one of those days...

Today. It was one of those days for me. You know, we all have them. Days that, for no good reason, are just bad days. Nothing went terribly wrong. It was just a bad day. Let me just take you through my day.

We woke up the morning away from home. We were in the city we need to be in to check out of aliens in order to travel internationally. I guess you can say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. We went to the office to check out. We sat with the man in charge as the paperwork was filled out. After it was done, he mention something about a fee. We had heard nothing of this before, and bribes being a regular thing here made us suspicious. I didn't like doubting this man because he's been so nice and helpful before. But in that moment, I got irritated. He let us leave with our paperwork and without paying anything. He said we could talk to a colleague and bring the money back by. We leave, call her, and sure enough, a fee was needed. So then, I just feel horrible for not believing him.

Now, we're trying to leave the city to get back to our house in good time. We needed gas (which our car takes diesel) and there happens to be a gas problem in the city - gas being petrol, not what we needed. We drive to the front of the line where the attendants are annoyed with us. The national with us tells them we need diesel. They understand and tell us to pull up, outside the gate, near the diesel pump. We sit there for a while and then the attendant tells us to pull into the gate... and at the gate, another attendant yells at us, that we're doing something wrong. The national gets out and tells him what we're doing, and then gets frustrated, gets in the car and we drive off. Eventually we found another station with diesel. So, we set out to get to a new road that is faster to get out of town. We end up on a dirt road with massive potholes, I mean the kind you can lose a car in. Now, all of this is actually a normal day here, but remember, today was just one of those days.

We finally get out of the city and on our way. Only now, I'm starving. I lay down in the backseat trying to ward off the hunger, only it's hard to sleep because of the horn. You see, going through towns on the way, the horn has to be honked often. People run out in front of the car, children are walking home from school, and cars pull onto the road without looking. Which leads me to something else that bothers me here - the fact that road rules are not necessarily followed. They have a road safety book with rules very similar to a western country, but all the rules seem to be relative to the situation at hand. Again, these are things I've dealt with on a daily basis here, but today it just rubbed me the wrong way.

By the time we got home, all I wanted to do was eat some fast food for dinner. Something quick and easy. Luckily, this city does have some western style restaurants. They're not fast by any means, but at least I didn't have to cook it.

During training, people told us about these days. They don't happen often, but when they do, they're pretty difficult. I don't say all of this to complain. Most days this stuff doesn't bother me. It's just part of living in Africa. But today, it did. At training, they told us on days like today we need to rely on the Lord more than anything. So that's how I'll end my evening. Resting in Him and His Word, because that's all I can do on this day.