"Alexander and the..."

Well I succeeded in buying seeds today, but everything else was a giant bust.

As the Judith Viorst book goes this was a "...terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

1. After the guy came to the balcony to mix the dirt he just left a bag of dirt on the balcony and took off.  I will be mixing it later.

2. The US Embassy ran out of money. Yes, the US Embassy ran out of money.  WTF?  So I have to go back tomorrow.  A large portion of the small amount I was allowed to withdraw today was in 500s.  Let's just say that 59,000 in 500's is a heck of a wad of cash.

3.  I was informed that the two boxes that were shipped to me on the advice of someone at the Embassy will likely never arrive.  I was told that "it's possible" they will arrive, but not to count on it.  Apparently letters are possible via the post, because there's nothing to steal, but packages arriving are more like winning the lottery.  The woman today actually told me that she had "heard of one arriving via the Rwanda post," but not to count on it.  This would have been helpful information earlier.  Now there is a new address but I'm not really allowed to use it.  The word from the Embassy was basically that it is not possible to ship anything from the US to here.  Great, because it doesn't feel isolated enough as it is here.

4. First trip to the archives today failed.  No one was there and they told me to come back after lunch when the woman in charge would be back.  The construction equipment has been moved, but the shelves are still a wreck of a mess.

5. Second trip to the archives today failed.  Of course, no one was there, again.  I'm supposed to now call this lady who doesn't answer her phone.  This should be a blast.

6. It is impossible to buy a freaking key chain in Kigali.  Every store I go to greets me with looks of "you have three heads" for asking such a crazy thing.  This is extremely odd to me considering how lock-happy Rwanda is in general.  I was given 4, yes 4, keys to my bedroom when I moved in, and every single door in the house has its own key for its own lock - no master keys here - and yet to buy a key chain... crazy!  insanity!

7. It rained on me when I was coming home.  Twice.

This left me in a less than thrilled mood.  On the way home I stopped and bought an exorbitantly priced bag of Doritos, two diet cokes, a mountain dew and a snickers bar.  The snickers bar had gone bad (which i didn't know was possible), and the salsa I made was so spicy I now feel somewhat ill.  It is also super smoggy today and something is making my allergies go crazy.

So that's enough complaining for today.  It takes so much effort to do anything here...  It gets exhausting.

Off to dinner tonight with some friends - with any luck the moto driver won't get lost on the way there (again)!