so last week was a rough week. seems to happen that way. can't be just a rough day. has to be an entire week of misery. last week was that week. started off on monday with an attempted mugging. i was walking down the street at about 3pm, only 4 blocks from the peace corps office, headed to the pharmacy to get the meds that the pc didn't have in stock. i am strolling along, keeping a close watch on the purse, thinking what beautiful weather we're having when two guys come up from behind me. i hear them coming and i slow a bit and stand off to one side so they can pass me. they pass me but are walking very slowly so i have to slow my pace even more. then all of a sudden, they both turn at me and close around me. one grabs my purse while the other one tells me to give the man my phone cause he has a gun. i scream no really loudly and yank back on my purse, turning my body in the process. then i scream help. there are people around that see what is going on and i think this scared the muggers cause they just kind of stood there. some people called me over to them and walked me down another street, away from the muggers. a white man driving by in his car pulled over after seeing what had happened and offers me a lift back to peace corps office, a whole 4 blocks away.
once i get back to the office, i burst into tears. i was so annoyed with myself for taking a purse, for not putting my money and phone in my bra. living in small town bergville made me comfortable, thus allowing me to let my guard down. unfortunately in south africa, you can't let your guard down. when you do, assholes try and mug you.
a couple days later i was back in safe bergville. i was proud because i had braved the jo'burg taxi rank and made it home safe and sound. little did i know that i had carried some friends back with me- bedbugs. the first night back in my hut was normal, that is until i woke up in the morning and had bites around my waste and on my feet. thinking something must have been in my bed while i slept, i got dressed and went to work, thinking nothing of it. when i went home that evening, i shook my bed off and decided to switch my pjs, putting the ones i wore at the hostel in pretoria back on. i went to sleep thinking the bug was gone. the next morning, however, i woke up to have bites all over my back. it looked like chicken pox all over again. disgusted and itchy, i dragged all my blankets outside and hung them on the line. then i sprayed my bed, my sheet and my blankets with Doom, the kick ass bug spray. not knowing whether it was bedbugs or fleas, i scooped up shobi shobi and covered him in two kinds of flea killing medicine. finally, i gathered up all of the clothes i had slept in for the last two weeks and took them to the washing place in town. when i returned home, i had purchased another can of bug spray and i again attacked my blankets and sheets. i also covered my mattress in Blue Death, a white powder used to kill all kinds of critters. even with all of the chemicals, i was still scared to sleep in my bed, so that night i slept on top of all the covers and froze my ass off.
i am still not sure what was attacking me in my sleep but i think it was bedbugs. after talking with one of my friends who stayed at the hostel with me, i found out that she too had some sort of bites or rash on her body. it seems as though i picked the bugs up from the hostel bed and carried them all the way back to kzn with me. i believe that i have the problem under control now since the bugs weren't actually in my bed but on my clothes. occasionally i still get a bite but i am hoping that it is from something flying around in my room and not crawling around in my bed.
so after the stressful week, i decided to spend my weekend in my village, relaxing and watching sex and the city. my host family invited me to the opening of the new baptist church in my village on sunday, and although i have avoided church so far, i decided that it was about time that i make an appearance. the service was normal. lots of singing, lots of talk of god. afterwards there was lots of food, followed by lots of dishes that i helped the zulu women wash. then i brought out my camera and let the children take pictures for a couple hours until the batteries died. i actually had fun. that's right, heather had fun playing with the church children.
but the strangest thing for me was the going from watching sex and the city to sitting through a church sermon about sinning. my life here is so full of contrasts and contradictions. i am constantly being pulled from one direction to the other. sometimes it wears me out.
ok time to go flip through the Qur'an that someone gave me. :-)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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