Still seeking guest bloggers

There's an awful lot to bitch about these days at school, and I could vent here, but I am not going to do that, as it is exhausting and boring--although I may return to these matters another time.

Jamison has told me personally that he would guest blog. In fact, he and J. spoke to each other on the phone and it was established that she would guest blog as soon as he guest blogged. Last night she told me that this offer still stands but that she doesn't see herself blogging anytime soon. I said, "but if Jamison does write something, you will too, right?" She said, "I said I would" then trailed off mumbling, "but I never said when." So, my friends suck.

On saturday after school, J. and I took a cab out to a rural area where our mutual maid lives with her three children and husband. It's a very modest brick house, one storey, and maybe three rooms--the kitchen and bedroom is divided by a sheet, I think. They were very excited to have us and she made us dinner and served us snacks and drinks and all of that. We went for a walk around the area and attracted some attention from the neighbors. The neighbor children followed us around, and adult neighbors came by to say "hi." They had seen me taking photographs and the rumour spread that I was looking to make some kind of documentary or something of the region. They must have been very disappointed to learn the truth. I have pictures of all that we saw, I will post them as soon as J. uploads them.

After our walk, I was sitting on the porch/patio and looking around. There were coconut trees not far off, to my left a pineapple was growing out of the ground (I actually didn't know that pineapples grew out of the ground, but that only occurred to me later). We could hear the evening prayers from a nearby mosque, and it was all very relaxing. Suddenly, I was struck by how strange all of this should have seemed to me, but didn't. When one first enters a new culture they look at everything and everything seems curious. I have been here long enough that even things I've never seen before don't take me by surprise. The part stranger still was that it was not as if I was bored by what I was seeing, it was more that I just accepted it, and felt comfortable with it. J. looked at me and asked "what are you thinkng about?" That sort of took me out of the moment and I told her that I didn't really have the words to explain just then. I still don't.

The blackouts are nightly at the moment. Apparently they are regimented. We can expect to have no electricity from around 7 to around 1 in the morning. It's unpleasant. I expect things will change in a few more days, but am not too sure about that.

Back to the guest blogger question. I cannot blog everyday and my Mondays are nearly always unbloggable. Thus, others can certainly make their case to contribute to this on that day, over the holidays, or any other day. I am accepting not applications or resumes, but thoughtful comments and outright begging. I must warn that the pay is minimal and the working conditions are but a notch above those at WalMart. There are no observable benefits.