Africa Journal August 26

8/26/2013
We spend so much time waiting. It's kind of ridiculous. I think, in the Celestial Kingdom, there will be no waiting. That would be pretty awesome.

My day started really early this morning. I simply couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned, and read and wrote, and tried to sleep again. Nothing helped. I turned my cell phone off at 2:37 am because its battery was dying. It's been dying a lot faster than usual lately. I finally figured out why. There is pretty much no service in my bedroom. If I keep my phone in my room, it will constantly search for service draining the battery.

You can imagine my irritation at being woken up much earlier than I liked to the sound of that stupid bell. Rufus has a bell that he rings to wake everyone up every morning and to call everyone to devotional every night. I wouldn't mind it, except he always rings it over and over and over. I'm not kidding, I timed him once. He rang the bell for ten minutes strait. Talk about overkill! It gets really really irritating some days.

Diana didn't come to class on time today. I think she has this weird idea that if I'm not sitting there waiting for her when she comes, then she doesn't have to be on time. Most of the time, I come out a couple minutes before class is supposed to start, but occasionally I come out exactly on time just to see if she'll be there. Well, today was one of those days. She didn't come.

Since I had no class to teach, I devoted the majority of my day to painting. I got pretty far on the mural for the girls' dorm. It's a black tree with vines and quotes on it. Diana helped me pick out the quotes. She also helped me paint. It looks pretty nice so far. Painting has been a lot easier since Rufus bought me some kerosene oil to clean my brushes. He bought lacquer thinner the first time and that stuff just plain didn't do the trick.

I thought, perhaps, Jefferline might be ready to start classes. She's been asking Rufus when she can start again, but not me. She's also been working really hard and has a good attitude. I invited her to come talk to me about classes at six this evening. She didn't show up. That was pretty disappointing. I suppose I'll just have to wait a while longer.