Friday 28 July 2017

What Happens Here…

Butters, who often self-identifies as a delicate flower with all the arrogance of a young white American male, had long worried me with his penchant for standing with one hand supporting his fractured rib.  The thought of the long (but mainly smooth) drive to and from our retreat location added to this worry.  Luckily, Butters is strong (and usually silent – except about stupid things) and he (along with Carrottop) even managed to catch or recover my truly miserable Frisbee throws – despite looking like Napoleon caught in a nightmare of taking a left turn at Albuquerque on his way to the Battle of the Waterloo and finding himself in swim trunks in the middle of a lake.

Upon arrival at the border, he introduced the topic of our water situation, which is his equivalent of retirement planning.  I’d naturally been thinking about this for weeks (especially since Timbit was due to return from her vacation soon) and had some ideas, but Butter’s involvement at this stage was truly a sign of our mental compromises as roommates.

At home, I quickly revised every good opinion I’d ever had of him, ever, in the history of all time.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

What Happens in Rwanda…

Truthfully speaking, I’d been worried about this retreat.  Not only because I was to be presenting on leadership in French (an unholy trinity of detestable things), but because I’d disputed African solidarity with my African teammates and... it hadn't gone over well.

Android that I am, I tried to broach the topic; my teammates avoided it because of a human desire for connection and avoidance of confrontation.  Now, if I thought that a friend working in international humanitarian aid in a missions organization was racist, I would probably have tried to discuss her beliefs with her, but maybe that’s just me.  In reality, I know that my teammates were probably joking a little bit, but… I can’t.  I get jokes – I do; this is the one reason I wouldn’t diagnose myself with autism or Asperger’s.

Racism, sexism, corruption… these aren’t really jokes to me.  They exist, they can be hidden very well in the twists of the psyche, and they destroy people and lives.

This is not funny.

Tuesday 25 July 2017

Defeating the Leopard – Part III

I found more notes from the seminar with the wonderful expert on sex- and gender-based violence.  I think I’d decided to skip them because I was tired of myself idolizing the speaker, but then my computer broke down and I was finally forced to read an informative book on Congo’s history that Butters had loaned me many, many moons ago.

In light of those notes, enlightening passages from the book, and arguments I’ve had with myself and basically everyone around me, I thought it was important to  rage fruitlessly  outline my thoughts and feelings around the state of this world.  Remember that my tribute to the speaker is reflected in the use of her words as much as possible.

Monday 24 July 2017

Priorities

I am a month behind - that's four posts in blog time!  This was scribbled towards the end of June – before our team retreat in Rwanda and the final collapse of my snowflake laptop.  I probably only had a vague grasp of what I was trying to say then and I certainly don’t remember enough to expound on it now – hopefully it’s mostly English…

Life never goes as planned.  This means arguments in which I try to convince myself that I'm not neurotic (I lose).