Post date: Aug 17, 2014 2:45:45 PM
4 October 1963 Friday--
Well, no Jeep. Looks like I borrow 10 Pounds more. My steward has to reform. For the second time in a row he has left me with no wood chopped. He is going to Aba to pick up his things. I should have told him to stay. He wants me to pay his transport for this trip but I refused.
Thanks for sending off my trunk. I can't imagine how it takes so long to get here, but some people have been here for a year and still haven't found theirs yet. Most take 2 to 3 months, but still, the boat only takes 15 days from N.J. and they leave at least every two weeks. We'll see how long it takes.
I am pretty much used to the weather now and if I keep going I can work all day. But I find it very easy to fall asleep if I sit down to read or rest. Last week I built a drain for my kitchen sink out of a large bamboo pole. I must find a suitable sink in the market tomorrow and install them over the weekend.
I have had a letter for the PC Representative waiting for the Jeep driver to take back to Enugu, but he never came. I shall have to rewrite it—adding some strong language about transport—and send it by post tomorrow. Rats.
I have a wicker lounging chair with footstool and pillows which I use for reading books, like a collection of writings by Pulitzer prize winners and Steinbeck books. Except that at times I tend to get more sleeping done than reading. It is all in the spirit and at the pace of the tropics. Everything is pretty much slow here—except the rain. Some day I shall have to work up a rain gauge, just to see how much it rains in one of these great downpours. The path by my house becomes a river four to six inches deep and the front yard a lake two inches deep. The kids still play in the rain and every step is like diving into a pool with a big splash. We have good lightening with the rains now. Only one bolt has been much closer than a mile since I came, and that one must have been right across the road.