Whining

Dripping with mangoes

I write blog posts mostly when something funny happens to me, and I want other people to laugh with me about it. And also for the accolades. Bring on the accolades. But I do think that sometimes I paint a picture of myself that is not entirely accurate—what some people will do for accolades! The things I write about really happen, and they are funny, and I usually found them funny in the actual moment, which is why I thought to write about it in a later moment, but there are plenty of times when I am not in the mood to laugh about anything. And I’m cranky and whiny and bratty.  

I’m afraid that ‘cranky’ might actually be my natural state. I do not wake up in the morning with charitable feelings towards my fellow human beings. In fact, if fellow human beings have started thumping their loud music before 7am, I have been known to label them as things that you have to spell using all those weird symbol keys (if your grandmother reads your blog). If I can go for a long hard run, I can usually pump up the endorphins and come back happier. The difference endorphins make to my life and the lives of people who have to be around me is huge.

If I put all of that sugar in my
tea, it might make me sweeter.
Or diabetic.

For example, one non-run morning, I slept a little later (which should have made me happy because sleeping late is always good) and then went about my normal morning routine to come out and meet people under the mango tree and get started working.

“Good morning, my sister!” Lexon calls out cheerfully. And I hate him. Because, seriously, who DOES that? Who just greets someone with a smile that early in the morning? What kind of monster is he really?

The next day, after running, I go about my normal routine and come out to greet everyone with a joke, pertinent to each person, and a jaunty salute to Monday as he opens the gate for me. Life is beautiful. People are wonderful. I’m so lucky to be me.

See what a difference endorphins make for me? Here’s the problem though: I am getting old, and my knees and feet are falling apart. If I run everyday, I hurt myself and then have to take off many days to recover from the injury (dark dangerous days for everyone around me). My biggest issue these days is that I am ripping up my feet. I have blood blisters under several toe nails and I have sheared the top layer of skin off of both of my feet. Putting on shoes is painful. Then when I start running, I forget about the pain until I get home and my bloody socks are stuck to my feet. Then I wash quickly and forget to put on bandaids (even though I LOVE bandaids!) and my sores get infected.  And my parents are now SURE I might have to get my feet amputated.

“There was this guy we know,” texts my mom, “on Kalimantan, who got a small scratch on his foot and it got infected and they were only BARELY able to save the leg. They almost had to amputate it. You need to get to a doctor NOW. Seriously, how soon can you get to a doctor? Also, are you drinking enough water? Studies have shown that drinking enough water has cured diseases that people didn’t even know that they had, whereas people who don’t drink enough water frequently die horrible deaths and/or have their legs amputated.” (It’s a paraphrase of our conversation, but if there is one thing that my mother knows, it is that all illnesses are caused by not drinking enough water.)

Running with Dionn and Ovua. I ended up carrying
two notebooks, a pen, and a 1.5L water bottle (full)
but we all made it.

Anyway, no other morning athletic activity can provide me with the same level of life-saving endorphins as running can, and my old body is trying to reject this sport. Maybe if I do amputate my legs, I can then attach some bionic limbs that won’t wear out and I can run all the time everywhere without shoes. It’s a thought.

For now, you should know that my blog posts are also useful to me in that I sometimes go back and read them to remind me that the children that stole my solar-charging battery panel from my back porch are also cute little fatherless urchins that I love to play with.  The women that break our fence to come get water definitely do not need it as much as my friend Lajanti, but they probably need it more than I do, since I stocked up on water the last time it rained.  And the morning/midnight music lovers---No. They are horrible. They played an ABBA song.  I still hate them. Despicable people.

Some horrible kids who wanted
their photo taken.

But in the interest of full disclosure, before you give me accolades for my adventurous life, you should know that I’ve had a terrible attitude this week towards everyone. I’m selfish and mean about people sneaking into my compound to get water and ignoring me when I tell them not to break our fence. I wish for a return of war to our marketplace just on the off chance that someone’s boom-blasting loud-speaker gets cut into shrapnel by…other shrapnel.  And I have actually had a few moments of wishing I could trade mangos for gummy worms. And this week, I didn’t want the ladies taking our water.  I didn’t want to play soccer with the urchins. I didn’t want to wave back at the children screaming “howareyouhowareyouhowareyou” at me.  I didn’t want to live in a house with no water and only one blinking light and eat the same thing over and over again.  I didn’t want to hear the same music everlastingly blaring over the damn loudspeakers.  I didn’t want to talk to another community that gets mad at me for not being able to drill for water before December. I didn’t want to be here at all.  I wanted to be on a plane that will take me to the place in the world where a blue-eyed nephew can ask me to read him the story of “Poopy and the Bees” while a brown-eyed nephew tells me that he loves me “all the way out of the universe.” So basically, I want both the sisters, their men, all their progeny (the Blues and the Browns, I call them), and my parents to be all in the same place so I can easily visit them all together. And that place should be in Indonesia because I also want there to be ayam bakar and martabak in that place.  But that won’t happen because Indonesia is inconveniently located and airplane tickets cost too much.

Repent cuts up mangoes
for me because I'm not very good
at it, and I am a princess.
And because he is the nicest guy
in all of Mundri and Greater Equatoria.

Anyway, there you have it. The Truth will out: I am a cranky, snobby, selfish war-mongering person who doesn’t fully appreciate mangoes as they deserve to be appreciated.  They say honesty is good for the soul (I think they do anyway), but is it? I hope you can find it in yourself to love me anyway, and never smile at me before 11:00am on non-running days.

And the moral of this story is that there isn’t one. I’m still cranky because it’s still this week that I’m writing this. 

And don’t worry about the accolades—I don’t really deserve them anyway.  Not this week for sure, and probably still not by the time I actually get to post this.

Clearly I am miserable. And my life is horrible.
Don't smile at me.