Last Weekend

Hello everyone. I have some extra time to write, after just devouring pizza that was prepared for lunch at the office. Oh how I love pizza so very much. I apologize for not being consistent with my blog posts, but I'm a busy man taking care of business. We actually just had a 15 person church group stay at the guest house for a week, so that's what kept me occupied. Family you will enjoy this, we played multiple games of Mafia, and I represented like a champ (will someone get this dust off my shoulder(mom ask Amy to interpret that)).

Anywayz, last weekend I planned on using as a down weekend, you know, to hang out around the house, experience Kigali, or maybe get some reading done; but it turned about to be the exact opposite. I have titled last Friday as, "How Jim ruined my Friday in five different ways", Jim being another intern that I live with. Last Friday I had the day off of work and was very eager to see what the day had in store for me, but unfortunately Jim was off as well. Jim managed to single handedly destroy the entire day in these five different ways:

1. First I had awoken from a great night of sleep and anticipated a nice warm shower. Before entering the shower, I relayed the message to "JIM" that I would be occupying the shower for the next 10 minutes. I did this because, earlier in the week Jim and I discovered that if two people occupy two showers at the same time, the water flow turns into a cold drip, and the situation becomes very frustrating. "Jim, I am going to go get in the shower so wait till I get out before you get in", Ok Aaron, no problem. As I am a washing my face and enjoying my very close to perfect shower, the water comes to a complete stop. Immediately I am filled with anger and follow it up with yelling JIM, and then come to the realization that I am on the third floor and Jim is on the first. Very frustrated, I finish washing my face by cupping my hands together to create a bowl like structure, and begin splashing cold water on my face to rinse of the soap. I then cut my shower time early. In the first 20 minutes of my day, Jim managed to ruin a time for me that I thought was 10 minutes guaranteed of happiness.

2. After I share my feelings of anger with Jim and his actions, I recover from the shower incident and keep an optimistic outlook on the rest of my day. It is now around 8:30 now and I am ready to go to the market and pick up a few things. Jim then asks if he can accompany me to the market and myself, being the good christian that I am, accept. Keeping in mind that Jim is the slowest person ever, I then tell him, "Jim I am in a hurry, I have a lot of things to get done today, so try and hurry up. He responds by saying, Ok I'll be ready in five mintues. For a future reference for those of who interact with Jim back in America, five minutes to Jim is actually sixty minutes. So it is now 9:30 and Jim has managed to waste an hour of my day.

3. As Jim and I walk through town we come to the realization that were are getting hungry. We then pass a restaurant that is advertising burgers, hotdogs, and french fries. Having not had a burger for over three weeks we both decide that it would definitely be a spot hitter. After entering the restaurant I become weary that the burger might not be what we expect (in Rwanda American food isn't really American all the time). Jim then points out the picture on the menu that portrays a fat, brown, juicy, vegetable covered burger. Jim then assures me that the burger will be everything we want and dream of. Even though I am still a little skeptical I agree to stay, basically just to make Jim happy. So we both order our burgers. About 10 minutes pass and with our mouths watering, we see the burgers headed our way. The waitress then sets them before us and..........let's just put it this way, THE PICTURE LIED!! Not only was the hamburger the flattest thing I have ever experienced, but it was also bright red. And I do not mean it was undercooked red, the burger was well cooked, the meat was just red. Yes, red! I was right and Jim was wrong. MY lunch on MY day off was ruined because Jim insisted on staying.



4. Leaving lunch, still hungry, Jim tells me he needs to stop by the United States Embassy (Jim has an internship in the fall with the State Department and has to be fingerprinted). The embassy closed at 2 and it was now 11:30, due to a deadline Jim had to get it done by today. The embassy being only a five minute walk away, I agreed that I would accompany him. As we arrive I told Jim that I would wait outside while he took care of his fingerprints, thinking to myself, this can't take that long. So I wait......5 minutes.....10 minutes.....30 minutes pass by and it's hot out, people are begging me for money, kids are pointing and shouting Mazungu, and I'm getting irritated. After 45 minutes Jim pops his head out the door and waves his arm and yells, "I'm still waiting you should just come in". What? You've been waiting this whole time in an air conditioned building and NOW you tell me to come in? Thanks Jim. As I enter the embassy it is now 12:30 and I am almost sure that Jim will be done soon. So Jim patiently, and I impatiently, sit in the waiting room. A half hour passes by and trying to keep myself occupied, I decide to flip through a magazine. Then a half an hour turns into 45 minutes and 45 minutes turns into a hour and by this time I have every picture in the room memorized. After a hour in a half the person Jim is suppose to meet finally enters the room. It is now 2:00 and the whole process takes another half an hour, and there I sit quietly waiting. So from a supposed short visit to the embassy that started at 11:30, we ended up walking away around 2:30. Hmmmm.....I'll just leave it at that.

5. After we leave the embassy, Jim and I decide to go back to the guest house and catch a ride to a different market, hoping I will be able to get a few things done. After a few minutes of relaxation at the house Jim decides it would be a good idea to launch couch cushions at me. So as I lay there, half asleep, I hear a thud on the floor next to me. Jim has totally missed while only standing 8 feet away....Pathetic. In an attempt to protect myself from oncoming cushions I raise my legs to guard my body and this is when it happened. It was as it was in slow motion, I saw another cushion flying towards me and before I can reach out my hands and block it, the cushion hit me square in the ______! Figure it out? Yea so for the next 5-10 minutes I sit there in agony as Jim stands there and laughs. In this incident Jim not only ruined my, day but he also ruined future plans as well.

That is how he did it. Jim Single handedly ruined any chance of me having a down day. The funny part is on our way to the next market we ran into a language barrier with the moto drivers (moto's are motorcycles that you can catch rides on) and were unable to explain where the market was. After finding a translator we thought we had it all figured out, only to find ourselves 30 minutes later dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Good times, great oldies. Surprisingly though we were able to end our night very well. We met the two other interns at a pizza restaurant, where I was able to relax with a nice Kenyan beer and share my story with the other interns. This provided us with enough laughter to last us all dinner and a chance to finally RELAX!