Day 4: Unsuccessful

Day 4: January 24th, 2013

Thursday morning, I went into work all gung-ho to get lots done.  But, alas, the universe had other plans for me….nothing I tried to get accomplished worked…I mean nothing! My printer wouldn’t work, I couldn’t get the internet to work, I couldn’t open files I needed, people I needed to talk to weren’t there…it was just one of those days. Oh well, life could be a lot worse!

So, after a morning of getting a whole lot of nothing done, the entire staff and I went to eat lunch at Comedor Susi, a local family-style eatery. Every Thursday, the kids leave early and we have lunch together and a meeting.  Since the kitchen still wasn’t ready, we all went out.  Most places here have a meal of the day and it’s the cheapest and freshest.  Menus aren’t that typical and there are usually just a few options.  Since we were a big group, Josh and I had arranged it the night before on our way back from the docks to just have one meal for all.  Everyone had fried chicken, except me—I had vegetables, rice, and beans.  It was pretty good; although by the time we got it (around 2pm) I was so hungry I thought I might eat the whole chicken, my arm, and someone else’s. 

After lunch, we returned to school to finish up the meeting and it went until after 5pm.  As we were finishing up, I noticed clouds and heard thunder and mentioned that it looked like rain. Everyone laughed and assured me it couldn’t rain because it wasn’t rainy season. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, it was raining!  I was really glad for my short 1-minute walk home since it was raining and it was the one day I had brought my laptop with me!

The trail from school to my house is a dirt path with lots of rocks and boulders aligning it.  As I walked, I crossed paths with another guy who decided to go up and around me a bit.  While doing so, he knocked off a giant rock from someone’s retaining wall onto the back of my ankle.  It sliced it open and hit me right in the Achilles so that I had to limp home, bleeding, and carrying my cargo.  I was a sight!  Luckily, Don Lucas, the hotel owner of the property that my house is on, had a band-aid so I was all right. 

Type of rock that fell on my achilles. 

I ended working at home that night until about 11pm.  Fell asleep and then woke again at 3am, not able to sleep again.  So, I decided just to keep on working and was able to finally understand a lot of my new job.  Until then, I had just had information spewed at me and didn’t have time to really process or retain it.  So, after a rough start to the morning, at least I ended the day (albeit technically the next morning) with some success.