nakedlady'sgoat

most of my job, as i may have mentioned before, is spent driving. the nearest church that i work with is two and a half hours from our base. the farthest is four hours. needless to say, driving four hours one way to meet with a church, who isn't prepared to meet or worried the least bit about time, makes for a long day.
the early morning trip to the gas station tuesday foreshadowed how long of a day it would be. in sudan, gas stations work like the rest of africa, survival of the fittest. the biggest, pushiest, and most demanding gets gas. these are times when you have to remind yourself to be a christian. i pulled my truck up to the pump at about nine o'clock. and as though they had planned it, about 40 motor bikes rushed to the pump at the same time to refuel. no line or organization, just chaos. around ten we had had enough so we inched our truck through the pack to get closer to the pump. there is no such thing as personal space here. if you stand in a line expect the person behind you to be jammed into your back. same with vehicles. if there is space enough to fit a sheet of paper, they will park a motorbike. finally after convincing the pump man to stop filling the motorbikes who just pulled up, and fill our truck that has been waiting for an hour, we filled up and hit the road. that put us about an hour late to our meeting with the church, which is not close to being a big deal in africa.
when we showed up to the church they weren't even there or ready to have a meeting, as if it had never been scheduled. so we sat with the pastor's wife while he rounded up the congregation. like i said, this church is four hours away from our base so after a two hour meeting and a four hour drive, we hobbled in well past eight.
wednesday outlasted tuesday by an hour putting us back after nine at night. two days in row we were out past eight. so thursday i used my administrative privileges and declared a compound workday. so we planned for the rest of the week, built a cage for my chameleon named paul, and i carved a sweet knife completely out of wood (pictures to come).
but friday, well friday was a first. i was trucking along a pretty smooth part of the road about 45 km per hour when a baby goat, which i have come to believe is the dumbest animal ever invented, decided to dive under my tire. he was safe and sound on the grass off the road, but i guess he figured he would like to wrestle with my tire. he twitched for a few minutes and then took his last gasp as we stood around and waited for the owner to come and beat me up. just kidding, but seriously it could happen out here. luckily the owner was in uganda this week. unluckily his sixty year old naked wife came to see what the problem was, which at this point ceased to be the dead goat. not that sixty year old ladies can't be beautiful, but at this time in my life i personally don't desire to see them naked. maybe that's just me. anyways, the extremely topless lady told us to go on to the church and she would figure out what to do. i had a few suggestions of what she might first want to do, but thought it inappropriate to speak up. after all i had just killed her husband's baby goat, and it was kind of hot out.
on our return my translator, the nearby pastor, me and the lady, who thankfully thought it to be more professional to put on a shirt, sat down to discuss the goat. after some bargaining we finally talked the lady down to seventy pounds, or just under thirty five dollars. pretty expensive for a baby goat i thought, but us NGO's (non governmental organization) have dollar signs on our chests. fully clothed chests i might add. like i said, friday was a first and hopefully a last.