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Just a Ramble on Systems

In the Kenyan news today:

"The Nakuru Municipal Council's fire engine arrived at the scene more than an hour after the explosion," said the newspaper, adding that Molo itself has no fire engine.

And I was so surprised when the same thing happened in Kakamega in 2002 or 3 ...

A fire broke out in the employee housing of the guest house which shared our entry lane. I was the first person besides our askari (guard) not living in the tiny shacks to notice the fire (up even then at 2 a.m.and startled by the light dancing outside my high window). I roused everyone in our house and, in our nightgowns, we fought the fire until our plastic pails melted into colanders sprouting water. We knew we could not save the houses but we were trying to prevent the fire from spreading to our building which was hot to the touch.

A crowd gathered at the gate, and told us we were fighting a losing battle. We didn't give up. I phoned again for help.

A fire truck finally arrived hours later. It had been dispatched by the Mumias Sugar factory. When they tried to access the well on the guest house property the technology failed. (They had already been refused water from the Kakamega source.)

I was astounded that there was no public fire protection, but of course I shouldn't have been; almost everything practical in every country I have been in in Africa is done by the people themselves.

Just as garbage is burned because there is no waste disposal system, and roads remain pitted by cavernous holes because there is no roads department, so too fires are extinguished by the people themselves or not at all.

That is not to say there is a dearth of bureaucracy. No indeed. Bureaucracy flourishes there ... and is an impenetrable morass requiring hours, sometimes days, of waiting. It helps to always travel with a novel and a journal in your backpack. I haven't dealt with all of them but the post office, the courts, the police station, the office that dispenses documents like visas and replacement ID all operate with vaying degrees of inefficiency fueled for years by bribery. After the fire, we ( a Kenyan friend who lost everything in the fire and I) refused to pay a bribe, and spent days in the local police station watching policemen sharpen pencils and drink tea.)

In contrast the hospitals which are so short of medical personnel and all supplies that they require patients to come with family members to ensure that they are bathed and fed, are models of efficiency.

The schools too are remarkably competent given the obstacles they face. And believe me, navigating their intricacies is an experience, especially if you are representing children without money.

But it is the purely practical things that just don't get done at all unless individual people do them.

And Africa is not unique. I saw tenants in Mongolia who were repairing sidewalks because it would not have been done otherwise.

I guess the only time we here in Canada experience a bit of that particular Third World reality is when a strike disables our buses or snow plows and we are forced to rely on ourselves and our neighbours.

Living out here in my hermitage I am getting used to the idea that I have to arrange road plowing and maintenance and I have now realized that the only way my garbage will get collected is if I make sure the road is easily passable. I know that I have to rely on myself for water and sewage disposal, and I have to walk a half kilometre to get my mail. There is no regular public transportation here. All of this is awkward, expensive and time consuming but I find it easier to deal with those realities than with the failures of the medical system here in the Outaouais.

On the topic of my procrastination:

The file is proving too big for dial-up. I am going to have to re-think how I post it.

Death by Tea

I murdered my keyboard yesterday morning while posting the whole novel to the writing blog ... I wasted a few hours trying clean up the mess and resuscitate the poor thing but have not been successful. The a and @ keys have gone into silly mode. Have you any idea how often you use those keys???

So ... I am hunting and pecking on my laptop while standing up downstairs

A friend is getting rid of an old keyboard and a back-up hard drive and offered them to me. If I can start my car I will be picking them up today.

Little news ...

...a good birthday weekend with Marta and Henry ...

...the roofer has shoveled the snow off the roof and is stymied by the problem which should have been solved by the ice shield, the raised ventilation and the extra ten inches of insulation all done last last summer. he thinks it is a design fault ... back ionce again to the original builders and their incompetence. The builder changed the architectural plan of the roof ... but the architect made the first error ... and neither of them dealt with it before it was too late.

... the whole manuscript of Explosion is now posted on the Oma-writes blog.

I hope I will be back to my familiar computer tomorrow.

Cheers all.

Happiness is Unbloggable

November 25, 2008
Some things are just not bloggable ...

I am pretty open about what I consider bloggable ... perhaps too open for some tastes. Menopausal symptoms and other details about aging, minutiae about felting projects and doggy clients, and my weather updates, for instance, may be too unpleasant or too boring to warrant posts. I do, however, lead a pretty tame life, and if I am to blog, it will be about what is in my own restricted world, a world that shrinks each year.

It occurred to me yesterday that my interests have changed considerably since I moved to the lake ... blogging ... dogs ... cooking and baking ... felting and knitting ... and raising healthy house plants. I have never raised healthy house plants before and this is my first blogging experience, but animals have always made me happy, and the other housewifely pursuits are all reminiscent of the things that gave me pleasure during the most contented time in my life ... when I was living in an old school house in the country and raising children. But I am discovering that happiness is not very bloggable.

