TV Land of Enchantment

The twins and Adolin (left) singing during a cloudburst.

I spent much of my Easter morning sharpening this knife.  Definitely did not go to no three-hour Lutheran church service.

Written April 12, 2012
Manambaro

    Anyone who knows my mother knows that she is crazy about two places in the world: Italy and New Mexico.  I spent the last two weeks getting reacquainted with the latter via a certain AMC show, on my laptop over dinner, so as not to waste my daylight working hours.
    On the 31st Wes gave me all four seasons of Breaking Bad.  For those who don’t know the show, it’s about an Albuquerque high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who finds out that he has terminal lung cancer.  By coincidence he stumbles across a former student of his, Jesse Pinkman, who cooks and sells methamphetamine.  Lacking life insurance and wanting to store up money for his family before his death, Walt offers to team up with Jesse in the drug trade.  With their combination of chemistry expertise and (nominal) street smarts, the two set out to corner the local market on crystal meth.
    All the characters are well-rounded.  The most interesting thing about Walt’s character is how his diagnosis virtually eliminates his fear of a quick death, allowing him to face down armed drug dealers with steely calm.  At the same time, he has to keep up the charade of a mild-mannered husband and father while at home.  Sometimes it’s uncanny how much the character sounds like my own father.
    The episode Negro y Azul is pure genius.  Don’t bother checking the episode titles, you’ll know it when you get to it.
    So as I’ve been copying some of my notes on Manambaro onto my computer, I’ve been able to charge my computer at the local FIVOY bank and then watch two episodes a night with dinner.  The FIVOY staff are very gracious to let me use their office space to work on Peace Corps research, although sometimes I write blog posts instead.
    Project-wise, I think I’m going to have to nix the neem cream project I wanted to do, or at least modify it so if it were to go ahead it’d be ineligible for Peace Corps funding.  The only neem trees around here are in Mme Fleur’s yard and right next to the Catholic church.  I can create demand, but if the supply’s not readily available... Fleur’s curious about the cream, so she and I are going to experiment with her leaves on Monday.  Once I have some sample cream, maybe I can interest some of the merchants in planting neem in their yards, with the prospect of making and selling it in the future.  By this time next year, who knows?
    One thing I know I’m going to be doing next year, as opposed to this one, is a town-wide anti-malaria festival for World Malaria Day on the 25th.  I just... didn’t plan for it this first time around, okay?  But now I know that it’s coming up again in 378 days I can announce it ahead of time and have people come from miles around.  We can have games for kids, lectures for the adults, maybe even a mural-painting session. 
    I especially want to figure out a way for kids to build a sentimental attachment to their mosquito nets.  (“This is my mosquito net.  There are many like it, but this one is mine...”)  That way it’ll be harder for their fathers to take away the net and use it for fishing.  I’m thinking of doing a magazine drive so kids can cut American celebrities out of People and strange beasts out of National Geographic and tape them to the net, personalizing it.  Well, all that won’t be for a while.  World AIDS day comes first in December, and short of tying red ribbons around all the trees like they did at Guilford, I got no idea what to do then...

Happy Birthday, Mom.