With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes

“With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. She shall have music wherever she goes.”

I love that. It’s part of a nursery rhyme and I thought about it when my sandals would not stop squeaking today. Seriously, they were loud and determined to make noise and people were noticing my one-man-band act. Damn toe bells attracting attention that I get enough of already. I blame Wednesday’s mud.

Wednesday it rained, which caused the roads to turn into muddy rivers. Most of our drive to the business class is paved, but the very last stretch is dirt. Now the trustworthy van “needs” to park directly in front of where we have class so the last 50 meter stretch has a mud ramp at the beginning that the van is required to blast over. This stunt really doesn’t save us time because we usually don’t make it the first time, which requires us to reverse and try again, and when there is mud.. wheels get stuck. This mud ramp the van is challenging is close to the school, so we could very easily park and walk, but that wouldn’t be proving how manly we are now would it?

Needless to say, I didn’t think it was necessary that the van attempt this feat, but it’s not my van. After they pushed the van out (the 80 year old women pushing wouldn’t let me help), the driver [name redacted] backs up to do it again! Umm seriously Bo Duke?! There is a fine line between determination and stubbornness and you just tried to jump that muddy line a second ago with a dirt ramp.. remember? Once again though, it’s not my van. So all of the able bodied women and myself walked back to the school to work on the business plan.

Ahh the business plan. I am extremely fired up about it, which is both a blessing and a curse. The idea of these women being empowered from a small business they have created gets me so excited.. oooh mercy it’s so good! I am a little frustrated with said plan because Africans are very sensitive and alert to the needs of others and loaning money to their friends and family is a very important element of social interaction. This means that most people are overextended financially, and so these women are stretched for capital. It’s all understandable, but from a western standpoint I want to demand them to get it together so that we can get this bakery up and running. However, third world countries have game-changing exceptions, and it’s almost like learning another language to try and figure out how to work around these issues. I have turned into a modern day Howard Hughes trying to cheat the system.. Literally notes and sloppily sketched diagrams cover our tables. But I am not a quitter or insanely OCD and neither are these village women. We are tough and we are going to dominate these problems and eat them for breakfast.. in scone form.

The van did end up making the jump the 3rd time, and you should have seen the grin on Bo Duke’s face when it did.. pride isn’t a strong enough word.