Hi, Wishing that everyone had a wonderful Christmas with close friends and family.
Sorry this, post isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. The last few weeks have been quite chaotic and so many things have happened that I'm certain that my perspective on life even is completely different than it was even a month ago when I was home sick for 10 days contemplating why I took life so seriously, and problems so personally. Sorry we didn't send a card or even an email at Christmas to most people. It's been pretty much complete chaos here since mid - Nov (actually pretty much since I arrived in July) with life throwing curve balls at every second free breath. I haven't felt this out of sorts in a long time. I'm hoping things will slow down again in January as I'm not sure I can do another 6 months like that!
Of course it's end of the year so all the accounting and reporting etc needed to be wrapped up, and having taken over a week off, it was time to play catch up. Our truck for work was broken down but I in the office so didn't worry too much about others using my car and I figured Ben would survive if I didn't come home for lunch a few days. Then one day I got a phone call asking me to come get Ben from school, but I couldn't even though his school is a mere 4 km from my office, because I didn't have a car. The reason to pick him up? The school was being attacked by striking high school students. The reason for the strike and the strike actions don't exactly match (not sure they ever do really) but the reason was 12 years ago there was a journalist who was assasinated. The journalist, Norbert Zongo, was a friend of Loren's family, and was known as the "voice of the people". He was the editor of a paper call the Independent (which exists today but is much less independent then back then). Norbert wrote an article regarding the President's younger brother and his relationship to a well known singer, Aicha Kone from Mali. On Dec 13, 1998, Norbert's car was stopped on the road between Nazinga and Leo, I believe the same road on which we had our car accident last year. He and the 3 other people in the car were shot and the car lit on fire. What I didn't know was the Loren was slated to be in that car that day - Norbert had invited him to go wherever it was they were headed. But Loren was busy that day - life is fickle. That was shortly after I left to go back to Canada, and shortly before I returned to visit in Feb 1999. Burkina was stood on its head. Over 60,000 people attended Norbert's funeral, and on Jan 21, 1999, there was a dead city strike. When I came back, I found a very different place than I had left - people were angry and the air was very tense. Anyway, Ben got a ride back with our neighbours thankfully.
Every year now (although I don't remember it being this way so much last year), students strike in protest. However the strikes have degraded to them attacking other schools, trying to break down the doors and throwing dynamite - not large ones... so far into the courtyards . Not sure how that protests the political death of journalist exactly nor how it tells the government what kind of changes you want to see; it certainly doesn't relate at all to Norbert's principles of justice and integrity. So Ben was off school for a week until the protests were over. No one was hurt in any of the schools attacked, but I think a couple of protesters were injured or killed by police (remember these are children themselves probably not more than 16 to 18 years old) but it wasn't widely publicized. I worry that it will go farther and farther, threatening people's safety in a more general way.
Following that my boss came and we had an action packed week while he was here, including performance evaluations and goal setting for next year. I got a good evaluation and a raise, and we seemed to agree generally what my strong and weak points were. However, he seemed to want to make me responsible for the other manager's responsibilities which I'm not sure is fair or appropriate as the whole reason he's here is to manage things like stock levels and the technical side which I don't have any experience in. I think that my reluctance comes from the fact that if I'm going to manage it, I always feel like I have to really know what I'm doing and the amount of effort that it would take for me to be able to assess him, I may almost as well do it myself. In which case I'm not sure why I need him. He's a nice man and takes a lot of pride in his technical work. He falls down in many of the same areas I do - reporting, accounting, follow-up - so it's double the work for me to deal with it. That and he doesn't take kindly to a woman who is younger than he is telling him he won't get his bonus if he doesn't hand in his weekly reports.
I was also given sales targets and other performance things to live up to which I generally feel inadequately experienced to deal with. I'm seriously considering taking a management course part time - either here at one of the colleges or on line - not sure whether I want to do a BA/some kind of graduate certificate/diploma in business or if a more practical/tools oriented college course would be appropriate. Of course doing it here, in French would have the advantage of being more specific to my needs but also more challenging to do in French. Not sure that the added stress will be good in either case.
