Topic 1: Jobs for sale

My amazingly UN-technologically advanced Techno phone keeps spitting out unsolicited text message job offers:

“Food and beverage tutor diploma holder with experience”

“Cook required. diploma holder with experience”

“Field Officer required. Minimum diploma holder in social sciences,IT, or equivalent.”

“Catering instructor needed. Min.diploma/equivalent/years Exp in related field”

So many jobs, I can’t keep up. I wonder how much I have to pay to get one of those positions.

Richard’s phone isn’t doing that. Nor is Tim’s, or anyone else I’ve asked. Maybe I should give my phone to Betty; she’ll have a job in no time after she graduates.

Topic 2: Brain push-ups

I may not be keeping up with my exercises very well (sorry, Nicola, but we are walking miles every day.) However, my brain is doing language calisthenics here. Kiswahili in Nairobi, Digo in Muembe, Maa in Merrueshi, and now Kinya-Rawanda in Gashura, Rwanda, where we are hanging out with Tim for a few days, seeing him at work in his element (post to follow.) Next will be whatever dialect the Samburu speak, and then on to Lake Victoria and Luo. And don’t think for a minute that everyone in East Africa speaks Kiswahili.

By the time I have memorized hello, good afternoon, goodnight, how are you, I’m fine, thank you, it’s no problem, and praise God for Ramadan, in the dialect of the area we’re in, we have moved on to a new place and completely new language. The upside is that my brain is getting enough exercise that I might be ready to tackle Spanish II when I get home.

Topic 3: Warrior IT

There is virtually no time to see and take in everything, blog, and sit and do that painting a day that I promised (especially since we have an early nightfall at the equator and dicey electricity after that in most places.) But my little paintbox is patiently waiting for me to pay it some attention. Once I am home and have processed all of this, I will see what comes out. Looking, listening, and seeing are more important now.

In case you are wondering about this veritable flood of posts the past couple of days, this outback town of Gashura, Rwanda is the first place I’ve been able to get good enough internet reception to download photos to the blog. My Maasai warrior hero Tom did an amazing thing with my iPad (shhhh, don’t tell AT&T.) We bought a phone SIM card (the same kind that’s in my Techno phone) which was twice the size of my iPad AT&T SIM, and he used a butcher knife to carve the thick, brittle plastic exactly to the size that would fit into the SIM holder on the iPad. So now I can get cell reception on the iPad at the same cost of a local phone. Brilliant!

Two more languages to go…..