Saturday May 7th.
Two weeks since Holy Saturday and so much as happened again. I sit and wait for the light cascading on wall to move higher and higher giving way to the shadow. Espero a que la luz cayéndose en la pared del jardín vaya por arriba dejando paso a la sombra que anuncia el anochecer.
So I will read my friend Rickie Siegle’s blog instead! I will comment on her blog!
In as much as I know that I cannot possibly chronicle my life in a blog, I would like to take some time to write about it. Some time, not more than that and not less. Any more would mean I would loose out on life happening to me and any less would leave unsatisfied with what I write at the end of the day. Life has become so full, my cup is really overflowing. The different impulses for me writing come from nearly every single event that happens in my life, my life outside y room here in our house. I premedidate what I will write about and often the urge to write becomes really so strong it numbs that I just don’t know what to say. Well let me write about what happened inside this room of mine, for starters.
The room is on the lowest part of the house. I have the garden facing my window, or the back side of the garden, that part only we can see. There is a lemon tree infront of my window and next to a mango. We are really blessed with these fruits. Of course, those of you who come from fertile areas of the world, Tsheko – Zamibia, would perhaps think of the mango as banal. Here it is not that common in a garden.
My room walls are plastered with photos – rectangular snapshots – here and there. From my time in Italy to up to the day we went to that boy’s house in upstate New York (he graduated class of 09 – Denis yes that’s his name!) I actually don’t care for pictures at all. But I have always put them up since I went to the United World College of the Adriatic as a way of reminding me of the past and the people in it. Some of the photos are also from Bulgaria, with my grandparents, photos from my brothers christening into the Orthodox Church and others. That’s my decoration photos.
I also have some table cloths – one on my desk that faces the window – and two drapped down from shelf. Bulgarian red patterns, I love them. There is one that sis brown with purple embroided flowers that I gave to my mother for the birthday in 2009. She rejected it, not because she hated, but because I gave my father a plate as his Christmas present, a plate for him to use in his new apartment or wherever he stays (still don’t know, all I know are rumors, in deed I hear more about my father from my mother other people than I know about him). That is a whole story on it’s own.
I feel sometimes there is a whole backlog of issues I want to write about. As if experiences are saved in my mind, conversations recorded, movements remembered by my body all waiting for me to unleash them on this blog. Then I think to myself, did I blog about this can I go back and find it? I remember then that I do not remember what I blogged about, mostly. I remember that using a blog need not be an obligation. It is like a diary and I since I was 15, I always kept writing about things. This need not be a bad thing.
But last night I had just had dinner. The good Friday dinner at my house. The priest earlier at Church told us “ don’t go out tonight…don’t eat to much, just a little bit, and don’t drink to much, because you should suffer with Jesus tonight. Unless your doctor told you for medical reasons you have to eat this and this, then you can, but you can also choose to suffer with Jesus, if you want. But I always advise that you listen to your doctor, because if you don’t there will be consequences and then later Jesus will ask you ‘ so why did you not listen to your doctor?’
I love the Catholic homily’s always so pragmatic. So he did not prescribe us to fast as much as too just bear in mind the suffering of the Lord. Nonetheless, three of my mothers friends were over at our house and we had a dinner with them. Lamb with Spinach (a Bulgarian style of cooking) and an egg herb salad I made, with bread (whole weat: mine, white: for my mom). There was just enough food for all of us! Somehow there was. I had a torn slice of bread with penut butter as my desert, but that was it. So we did not plan to eat ‘litte’( such a subjective term, I am sure by the standards of many people here and most people in US, we would have eaten really little, but then for others perhaps this was indeed a feast). It just happened that way. I loved that we could eat together though on a Friday, the Sabbath, even though we had less than one would expect at a typical Sabbath dinner (but then again, I am assuming all Jews can afford to hold huge Sabbath dinners and perhaps this assumption needs questioning, seriously). I loved it. The friends of my mom have known me since I was a child. We would go to there houses. They are all Oshiwambo speaking women and they indulge me as I try to speak my father’s language. Two of them never married while the third is a divorcee and then there is my mom who is effectively divorced, but still legally married. And there was me. We had a family dynamic and that was us. Usually Friday nights it would be just me and my mother. My brother loves going out with friends and he took a trip to coast with his friends this weekend.
After diner as I washed the dishes I laughed and laughed as Aunty Martha (aunty is term used to show respect and it transcends biological notions of ‘aunty’) told me about the cumbersome process of recruitment in the public service. Had I not found the splendid job I have now, I would have gone for the interview to work in a lab for the ministry of fisheries. “…Even after the interview…” she said, “…there is still a long process of the application to be sent to the public service commission and for it to be approved…it usually takes four months.” The length of the entire process is more like 8 months – from the time of handing in your application to hiring, “…by which time many candidates have already found another job…”
Alright I will stop this blog post here.
I wanted to write about how I lost my modem (the size of memory stick) in my room and could not connect to the internet and how it spurred me to just clean up my room and vacuum certain areas…but I think you got the picture.
I can’t be sitting here and writing while I have stuff to do. I have math to learn (and use!) for my job as a research assistant – I am on the brink of a project that I have been dreaming of since senior year and I have to make sure I can do it (do the analysis of the statistics).
I’ll tell you about this project if you ask me.
I have to make a salad now. Guests coming over.
Closing prayer:
Oh Lord on this Holy Saturday, please help us all to grow closer to you.
O Dio aiutaci questo sabato ad avviccinarsi, sempre di più, a te.
