This week I’ve felt like somewhat of a disgruntled cubicle worker. Staring aimlessly at a computer screen while the sun is blissfully shining outside. Half-heartedly answering emails on autopilot. Looking at the clock over and over again (still having to calculate military time embarrassingly slowly--even enthusiastically changing for soccer and turning off my computer to the bemused attention of my coworkers, before realizing it was only 4:30 pm.)

It’s so hard to know that the choices we make in life are the right ones, or that we’re doing whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing. I think the real challenge is summoning patience, and being at peace with the process. It's challenging to experience these transition periods that drag on and on, leaving restless minds like mine obsessively asking, “what’s next?”

...

I'm trying to figure out how to get more skincare products down here, since I've discovered it moves like crack rock. That, and it'd be a pretty wonderful supplement to my income... considering that last Friday I sold my entire monthly salary worth of product in 3 hours. It was insane. I felt like Mary Poppins---pulling cleansers and moisturizers out of my bag, explaining why each person could benefit from such and such item, as the women snatched them, wide-eyed and drooling, asking for more. My precious...


Getting product to Africa isn't easy; we are far away. It's hot. (why that's relevant here made sense to me when first wrote this.) The stuff is heavy, and airlines are Draconian about baggage weight and allowances these days.... Hence the frenetic demand among the women I've met with down here.


And yet, the opportunities to get product to women or expand my little business abound... I just need a partnership from the company, and some way to actually grow it in East Africa. (i.e. have the ability to have product shipped directly here, be able to recruit and share the business with other women.) Case in point: 

• I've been asked by the main coordinator of the local drama group, CADS, to do all the stage makeup for their production of Oliver Twist.
• A local South African hairdresser is holding a fashion show and wants me to be one of the makeup artists backstage. 
• Tomorrow I am working as one of the makeup artists for a different fashion show for a pretty big name here, Sylvia Owori.
• I received a Facebook message from a new friend that her friend's bag was stolen by a boda guy, and all of her makeup was in it, so she needs to get together with me to replace it. 
• Three separate women have expressed interest in holding makeover get-togethers with me and their girlfriends in the near future.

And then, from time-to-time, I sell a luxury safari. And then I go to the airstrip and kick an overly pumped-up soccer ball around scrubby grass and red dirt with 20-something-year old African boys as they shout at each other in Luganda. And then I ride my bike home, hoping the chain will stay on, and actually shift completely onto the gear-teeth for at least one segment of my commute. And then I ride my bike to work again, weaving through traffic, tuning out the city noise with my earbuds, getting all hot and sweaty as the Africans stare and remark upon the strangeness that is me.

And then I stare at the computer screen some more.... break mid-day for an authentic African lunch which always consists of beans and 80% starch.... stare some more. Maybe sneak in a blog post, or emails to friends, Skype with my dad or mom if they get online in the early afternoon... stare some more. It's a job, it's a mostly boring, office job. But at the end of the day, I am in Africa, and it feels like things are happening, even if I don't really know what they are, or will become.

Hopefully its not just some weird skin parasite moving beneath my skin that gives me the sensation of forward momentum. Sorry, that was disgusting, I have just become super paranoid recently, as strange red markings appeared on some parts of my skin, and my coworker mentioned that I must have bedbugs. (I really don't think I have bedbugs--but I envisioned bedbugs as I tried to sleep last night and that didn't help the process, at all.) Not to mention that simultaneously, my navel ring got super infected one day this week for absolutely no reason. (Way too much information, I know, but once again, you are choosing to read this.) Now let me be clear, I've had this navel ring since I was 11-years-old (I know, what was my mom thinking? but strangely enough, she let that one slide...)
and never a problem. for 17 years.

Then suddenly, in Africa, it becomes crazy-infected. I imagined weird bacteria and bugs jumping all over me in the night, since I spent until 2:30 am last Tuesday with my mosquito net down. The story is that I accidentally sat on the corner of the net right before bed, ripping it off its ceiling hook, and Ithought, "you know what? fuck it. I'm tired. the only way to reach the ceiling and re-affix this thing is by getting the wooden table out of the kitchen, clearing everything off of it, and dragging it in here, so I can stand on it and finagle this thing back, in my jammies, with no drape on the windows and neighbors watching the crazy muzungu do something else crazy" so I roughed it. And woke up, sweaty and scratching myself all over and pledging to murder every last mosquito that crosses my path. The moral of this post?

"If you think you're too small or insignificant to make a difference, you've obviously never slept with a mosquito"- Anita Roddick