I won't be blogging about my new love interest because I have no idea where that is going, and that is about the only interesting thing happening in my life. I feel a bit like the woman in "You've Got Mail" every time I turn on the computer, and it is fun to feel as if my sap has begun to flow again. But I won't blog about that ... at least not until he becomes a fixture in my life ... and then he will probably be one of the boring things I blog about.

Old Tango went home yesterday and I feel as I always do when a dog I like leaves ... partly relieved of the extra work ... partly sad because he became part of the family for a short time. I have received a few inquiries about sitting during December and January, and my pocketbook will certainly be happy about that. Kenya will be too. They are all young dogs who will play with her: a 7 month old Bernese, another 3 year old Bernese, and Remi, the Golden Doodle pup and her best buddy. We get to meet Maggie the three year old Bernese on Sunday afternoon.

I have finished four pairs of felted slippers: two for adults and two for children. I like three of the prototypes and have learned quite a bit as I have progressed. One thing I have learned is not to use the bootie pattern again. It makes a wearable slipper but is knit on too small needles and I don't like the way it felted up. Sort of bloblike in appearance. I will post a photo as soon as my dial-up connection allows me to. I think the dog geegaw saves it from being tossed aside as just too ugly. I am going to cut inner soles for it so that it has more body, but I will wait till I have Max's feet here to do that.

Today I will shovel the new snow, go for a real walk with Kenya and finish up the leg warmers. And maybe I will discipline myself sufficiently to finish Max's striped sweater. I should because tomorrow I am going to buy more wool and then it will be even harder to finish up the tedious work of sewing in threads. It is always much more exciting to start a new project. I can't make any more slippers till people send me their footprints ... but I do want to get started on tea cozies.

Two Susans

My second daughter was due today but since she had already arrived a week before, this day fifty years ago, was probably just another day after another sleepless night and no more bloggable than today. Sorry ... I wish I could summon up something more exciting for you.


Well, now ... what to write about? I am writing but it would be really boring to blog about writing!

Sarah and Remi were here yesterday morning. She brought some wonderful baklava and we had tea before heading out with the dogs to the logging road. Kenya chased sticks into the stream that runs under the bridge, and wrestled and bounded after Remi. Both dogs came home exhausted, dirty and happy. Sarah and I ate stew with colcannon for lunch. Yummy.

In the afternoon I swept and mopped up dog hair (Kenya's ... Remi doesn't shed) and did some writing.

After supper I watched The Killing Fields (one tough movie), took Kenya out to pee, had a warm bath, swallowed my natural sleep remedy, and slept for two hours. I awoke, slept for an hour, and drifted back to sleep, waking at one hour intervals ... again. I was perfectly happy all night long but I think next time I go to the pharmacy I am going to look at their homeopathic relief for hot flashes. I would really prefer to sleep during the night and be fully awake all day.

I have been writing a piece about how moving out here to the lake has changed my perspectives and my life. It is far too long and rambling and is ready for a first edit. I had intended to do that today, but instead, it will become part of tomorrow's plan. Today is my only chance to see the work of a sculptor Tammy found. Susan Valyi works with wood, bone, metal and soapstone, and her work is being shown at the Lafreniere and Pai Gallery on Murray Street.

It is very easy to put aside editing for fun.

Hodge Podge

I have been busy for the past while, too busy to blog. Well ... not really too busy. More like too foggy to blog. Everything has seemed an effort. Maybe the weather? Maybe I am under it?

At any rate, today I am trying to get my life back on track, and that means blogging first thing.

Kenya continues to take her meds morning and night and is allowed out only under close supervision. That means more walks each day. Maybe that's why I am too tired to blog.

On Friday morning, I went to my second pottery class and loved it. After the first one where I produced several unrecognizable blobs I thought I might quit, but this one allowed me to forget everything and just let myself relax into the clay. I cleaned and burnished several of the blobs and began work on a coil dish. I doubt if these classes are to blame for my failure to blog.

It has been a more social week than usual, so perhaps that would account for my inertia. On Thursday Daughter #2 came for dinner with her new beau, and I invited friends on the lake who were moving the next day to join us.

Remi spent Friday with Kenya and me so that he wouldn't be underfoot during the move.

Saturday was the 40th anniversary reunion for Philemon Wright where I taught for 22 years.

