When you look at it, doesn’t it make you want to shut the flippin’ door? I know. Me too.
I could quite easily complain that it’s because this is Africa, but “franchement” (frankly), it’d be the same in the U.S. In fact, my fridge then and now look pretty much the same…minus the tub of millet and the random pineapple. I can cook but, holy mother of Mary (her name is Anne and yes I know come across as a holy roller, but isn’t that the point?), is it hard to do it for myself. Sure, it may be hard to come across affordable protein here, but it’s not that bad. I have no excuse. And because of this, I know that Jesus loves me for He hath placed street food vendors all alongeth my road. The lifestyle of a bachelor is international.
Fo Shizzle.
In addition, I can’t sleep because of some anxiety due to massive amount of translating that I’ll have to start on soon. Oh, yes. Translations. After a year in a Francophone country, I’m going to have to start translating formal English business texts, into French. One would think that immersion for a year would have ameliorated one’s previous state of foreign language ineptness from, “I can barely say Bonjour,” to “Le programme sera enseigné pendant les soirs, plusieurs fois dans la semaine” but au contraire mon frère.
I just wasted 3 minutes on looking up how to conjugate the verb “to be”. You’re welcome.
My Togolese counterparts have the best of intentions, but they just don’t ever… make me feel stupid enough. They’re just… too gosh darn nice. No sarcasm intended. I know. “Why would you want your counterpart to make you feel inadequate? You masochistic fool,” you may ask. Well, because it’s true. Both of themJ. JK, but seriously, I am...both. Firstly, I would have rather had my counterparts correct me more severely early on so I wouldn’t make these ridiculous mistakes. Now, I practically have to circumlocute around my anus to try to say something that takes all of three words that I conveniently don’t know. Mistakes made, lessons learned.
You future Peace Corps stagiares, friggin’ do your Rosetta stone. Preferably past the “Bonjour! Je suis Americain!” section. Believe me, they know you’re foreign. Then again, that section’s useful because they don’t like the French. When you get here, you probably won’t either. Oh, if you’re Asian-American, you’re Chinese. Even if you say, “Je suis Americain,” they always have to add that you’re from China, so that sections pretty darn useless to us. They hardly ever interact with other non-Chinese Asians, so let it go. We’re the minority of the minorities (though most Togolese are familiar with Korea from the 2006 World Cup…hollaaa). For other than your own community and homologues, I advise that you be selective on convincing strangers otherwise. You’ll end up talking to every person on the road and before you know it, your whole day is gone trying to convince people you’re American. Most of the time they’ll just randomly say, “China” or “Chinois,” and stare at you. That’s it actually. Just that. For your sanity, know this. If you’re actually Chinese, you’ll be absolutely sure that you really are Chinese by the end of service. Shoot, even I think I’m Chinese now. Please refer to my "Les Chinois sont impermeable a S.I.D.A." blog entry for more info. Anyway, Secondly, we won’t go into my masochism here. I’m just saying I’m Catholic. Devout too. Who doesn’t like the occasional guilt trip to the confessional booth? JK again, but seriously. Who doesn’t? Watch out southern Baptists.
At any rate, I’m starting a “business school” with my homologue, Bernadette. This is the reason for the needed translations. Because texts for small businesses in French are hard to come by, and when they’re available, they’re expensive and scarce, I’ve decided to try to tackle this problem by picking and paraphrasing certain texts that are applicable to our entrepreneurs and translating them. Oh, yeah. That’s right. I’ve bit off a lot, but that’s okay. Because if this goes through, I’ll be begging you for money some point or anotherJ, so don’t pity me too much. Just a little bit would be nice. Our last meeting on Monday consisted of me giving her a one page rough summary of the organizational structure and procedures (which I spent close to 6 hours doing because it had to be, you got it, en Français), and her agreeing with everything that was on it. It made me self-conscious and a tad bit weary. I mean, I’ve been to planning meetings involving the e-board, and they discuss every option possible. Perhaps I’ll get the 3-hour meeting of my dreams when we take it up with the President, who knows. I just wish she disagreed with something. We even went as far as selecting the potential professors for the school, all within a 40-minute period. 40 minutes. Meetings in the States take longer than that. Anyway, I have another meeting next week with Bernadette to discuss the curriculum and the marketing strategy, so we’ll see.
I also met with my Bernadin (convenient names, I know),
yesterday regarding a meeting to be had with my tailors. A meeting to discuss another meeting. Gotta love that ish. Like the previous meeting I described, I gave him a 4-page outline of the meetings key points and he just said that it was perfect. I mean, at least a grammatical correction would have been nice. This should prove to be an interesting meeting, considering that this is the first time all the potential members will be present, instead of talking one on one with me. I’ll also be asking them to give up time in their own shops to work for a newly formed company. Ha. Oh, yeah, and they have to find their own start up funds. Double Ha. If an advisor in the States told me I’d have to lay down more than a 200% of what I made that year for a business plan I’ve never heard, I’d laugh too. I’ll have to lay down the Asian persuasion for that sucker to fly. We’ll see. Though there are complications inherent in this project, out of all three I have lined up, I have to say I’m most excited about this one. I’ll definitely fill you all in on how this meeting goes. Interesting is probably going to be an understatement.Anyway, my eyes are drying out and I’m sitting here wondering why Microsoft Word is underlining all my contractions in “grammatically incorrect” green. I mean, really. Give me a break will you? Maybe this is why I got a C in AP English. No no…maybe THAT’S why I got a C in AP English. That’s right. I’M ignoring your attempts to make me feel insignificant. Take that Bill Gates. You and your monopolizing, anti-competitive, pretentious, “I think you can’t speak English well, so I’m going to prove it to you by underlining crap in green, red, and ‘now available on Microsoft Word 2007, blue’.” software. By the way, thanks for the language/ research buttons under “review” available on the newest version of Word, Billie G. You really saved my tuckus with that. Oh, and spell check owns me. Fo rizza.
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