Dreaming of a snowman.

WELL. It turns out that there was a serious miscommunication about the location of the primary tanks, which are a full kilometer from the well - SLIGHTLY problematic. So now instead of being a $2000 project, it's looking like a $6000 project, just to get the well we already have connected to the system and, you know, functional. Otherwise all we have is a very expensive hole in the ground. Sigh. I am meeting with the hospital officials today to try to work out a plan, but even in the best case scenario, I'm expecting about a $2000 deficit, and I simply don't know how we are going to fill it. We're appealing to various prior donors now, but I'm just exhausted and dispirited by the whole thing.

Between my co-sponsor backing out, the tripling of the cost, and a really frustratingly cold and oddly condescending reception from a big donor, yesterday was not going to well - and then I was running late for what should have been my first class back at Tamiha (more on that soon), and tried to get a taxi - only to be quoted completely and utterly outrageous prices, all due to the fact that I'm white. I ended up feeling so exhausted and taken advantage of that I broke down in tears in the Kilala bus stop - surrounded by about a hundred tough African motorcycle and taxi drivers WHO I HAVE TO SEE EVERY DAY - and just got into a cab and went HOME instead. I've been trying so hard to do everything right, and I'm feeling so discouraged and taken for granted - even though I know the important people, like the mamas at the orphanage and the hospital staff and administrators, don't take this project for granted at all. Between Rezeki last week and this, though, I'm feeling really helpless. Good intentions are very nice but they aren't going to help these babies - oh, and by the way, over 2/3s of them currently have malaria because the mosquito nets we have are filled with holes, and no one has had a chance to put up the new ones WE ACTUALLY HAVE. It's the same with so many donations, we are so utterly overwhelmed just keeping up with the day to day care of the kids that systemic changes just don't get enacted, a cycle I'm trying really hard to fight.

So then I got home, in tears, to find that I was (of course) locked out of my room because I'd left my keys in the lock for the chicken coop at Nkoaranga. Then I waited three hours for Christine to get home with the extra key, walked into my room ready to sink into bed and relax, turned on the light and... immediately, literally one to two seconds later, the power went off. For the rest of the night. No hot shower, no movies, no phone charging. The fever doesn't take a break, of course, the fever was there to keep me company, but seriously? Really, Africa?

And. On top of everything else, there have been some serious shakeups within the Tamiha structure - including some serious allegations against the legitimacy of the organization as a whole - and in particular, my roommate Christine has borne the brunt of what appears to be a completely nonsensical vilification, at least from my end. The moral of the story is that several programs seem to be falling apart, and integrity is being seriously questioned, and I have so very, very much to do over at Nkoaranga that I am desperately tempted to just run away and avoid the controversy entirely. Which, because I made a commitment to my students, who I care about deeply, is not something I can do, as much as I would like to. So I'm trying to get up the will to work on this project that I've been really drained of enthusiasm about, and I feel like there is a very large elephant sitting on my chest and I'm not sure how to get him to move. "Tafadhali kwenda, Tembo, kwasababu unaniumiza." Nope, asking politely didn't work.

Right now I'm fighting the desperate desire to go home. Not to STAY home - I want to be here for the next three months - just to, you know, teleport out of here for a week or two to regain my sanity. I know there are those of you who know this feeling well - my cousin Heather, who lived and taught in Hong Kong for three years, or my cousin Melanie, who regularly whirls around the world as part of her job working with children from conflict-torn areas. I would like to check out of my life for a few weeks and be back in America and not have to worry about the electricity, and be able to drink the water from the sink, and have this damn fever go away, and maybe make a snowman.

So there are my needs. A hug, a snowman, and $2000. Not so much to ask!