On Sunday Pat and Mike came to do jobs around the house that would have been done incompetently or not at all. Now my towel holders in the bathroom work, I have wooden blinds installed in the den, and a shelf hangs securely in the front hall. When they come, they always bring skills, tools and irreverent laughter. Pat has been able to make me giggle since he was fifteen and in my grade ten English class.

Maybe I am simply exhausted because I am sleeping so little at night.

I spoke with a group of sixtyish teachers at the reunion. I mentioned not sleeping and they chorused. Oh, hell, who sleeps? If you put all the sleepless hours menopausal women spend tossing and turning to work on the economy and everything else, millions of women hours could be put to good use.

That reunion was an experience. One teacher greeted me with a question, "What books are you reading?" One of those questions you dread. Not it would have mattered what I answered because it was merely a springboard from which he could launch into a book review he'd prepared specially for this event. I expect he greeted all English teachers with this question. I escaped to the wine table.

An English teacher I knew well for most of my career greeted me with the news that she had just returned from a trip to Stratford. Only $650 and that included three plays, so really a deal. I found it hard to be enthusiastic, and mentioned that Stratford had lost a great deal of money this year, perhaps because $650 for three plays was likely beyond the reach of most people ... like me. She hurried away.

I met the first principal I worked with, now in his eighties. His memory was first rate; he gave me a large wet kiss in greeting, and told me he'd done me a favour once and had said he'd take a kiss for payment some time. Then he laughed and said it was a good thing he hadn't collected while we were working together.

Near him sat the school nurse who now uses a cane. She retired just a couple of year ago when the hip made it impossible to work. I think she is about the same age as the principal, and, like him, she still has all her wits about her.

One of the retired school librarians said he hadn't used his brain since he retired nearly fifteen years ago and is a much happier man as a result.

A very dear old friend, a phys ed teacher who has bone cancer and is in constant pain, said they'd discovered a lesion in the skull, and he likely would become even less articulate soon. I suggested that perhaps it would just make his conversations a little airier. I wonder if I would be able to joke if I were in his situation. Would I even bother to make the effort to come to something like this reunion?

This week I will be looking after a neighbour's cat and will have Tango, one of my favourite dogs, boarding for four or five days. I will attend another pottery class, and Marta and Henry may come for the weekend. It is shaping up to be a good week. And now I am off for the first of the day's dog walks.

Fields of Diamonds

"You are, at this moment, standing, right in the middle of your own 'acres of diamonds.'"
Earl Nightingale 1921-1989, Syndicated Radio Announcer and Author

I think we are, all of us, standing in our acres of diamonds. I know I am.

My acreage is certainly a treasure, and I write often about the joy of being a hermit here, but Lois told me the first time she met me after reading Gone to the Dogs for a few months that I wasn't a true hermit because I liked people too much. She is right. I have family, friends and neighbours on the lake without whom life would be lonely and sterile. A lake, a mountain and a dog are wonderful, but I also need human companionship.

My blog has brought other people into my circle of friends, and they are some of the diamonds. I am thinking of Barbara who now reads every day to see how I am, offers advice on dealing with a bruised buttock, and sends me a piece of her newest art. I am thinking of Eveline who is reconnecting after 30 years and from half a world away. I am thinking of Erin whom I hardly knew till we began reading one another's blogs.

This week has brought me incredible generosity from family and friends. I don't want to embarrasss anyone, but four people have done things for me this week that leave me without words to thank them properly. On each occasion, tears came before words.

Thank you all for being diamonds in my fields.

Comments Again ... and a day's plans ...

Looks like I may have re-enable the screening of the comments. That last comment did not come from a girl in Kenya. Weird way to get your jollies, eh?

A beautiful day here at the lake ... brilliant sunshine and mist steaming off the surface of the water ...

I have no "must-do's" today so I think I will likely wash the floors I swept and mopped yesterday, work on the mess below, transplant some more lilies, and throw sticks in the lake for Kenya. Or maybe I will just go for a walk in the woods with Sarah, the dogs and a trowel and see about digging up a transplantable root of the witch hobble.

We can use one of the many plant pots littering the area where they had a marijuna grow-op in that part of the woods. All that is left are the mounds. Whoever had the plants left a helluva mess ... empty bags of fertilizer, plastic plant pots, and a length of hose to bring the water from the stream. It looks as if they grew only a few plants for their own consumption, certainly not a major production. Kids? Aging hippies? Dunno.

Comments

I have disabled the moderation which I enabled when I began to receive spam. I hope it makes it easier to comment. It will at least make it easier to read comments as they are made, and I won't receive so many notifications by email that I become confused.

I cannot comment on Erin's blog and I cannot read the comments on Kerry's. I am not sure whether that is a fault of my dial-up sluggishness or something to do with their blogs.

I am still feeling my way around here.