something I really expected to learn in my time here, and it's a tough lesson.