Then of course it being end of year, having end of year accounting and reporting to do. And learning about prep and delivery of Christmas hampers to clients, while sending them emails saying if they don't get their outstanding bills paid we'll have to cut them off. We have one client that owes us about $60k US (the equivalent of more than a months' worth of sales for the whole country), $20k of which is over 120 days. And that's just one. It's frustrating that they complain we don't have enough stock, very chicken and egg! It's all new to me and sort of frustrating.
Loren had to go to Niger with his dad to get ostriches for a training Clark was giving before Christmas, which they managed to find, buy and bring home. Unfortunately one died on the way home of heat stroke and probably being knocked about in a cage on horrible roads. Benny finished school on the 17th and I sent him off to Koubri for the week - Loren and I, and Derek and family were scheduled to head out there on the 24th for Christmas. However, the next curve came on Monday the 20th at midnight when Clark called Loren to say Carol was having severe abdominal pains, much like appendicitis but he had 15 visitors at the farm for training so he had to go back. Loren took Carol to the hospital that night and came home around 2am. At 5am he got a call which he didn't hear, then my phone rang. It was Carol in the clinic calling to say that her drip had run out, she was in severe pain and couldn't find anyone to help her. So I got dressed and raced over to the hospital. I found Carol down the hall from her room, moaning in pain and no one around. I went and found a doctor and nurse who got her a new IV and pain killers. She had an ultrasound which showed she had a strangulated hernia - a hole in the abdominal wall with a part of the intestine caught in the hole which was blocking anything from passing. Very painful and very dangerous. She was scheduled for surgery to start as soon as the doctor arrived (same doctor who saw me and Clark the year before, after the accident who told me that the contusion on my head was minor and that Clark was fine. So I wasn't exactly reassured.
So she spent from the night of the 20th to the morning of the 24th in the hospital - I spent from the morning of the 21st til the morning of the 23rd with her as she had surgery on the 21st.. Ben had been at Koubri with them and had to come home early, only to be sent off to stay with Myriam and her kids (Loren's brother's family). He had fun anyway - Ben plays with Danika (age 6) and Darelle (age 4) much like he plays with Bryanna and Gracie. He didn't want to come home. He was happy when he did come home and the girls stayed over too. Loren had to go to Fada to start a new job, and was busy getting all his machines, guys and supplies ready, and came home late on the 24th. Derek was in Boromo finishing up a job/starting another so also came back late on the 24th and Clark was doing a training for 15 people at the farm so came in to Ouaga the afternoon of the 24th. On the 23rd I could see that if someone didn't take control of Christmas it wasn't going to happen so I started planning for it to happen and pulled off the planning and execution - of 3 days (6 meals) at my house with 9 of us including sleeping arrangements, seating, decorations and presents when I hadn't been planning on being home at all - in 24 hours. Fortunately before she got sick, Carol had started some of her Christmas baking, Ben did a lot of it when she started to not feel well, so I was spared from baking at least. Derek and Myriam didn't stay over - we're glad enough to leave their kids with us!
She's on the mend now, eating a bit here and there but trying to keep it to juice/tea and soup - pretty hard during Christmas when everyone else is eating cookies and chocolate, cheese, turkey and beef tenderloin. But I think more than anything she's just grateful it doesn't hurt so much anymore! She's so much better she still managed to fuss and do dishes and play with the kids. It was a little crowded but cozy. And being in Ouaga was different than on the farm - it's cold and quiet on the farm. In the city, we were frequently reminded about how fickle life can be by the nearly constant sound of ambulances running about over the last 3 days.
We've grown in numbers at the house - was given 3 chickens for Christmas (3 french hens?), not quite sure what I'm going to do with them. I'm fairly certain they'll get eaten just not sure if it'll be by me. I'm quite certain I won't be the one preparing them! Although it;s a handy skill, not sure I want to practice just now. I should have had someone take a picture of me trying to get them untangled today (we have them each tied by one leg and they got intertwined), giving them water in a cup made from a cut up coke bottle, and feeding them rice. Quite domestic. LOL. Unfortunately one of them was tied in such a way that it couldn't get into the shade. It died of heat stroke, but we noticed soon after so prepped it for cooking - Loren took it with him to Fada.
