"I'm not a genius, but maybe you'll remember this, I never said I ever want to be a man."

- White Stripes lyric that immediately comes to mind when my coworker told me I was becoming a man out here.

Chronological Highlights of my last 3 days:

• Get stuck in the mud. My comrade Ryan was behind in another SP truck and pulled me out after 5 minutes.
• Get stuck in a sandy river. 4.5 hours of work, drank lots of river water to fight of dehydration, and we were out.
• Became acutely aware of lack of food all day apart from a piece of bread for breakfast and a handful of peanuts.
• Person guiding me to destination took me down a foot path and the ground crumbled beneath the truck. I actually thought we were stuck forever. See picture above. 20 guys from the village came out and we were out in under an hour actually.
• Now dark, attempt to cross a sandy river. I succeeded but when I got to the path on the other side I couldn’t get up the hill. When I reversed got stuck. Spent the next six hours digging out of sand. Got some reinforcements from nearby village. Arrived at someone’s house to sleep at 1am. End day 1.
• Driving back from village we slept at, planned a short day of dropping off my translator and then going home and sleeping. Instead got stuck in a small river. 1 hour or so of work and we were out.
• Dropped off translator and realize I have a flat. Replaced flat with spare and began journey home.
• Driving fast to avoid getting stuck, I slid in the mud and I sheared the right side mirror off of the car. Also busted the snorkel in half, so I will no longer survive if I drive the truck totally under water (I anticipate this happening any day now.)
• Being smart I drove off the road to avoid big mud holes. Unfortunately the side of the road was sludge. 2 hours of futile work. Realized my high-lift jack was no longer functioning. Realized another tire was now leaking air.
• Hiked to Heiban, hour and a half away, barefoot in the dark through mud, rivers and thorns. Water was thigh high on multiple occasions. I was wearing jeans for some reason.
  Slept at our Bible School in Heiban, where I found one of our tractors. End day 2.
• Take tractor out to truck and haul it out of mud.
• Get stuck 5 minutes down the road, but tractor was still just ahead and pulled me out no problem.
• Left tractor and entered home stretch back to base. Got stuck. Dug out in 10 minutes.
  Get stuck again. Worked for over an hour, truck full of other NGO workers shows up and they help push me out.
• Arrive back at base. Shower and realize the pain in my feet is not from cuts, but from splinters. Spend 30 minutes digging them out.

The mud is slowly killing my will to live. In case you are counting that is 10 times stuck in 2.5 days.

Other than that, things are great. We got a big shipment of food in, so now we have cereal and potato chips and ramen noodles. Probably the most exciting thing in my life right now. Oh and I get two weeks off starting in one week. I don’t know what I’m doing for sure yet, but I am very ready for a break.