Things are going pretty well. Doing lots of science. I think the best way to enjoy yourself in situations like this is to have something to focus on.
Yesterday I had a distillation apparatus set up in order to make distilled water for the chemistry WASSCE exam. We can probably manage with regular well water (it's fairly visibly clean, but I imagine it has lots of salts in it) but yeah it sounded fun to make a distillery. I have lots of fun with all the fancy glassware I have. Every 'experiment' I do has the students pretty interested, and I am usually happy to explain things and satisfy their curiosity. It's a shame this lab has gone to waste. Like I've said before I think those Germans must have thought they were going to do publishable research here or something. The only thing I don't really have is butane for the bunsen burners, but I plan to buy a tank the next time I get a chance.
The students were so interested in the distillation apparatus (it looks pretty cool) that they wanted to present on it for the L&DS (Literary? and debate society). So we took it outside to where the L&DS was going to be and got it set up. I had one of the students go buy a couple packet double punch (http://babygotsauce.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/pouch-e1332905621395-224x300.jpg). Everything went pretty smoothly, but it was a little bit windy and my tiny alcohol burner was struggling. Fortunately, the apparatus was dripping the alcohol during the presentation. The student is really good and knows a lot but sucks at presenting. That is kind of frustrating for me. So we made super concentrated (~160 proof I think) double punch rum in front of the whole school. It was so concentrated with alcohol it evaporated in your mouth and was really terrible. Double punch is bad enough as it is. The flavor was more soluble in alcohol apparently, so it was just stronger (worse) than usual packet liquor. I had the students take the equipment back to the lab and the solution was gone by the time I saw it again.
I am trying to pick up again with the Themne. I really want to be speaking it. I can understand what people are saying half the time and sometimes can make decent responses, so conversationalism is slowly coming, but I haven't been working very hard with it lately. I have just been really busy. I plan to hit it hard this coming break. My initial goal was relative fluency by the end of May, but that is probably unrealistic, but not entirely. I just need to study more even though it seems like it doesn't help (but it obviously does).
It's stupid how 'clean' chemistry needs to be.
The Bangura family is building a new house with mud bricks. Mud bricks are kind of cool. I find it amazing you can build a house that lasts like 30 years with dirt. They seem to turn back into dirt eventually, unfortunately, but it doesn't cost anything besides labor. I spent a little bit of time shoveling some dirt yesterday. Every time I do any sort of work it's like, theatrical or something, which is kind of annoying. I enjoy doing work, since I have the energy to do it. It is another component of being a celebrity, I guess. I'm not expected to be doing the work the common man does, so when I do it's some sort of deal that needs to be recorded. It goes a lot to boosting my PR. People are like, oh, he understands how to work (oh tara mupanth)! and tell me to have somebody take pictures. Soon after starting people always ask if I'm tired, or offer to take the shovel or whatever. I say no, I gbilly!
While shoveling some man named Abu Kamara came up. He wears these huge super magnifying glasses that sit off kilter on his nose. He says he is a pharmacist and plans to come teach at my school next year. He seems to know science and he's sort of really cool. He's probably 40 or so. He wants to live alone near the school and open a pharmacy and do research or something. He says he wants to have a peaceful place to work on his projects. He wants me to be his research partner. I am really hoping this guy is legit because it would be awesome to work on a real project. I am hoping I can learn things from him. He went back to Freetown and said he'll bring back a paper he wrote. I don't know if he is actually published or not. I'm looking forward to working with this potential chemist.
I feel like the title of my last post has become more and more true: I just want to do science. I enjoy teaching, most of the time, but I love just spending time in my lab. There is so much work to do with it. Right now I am just trying to make a decent enough volume of distilled water to make clean solutions with. I feel somewhat blessed to be the person I am and to have this lab. I can't afford to not take advantage of this (very short) time. I am hoping when I leave the lab is well organized and again operational.
Today they were again working to build the mud brick house. MA (that little girl who is my titi, like Shebora, my bobo) has been wanting to make some butterscotch. It's really easy. I bought everything we needed: Condensed milk and 'butter' (margarine). After taking my time waking up, I went over to their house and one of the auntie's made it in a pot over a three stone fire with all the kids around. After it was cooked down I got to roll it into balls. It was incredibly hot and painful. I took a small portion and gave the rest to MA to sell. When people here make things to sell it seems like they don't do any calculations to find out how much they ought to sell things for. I'm afraid most of the time people probably lose money by making things to sell.
Not all of the condensed milk was used and there was a small bit at the bottom. I guess her father, I-Tal, dude I've talked about before (his nickname means he's tall), had told her to give the remainder of the condensed milk to him. People doing things like this piss me off. It feels like people are trying to get everything they possibly can out of me. He didn't ask me. He just assumed he could take it. The habit of people here is to take and ask later instead of the other way around. Before I went to make the butterscotch I had to buy some soap for Isatu, his woman (wife), to brook my clothes for me. He told me to come over and proceeded to explain that he was hungry, in Themne (oputo, I yema di!!). I understood what he was saying because I hear people all the time telling me they are hungry. I didn't really say anything because it's hard for me to actually express upset/resentment in a difficult foreign language. I need to learn to tell people I'm upset in Themne. So he assumed I didn't understand and said it in Krio. I think I just walked away. I do too much for that family, and their father is the reason they struggle to have money to eat every day, IMO. He smokes and drinks his family's money away. So I don't like him too much. He's just trying to exploit me.
Shebora and I fixed my bicycle yesterday. I don't know if I mentioned, but my rear shifter broke and so I've only had three gears for awhile now. It's been manageable but I stopped loving my bicycle so much. Fortunately for me, I have Issa Kabba's bicycle in my storage room. So we took the shifter off of his bike and put it on mine. It works well and I'm really happy to have gears again!
So, things are going fine. It feels like I could be doing more of course, but I feel like the community liking me and me feeling comfortable is probably already more than I could have asked for. I never have enough time to do everything I want to, but the things I am doing are just fine. It is a day to day process. Now I am going to go run.
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