Friday, June 22, 2007

In March one of the bridges that my bus has to cross in order to get to my village was somehow destroyed. I didn't think much of it since last year the bridge broke and it was quickly repaired. This time it took them one month to repair the bridge and all they did to repair it was to replace theparts that had broken and then set the bridge back in place. One week afterthey fixed it a large dump truck carrying a huge load of cement barely crossed thebridge and then the bridge broke and the truck fell down into the river with it.Still to this day I don't know how the driver survived. I am not for sure whois responsible for this accident since the government has provided money for a durablebridge to be built since it is on a road that connects two major cities but due to corrpution a much cheaper bridge was built and then the remaining monies eatenby the ones in charge of the project.
Within a few days the villagers had found out about the incident and peoplestarted visiting the site of the accident and stealing cement, parts of the trucklike the tires, etc. Within a week nearly everything worth value on the truck wasstolen.
It took them 2 months to rebuild another bridge and were are blessed that they finally built a durable bridge that will last! During those two months I dreaded going to town since it meant that I would have to take one bus from myvillage down to the wreckage site and cross the river (don't worry the villagersbuilt a nice little bridge out of bamboo to cross on) and then catch anotherbus that was waiting on the other side. The problem was that due to lack of communication many times the bus on the other side was not there which meantwaiting an hour or two for it to come. One time I was coming back from town and after an hour they told us that there wouldbe no bus coming for us and we would have to walk. My village is only about2.5 miles from the bridge but it was still a journey since I had to carryall the things I bought in town back with me.
My life has pretty much been uneventful since I have been on "winter" breakthese past few weeks. I have decided not to travel anywhere and justspend time at my village since I have already seen everything I wantedto see here. This means most days I have spent just reading (already onmy fifth novel now) or visiting my villagers. In August the PC is putting us up in a ritz hotel next to Mount Meru. Mt. Meru is the smaller mountain located right next to Mt.Kilimanjaro. They also have a safari planned for us which they arepaying for. This is our gift from them for being a volunteer. Now it is official that my last day of being employed by PC will beMonday November 5,2007. This means that I will fly home shortly afterthat date.

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