Little moments. Little Pleasures.

Saturday was a really good day.*

Like I have talked about before, it can be very isolating here. Since I spend most of my time in the compound or at work in the office my interactions have been very limited. I have not met a lot of people who frequent the dining hall who really are interested in having conversations or hanging out. My one co-worker did invite me to hang out with him and some others at the fútbol pitch on Saturday but I wasn’t sure about going. When I’m at the compound during the week I’m pretty much alone, and when I am at work my interactions with co-workers is limited. So, I’ve been feeling a bit isolated.

However, like I said, Saturday was different. My co-volunteer Beverly joined me in Yambio for the afternoon. One of the other hospital workers was headed to Yambio so they rode together from Nzara to Yambio. We went to the market and I actually had a little time to buy food and explore a little more to get things I would like. My favorite find was peanut butter! 

After the market we headed back to the compound. We wandered around trying to find the bar and canteen that is on the second, connected, compound to the one I live on. This second compound is very large and there are so many trailers and trucks, random paths, and other machinery that I have yet to figure out where things are.

After several failed trips down the wrong paths, we were able to locate the correct path and found the little bar and restaurant. We sat inside because the heat of the day was strong and inside there is air conditioning. We ordered food. American style food. The restaurant has all different types of cuisine from all over the world. We also got soda. It was a nice, little taste of home. The food isn’t like the food I get at home but it was good nonetheless.

Beverly couldn’t stay to late as her ride was heading back to Nzara. We walked a little after lunch and spent quite a bit of time talking about past travels and our different volunteer tasks and things were are doing. Beverly has done volunteering here before and has volunteered in different countries as well so she is a good source of information and guidance for me.

After saying goodbye to Beverly, a much too short visit, I headed over to the group of UN people that I had met the weekend prior. I rarely see anyone from this group during the week, everyone is busy with their work, but weekends are different.

We spent the next few hours hanging out together. It was very fun. One of the girls had refilled the inflatable pool from the weekend before. The guys were busy playing volleyball. Aubrey joined them. Rachel and I decided that the pool was more where we wanted to spend our time. After the game everyone else joined in the pool, except Douglas who had decided not to play volleyball and just chilled outside the pool. It was probably a good thing because 8 people in the little inflatable pool was a lot.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out. We played Cards Against Humanities and ate delicious food that some of the group had bought. The guys also cooked some meat for us on one of the open-air grills. It was a night full of laughter and good-natured teasing.

Sunday was a low-key day. Most of the UN group from the day before left on a week-long mission early in the morning. They do environmental work and were heading into the bush for a while. What exactly they were doing I am not entirely sure.

I did some work for my projects for CMMB during the day. I also lounged around my room and my veranda. I am trying to get some photos of the larger lizards near my veranda but they are so fast. I also had to do laundry (here that means a bucket and hand washing clothes before hanging a clothing line in my bathroom to dry them).

I was okay with a lowkey day. I was able to talk to my family back home and doing some of the research I needed to do on my computer on a faster speed connection was beneficial. I spent a little time interacting with others but on Sunday that felt okay. I also went out for a walk in the afternoon, when it finally started to cool off and that was enjoyable. It was a good weekend.

*I forgot to mention Friday night. Friday night was good too. I was heading out of my room to grab dinner and at the end of the path from my complex to the secondary gate was Douglas. He waited for me to catch up. He was headed to grab some street corn (corn cobs roasted on the fire). He invited me along and we went through the main gates.

Not far from the entrance to the compound there are people selling food and some other goods. We ordered corn and chatted. Turns out Douglas got to South Sudan just a few days after me. He is from Zimbabwe, here doing environmental work. We chatted and got the street corn. It tasted like really good popcorn. I loved it. We headed back in and chatted some more. Slowly I am making some friends inside the compound.