Haggard

Dictionary.com defines it as: wild, wild-looking.

That's how I felt. After not having electricity for five nights in a row and almost two whole days I looked like a wild animal - okay, probably not actually, but I sure was a mess.

The adjustment period is over. I've begun to settle in and as such, my mind has slowly begun to close. It's funny how this happens.

When I first began walking to school, trying to figure out the best way to get to the university, I didn't have any expectations. However, I now have found the easiest way to get to school which requires a little bit of a walk because they are constructing a road right in front of the main gate but I didn't mind. Until...they decided to expand the construction, making the walk further, and now today have started to build an entirely new road that goes through where we've been walking, talk about confusing.

Then for the second morning in a row my trotro broke down. The first time this happened, we all got off the trotro, got part of our money back, and then they worked on it, fixed it, and we all got back on. This morning my trotro ran out of fuel, in the middle of the commute. This time I just sat with a few people on the trotro hoping that they would fix it and if not trying to decide how I might go about getting to my internship. I was a little late but I wasn't at all worried, stressed, or aggravated, so it happens and that's that.

I find it interesting that one frustrates me and the other doesn't bother me. I was thinking about this while trying to fall asleep in my hot, dark room, and began to realize that there are certain things which I have come to expect here, that slowly my mind has been closing. I generally have electricity and when I don't it's usually for a few hours during the night, not for days at a time. I haven't had to walk for more than fifteen minutes after getting out of the shared taxi to university but now I'm walking twenty-five in the beating down sun. Instead of keeping my mind open to all possibilities, I have come to expect a certain way of life here. And I think this happens everywhere. It's why when there is construction on the road that we always use to go to work we get frustrated and annoyed, instead of remaining open to the possibility that this could happen any day.

Any day my trotro could break down. Any day the electricity in my house may not be on. Every day I have to choose whether to be frustrated or to accept that it could be any day that life doesn't go exactly as planned, and it doesn't need to in order to be a good day.

But today, I am not a wild animal. I am sitting under my fan enjoying the breeze once again.