Bitterjug’s blog

Yesterday, the men came and re-alligned our satelite dish to point to a different satelite. Very interesting to watch them with the magnetic thing that tells them what the angle is and the thing that beeps higher when the signal strength is higher (getting warmer) and lower when they get further away (colder).
Then, when […]

Last night there was a bit of a bash in my house. Theresa and Katie the Peace Corps were there as was Jackson and Jackie from VSO. I cooked savory crepes and we all had a good natter until it was dark.
Standing in the kitchen at one point I could hear a sound from […]

That’s what I feel like.

For some reason Im carrying a lot of anger. Yesterday I forgot the first class — misread my timetable, probably subconsious sabotage — and had to be called by the principal. Embarrassing. And in response I arranged an additional lab class for4pm the same day. But nobody turned up. I […]

Yesterday was Peace Corps Pizza Party at Mark’s house. Theresa is a new PCV who joined the college at the weekend. I invited her to my home together with Katie, the PCV from Tala and Jackson, the VSO from Ngluni. We cooked “Italian Pizza Crust” from the Peace Corps cook book and I made passata […]

OK, [shudder], we’re back. What happened? I don’t know. Anyway its nice to be back.

This morning there was a dog in my garden. Thats not unusual, they come and steel stuff from the garbage pile. But this one was tied up! It was tied next to the garbage pile with a rope just short enough that it couldnt reach the garbage. There was a lot of yelping.

I wandered […]

Monday was Moi day. A while back Drew asked me, in an email, to talk a bit about the man, his presidency and how he is regarded by Kenyans. I wanted to do it on Moi day but we had no power. It seems so appropriate.

One of the other VSOs got a SMS from a […]

A big truck tore past me throwing up a turbulent cloud of red dust from the dry dirt by the side of the road. I wobbled a bit and gripped the handlebars tightly, but continued frowning at the small group of Kenyans who had been shouting something to me moments before:
“Beer where?”, it sounded like, […]

Last week I visited the secondary school near college and the headmistress told me, amongst many other things, that one of the factors that contributes to the current famine here in Ukambani is the fact that its hard to store grain because of the weevils. She said that foreign weevils from West Africa have come […]

The electricity has been a continuing source of amusement here lately, and lets face it, I’ve needed some amusement. Here are some samples:-

On monday,while I was teaching a Unix class, there came a series of loud bangs from the other side of the wooden screen that divides the lab. Teachers were running in all directions, […]