A normal day…

My cell phone buzzes at me at 7:45. I’m usually either already awake, or not ready to be awake and press snooze once. I eventually stumble into the kitchen, clean yesterday’s coffee grounds out (I can now do this with approx 1 c. of water), grind more coffee, and get it steeping in the french press. Roomie2 is more of a morning person, so often the water’s already boiled.

We then eat some form of breakfast — often oatmeal and a bagel, and either read Newsweeks or chat.

I usually try to catch the 8:30ish bus, but sometimes I’m not ready, or it doesn’t show, so then there’s occasionally a bus at 8:40ish, and another at 9ish. If I miss (or there just isn’t) a bus by 9:20, I have to take a route taxi, as there’s a bus blackout post 9:20 until at least 10 or 11.

The bus ride is generally not too bad. During school, it takes 45 minutes to an hour (the sad part is that it’s only like 15k of total distance), but sometimes there’s a bus preacher talking about how it’s the homosexuals causing this country to be held back, or how prayer stopped the most recent Hurricane, and that preparing for a hurricane is sacriledge, or some other such frustrating nonsense.

I sometimes think that when I go to a dentist back in the states, they’ll say “WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR TEETH???,” and I’ll respond “Oh, I clenched and ground them… for two years straight.”

The bus drops me off on South Camp Road, which is still a 10-15 min walk from the Ministry. Soldgie is usally hanging out (a homeless guy, rumored to be ex-military, hence the name). And somehow, by some mysterious force, there’s ALWAYS a truck full of incredibly foul-smelling chickens going into, or leaving (sans chickens) from the chicken processing plant between my bus stop and the Ministry. This is great practice for long-distance underwater swimming, I think, as I hold my breath as the truck passes.

I go into work by the back entrance, as it’s closer (and less likely to get roadblocked, if the surrounding community is miffed about something). This means going through a daycare and a broken fence into the back parking lot.

I’ve been working in the Multimedia lab, as it’s quiet, and fewer people bug me to fix their printer/phone/fax, make namecards, type crap that’s already been typed somewhere by someone else who failed to press “save”, copy crap, scan something, etc. Besides, the office where I was has one AC that blows ice-cold air directly on my neck. Of course, the lab currently has no AC at all, so it gets unbearable by the afternoon…

Anyhow, I get in to work, load up emails, work on whatever I’ve set on my to-do list for the day (tweaking SchoolTools, working on Linux, etc.), and I link with other people as necessary. Now, as the phone in the lab doesn’t work anymore, this means wandering around the compound trying to find people who may or may not have come to work, or still be at work, or be coming back “soon.” I have no qualms about waking people up who are sleeping at their desk, however.

Somewhere during this, the network or power (or, most likely, both, at separate times) will go out for ~ 10 minutes or so, causing me to inevitably lose my place or lose work.

I wander out in the afternoon at some time, depending on how hot it is, if I’m getting anything done, or if I have a ride. Traffic sucks pretty constantly from 2pm on through to nighttime, so I rarely leave in time for it to matter much. I walk up until I can get a bus, which usually means ~1 hour of hiking under the incredibly heavy Jamaican sun, and soaking whatever shirt I might’ve chosen to wear. If I’m lucky, I get a 61 that’s not packed, but that’s rare — usually it’ll be full to far, far over capacity, hot, muggy, and stuck in traffic. There are few situations I hate more here than being pressed in on every side, standing, with a driver taking sharp turns at high speeds, in a hot bus. I think I have some form of crowd-phobia, like claustrophobia, but with thick crowds of people, not just small spaces.

By Papine, the bus usually thins out, and I can get a seat. It’s then a bit of unwind time, going up the windy road to Gordon Town. This remains my favorite part of the day.

I reach home, and we put some form of dinner together, depending on our laziness vs. creativity, and ingredients available. We then chat, have a tea, and either surf the net, watch a movie, or read. At least one night a week, we have to make a few calls to the police station to get one of the bars downstairs to turn their music down.