Good Times

A bar that looks exactly the same as Stella, Kisimenti,
where Cathryn and I sheltered from the rain... for six hours.

Had a lovely couple of days.

Went to the creative writing group on Tuesday with David, Nidhi and Firmin. Was a small group again - just Emily and another KW called Adolph there, but we had a lovely time and I read my poem The Things I Know, which was well received and helped me get over my first-time nerves :)

We started with a little writing exercise where we picked a topic from current events and wrote free-fall flash fiction for 15 minutes, then shared our work. Some really good stuff came out of it. We picked the story of a woman in the US who had given birth to octuplets, all of whom survived. This was my contribution:

One of Eight

I was one of eight – only I wise nine.

Like Jonah and the whale I was conceived in a cavernous void of hot, wet redness: the sea of creation.

Around me swam life: brothers and sisters formed of sweet, wrinkled flesh. Kittens inside the cat, squirming and petulant – only not a cat – a woman; a human woman.

As we grew in size we pressed against one another: bottom to bottom, chest to chest. Fighting for the precious space that was once abundant; fighting for the air we couldn’t yet breathe.

And then our time came; the birthing time.

The knife cut searing pain through her flesh. It ran in shudders through our umbilical cords. We would have stirred in our sleep and cried out had the morphine of sedation not coursed through our blood as it had hers.

I was one of eight – only I was nine.

The gentle hand of a startled, disbelieving doctor reached in to lift us out into the air; the sky; the heavens.

“Octuplets” was the word he exclaimed before threading the needle artfully to pull her split sides together like tectonic plates.

And like plates of earth, I was buried beneath them; alive.

Too small to be noticed, too drugged to be heard.

I was one of eight – only I was nine.

Before I had even opened my eyes, life had closed them.

A little macabre perhaps, but it was really fun to do.

We stayed on after, for food. David and I walked Nidhi back before getting motos home.

Last night was not strategic at all. Got a call into the office to do some work on the dictionary, as they couldn't find a ton of the translation I'd done. I knew I had done it because I looked at the signs and remembered them from the three-day translation stint I did before Christmas, so I was quite panicked at the idea of having to do them all again!

I put the whole thing on my flash and brought it home to check my laptop. Luckily, it turned out to be a case of things just being in an order that was difficult to find. It was all there, it just needed entering into the dictionary, and there were quite a few English typos to comb through.

I should have been happy to finally have some work, but I can't wait until this is published. It's certainly not the most thrilling thing to be doing. My colleagues have done a fantastic job getting it all laid out, and getting the Kinyarwanda finished.

I'd been going about six hours when Cathryn turned up. I was going to pull an all-nighter to get it finished but, by the time she got here, I was already within sight of the end, so I thought a little drink wouldn't hurt me...

Only, just after we got to Stella, the heavens opened in spectacular fashion and we got stuck in the pub. We were the only ones there by the time it closed, around quarter-to one-ish, and we were rather worse for wear with the beer consumption. We had an excellent night just gabbing away, served by bar tenders under rainbow umbrellas, wearing white wellies :op

Needless to say, I didn't get much translation done when I got in, but did end up playing with e-mails until about 2am. I set my alarm for 7:30 to get up and finish the dictionary work. Amazingly, that's exactly what happened!

I was dead proud of myself and took it into the office. Receiving much praise from my director. I'd also written a brief guide to hot keys (the keys on the computer that make editing quicker) as both Peace (our Accountant) and Augustin had been fascinated by the F5 and Ctrl + F commands which I was using to find the bits of translation I needed. Once this is over, they've asked for some training in it, which I'm very happy to do.

It was a good day, actually. I didn't go in until late morning, which turned out to be fortuitous as the electricity had been off until just before I got there. Peace and I spent a couple of hours going through some of the tricky words, then the electricity went out again. I grabbed lunch next door but it was still off when I got back, so I had a much-needed nap on the desk for an hour. When I woke up, it was still off.

I was just leaving when the heavens opened again, which I was really annoyed about because my washing's out and it would have been dry had that not happened. It's always hard to get things dry in the rainy season. Took three days for my last lot. Think I'll have to put up a line inside.

Home now, and off into town in about an hour to pick up the money Amanda left for the single parents network.

Been a really productive couple of days and I'm thrilled to have some work to do. Also greatly appreciative of a working environment that doesn't think there's anything odd about putting your head down on the desk for a snooze :op

Looking forward to the weekend. Off to Butare for another vol's birthday (Tiga) and quite a few people are heading down. It's umaganda (monthly community service day) on Saturday, so buses won't run until later. Going to try and get the tickets tomorrow. Also supposed to be a meeting at VSO from 9-5 tomorrow to discuss funding amongst the partners but, hopefully, if the electricity is on, I'll go to the office and finish off with Peace. If the electricity isn't on I'll have to go to the meeting, and they would notice if I slept on the desk :o/

But, all good: nine hours translation, six hours drinking - proportionate me thinks :op