It turned out well, as I think we were just grateful to be having Christmas together and all of us so stressed out and tired from the previous weeks, just happy to hang and not have anything specific to do other than eat, play games and watch the kids play. Even my house girl came over at Christmas to help with dishes and preparations.
On the 26th we woke up to find that one of our dogs had died in the night. Derek kicked her because she was being a pain as usual, and I think broke something in her head. I'm still pretty mad at him for it although Clark seemed to think she was actually sick. SHe had been sick all through Christmas, throwing up and just generally not being her usual annoying sucky self - she wouldn't come when called and didn't eat. There were no vets open on the 25th so couldn't take her. That night I think the other animals knew it wasn't going to end well as even the cat lay down with the dogs that night. Loren found it and took it away before one of the kids saw it. Ben was pretty sad but perked up when I said we could get another one. I'm more sad for the one that's left, she's kinda lonely now, so it would be good to get another one.
I'm in a state at this point where I kind of feel like life is short. I find it strange for example to hear Clark talking about a hip replacement. He's walking with 2 canes still, a year after the accident. He needs a hip replacement operation but was told that it would only last for 15 - 20 years. His logic is he should wait 10 years to get it replaced because getting a second replacement done at 80 will be hard. For a man with diabetes living in a country with a life expectancy of 50 for urban men (Clark is 60 this year), I found that logic really strange. I should live in pain and inconvenience when I'm younger and healthier on the hope that I'll see 90 with a still functioning hip?
Needless to say after all that I'm tired. All the men have gone back to their prospective job sites and Myriam has gone home with her kids, and back to work. Loren will be away for about 6 months coming home about once a month and us visiting about the same, seeing each other twice a month - which is more stress for me. Carol is staying here til the 30th for when she gets her stitches out - meaning I've been playing nurse - watching her diet, putting her eye drops in for her before when she couldn't sit up to see in a mirror, even giving her shots! Not something I ever wanted to learn in my life - it's harder than it looks. Ben will head back to Koubri with them until Sunday or Monday. School/work starts again on Tues. I think once we get back into routine it will hit me that Loren is away. Right now everything is still sort of on it's head.
Meantime, we are planning our vacation to France with my mom in the spring. There are still no definitive plans about staying or coming back to Canada. Given that staying will likely mean 4- 6months of every year trying to see Loren as he does a job in another city, this next 6 months may be very telling.
I finally got my new computer - it's a good one a Toshiba P505 with an i5 chip, meaning it's fast and huge - 18" screen. We have skype now too so we talked to my family via video on the 26th. I'm going to call my dad tomorrow on it. If you have skype, our id is lisa.zippy so send us an invite and we'll chat! I know from talking to my sister that I can understand why Loren doesn't stay in touch with his family in Canada (other than it's expensive by phone). Some how seeing them was good but it was sad too. I mean the real interaction in our lives is not there. The kids can see each other but can't play, my sister and I can talk but not hug or go do anything together - it feels quite artificial. It almost makes it worse - perhaps that's just the mood I'm in lately.
Life is fickle, and short. Your passing may or may not be noticed. What's sadder is those left behind. But ultimately, no matter how indispensible you think you are, others will move on and deal with life without you. And no matter how important you think that task may be, it'll get done even if you aren't there to do it.
I have a quote here from a book called Fit over 40 by Jon Benson
" while I've never been a control freak in the sense that I wish to control others, I most certainly wanted to control my own life, security, circumstances, health and destiny. ... control is the ultimate illusion. It does not exist in any shape or form, yet most of us desire some form of it. We are literally seeking a ghost, so it's no wonder we're disappointed quite a bit in life.
Someone may say, I can control if I go to work or not. No, you cannot. You can only make the effort to go to work. You may be involved in a car accident on the way to work, forcing you to go home orto the hospital. You may show up to find yourself fired - perhaps your whole department relegated to the world of downsizing. All things of true importance are ultimately out of our control. However, all things are manageable."
