Monday, May 26, 2014

Magic

I have discovered something in Ethiopia that just delights my heart. It's a wonderful invention that functions like magic. They're called them shamma. I think it's made out of fat, or used to be; some sort of waxy substance anyway. They're formed into short little cylindrical poles and all the way through the middle is a string. If you light the string it stays lit for hours. It's like a flashlight but you don't have to use any hands to hold it! All you need is a bit of melted wax to stick it on the end of your table and you can go about your business in the middle of the night.
            I just always find myself amazed at what people are capable of with such simple things.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Observations Made While Constipated on the Shintbet

Hello, I would like to apologize for last weeks absence of a post. I hope this makes up for it.

For those of you who are unaware of what a shintbet is, I refer you to a previous post.

Most people in Peace Corps have the problem of runny, explosive, and/or unpredictable bowel movements. I don't have that problem. My bowel movements are very predictable as in, they predictably don't happen. But sometimes they do, and then I gladly make my way to the shintbet.
            While there I get a lot of leisure time to stare at the walls. I know exactly where not to stare to see musty cobwebs complete with the translucent shell of a dead spider. I know exactly where the currently living spiders are so that I can make sure their creepy little bodies don't advance too close to my own.
            I have also found, in the rough texture of the walls several shapes. For instance, right by my head you can find quite a wonderful outline of Ethiopia. It really is perfect, almost as if it was a stamp on the tools the cement workers used. Further along the wall is a pretty good shape of Australia although it is not to scale. On my shintbet wall it is roughly the same size as Ethiopia and this is not so on any halfway decent map or, indeed, on the planet itself. There is also what could either be a phaser gun from Star Trek or one of the Imperial battleships from Star Wars and a giant Florida that's missing the panhandle.
            But the most important observation I've noticed is this: After squatting over a hole, waiting for nature to call, your legs can get rather tired. It becomes hard to stand up. But you cannot fall. You cannot fall. Because after falling onto the floor of a shintbet you might as well end it all right then and there.
            Build up your leg muscles because you cannot fall!

(Aren't you glad I waited this long for another shitty post?)