Triste - 5/19

May 19th
It’s now raining season which is nice. I’ve been here for 3 months now. We arrived in February which is considered the hottest time of the year. So we are happy for the rain.

And I just had my first big frustration period. So this is my ranting outlet.

Doing things here is quite a task. Just a simple task of going to work in the morning, can take a 20-30 mins in planning. Who is going where, is everyone ready, why are we waiting for one person to finish combing their hair. So many things break down in mid stream without a process of how to fix it. For example, a simple task of printing can become a 2 hour affair when the printer is not properly aligned. Where is the technician!!!!

I also live with other people, sometimes only 3, and other times 6 at a time. The constant flux of people coming in and out of the guest house is straining. I have no anger towards the visitors, more so the flux. It's hard to have a visitor every week.

I’m trying to see the good side about this. This could be an opportunity for me to see how I deal with these situations. Where can I have such an experience? Really no-where and some may say, why do u really want it. But somewhere in there, I think there is a learning opportunity. Haven't found it yet!

But a week after I got so frustrated, I learnt something about myself. As an independent woman in her "late twenties", don't laugh... I have been doing so many things by myself and depending on me most of the time. Since we live in a group, there are some things that I am powerless over; what food we eat, whether I can get go out some evenings, the level of security we have in the house etc etc. Most evenings, we didn't have access to transportation, and it's not safe to go out by oneself. So we'd stay home with the collegues that we just worked with for 8-10 hours. Nothing against them, but it's like having turkey sandwich every night of the week. And I had this growing frustration that surprised me. I really found it difficult to trust other people to decide things for the house (including me in the picture). So that was very interesting for me to watch.

This situation continued, like a drip that digs a deeper hole every day. And I waged wars sometimes to change one thing or the other. But after a while, I kinda gave up. And I think that was actually a good process. Learning to just trust the process and trust in something bigger than oneself.

When I sit back and look at how upset I got sometimes, I just laugh. It is really funny sometimes. So as a pat on the back, I'd like to give myself a break!