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Today, a small victory. We were walking between the Village and the school and a neighbor going the other direction stopped us to make sure that the children were home so he could bring them mangoes. Woohoo! He knows we work there! This may seem silly, especially since we see and chat with this man at least once a week and we are usually orbited by plaid-clad electrons clamoring loudly for our attention, but it still makes us happy to have hard evidence that our place within the community is known and accepted.

Another sign we’ve been here awhile is my acceptance of things I once thought odd. When someone told be that taxi divers drove around honking and pointing in the direction they were traveling, I giggled. The scene in my head was probably more fantastic than reality, but still, isn’t that an amusing picture to those of you who have yet to experience it? A bunch of people honking and hanging out the window, pointing their route? In fact, it is wonderfully efficient. I don’t think it’s strange at all. I even point back to confirm the direction I am going. Honk, point.

But then I get ringworm on my eyelid—AGAIN—and I feel like we are stuck in a never-ending loop of hot weather and skin fungi. Gross. Also, while things are falling in place for us, it is still exceedingly, irrationally, difficult to get things accomplished. I just continue to underestimate the factors that contribute to the completion of a task. It’s like a treadmill with hurdles. I wake up thinking okay, today I have to get this done, so I sit down to it and realize halfway through that I have to do 5 other things first to make this task do-able and it always involves favors and information from other people and I get all excited and then my boss can’t understand me. Ultimately these things get done, but never without some amount of panic on my part.

So that’s where we are. And, the kids have learned my name. I know people think this is dumb, especially when the kids can call me ‘miss’ most of the time, but I was tired of being called ‘Patrick and uh, uh, uh…’ So now everyone knows my name, or at least a varied pronunciation of my name, and they shout it gleefully when they see me approaching the Village. Just to reiterate, there are over 100 children and Erin is not a common name here. So I feel good about this, and if you think it is paltry, then you are a poo-head.