The things you have to do....

It's been an eventful few weeks here on my own in Anapolis. Fortunately, it looks like Jeyson and I will be back together again soon as Jeyson wraps up things in Boa Vista. Meanwhile, I've had the chance to grow in some new ways culturally as I've had to do quite a few tasks that normally Jeyson does. Here's a few of the highlights: Here our stoves are connected to propane tanks. When the gas runs out (about every 4 months or so for us) Jeyson calls up and has a new one delivered. Since I've never been alone when this has happened, I've never really paid attention before. But, this morning as I was flipping some french toast - poof! Out went the gas. After calling up the number we leave on the fridge, a man arrived on a motorcycle with two (full) tanks of propane attached to the back. He asked me if I prefer a blue or silver colored tank (I never knew I could choose! I went with silver) and he hauled it in the door. Usually Jeyon meets him outside with the old tank (you have to trade in your old one for the new one since you're only buying the gas inside, not the tank) and will bring in the new one himself and hook it up. However, since the tank is SUPER heavy (the guy was grunting like crazy as he carried it) and I have NO clue how to hook it up, I played the damsel in distress and he came in the gate and set me up. Pathetic? Yes! But did I get to cook the other side of my french toast? Yes!

Next - Cell phone credit. Believe it or not, we didn't have cell phones until recently. When Jeyson was going on his trip, one of our friends lent him his cell phone so Jeyson and I could talk. Here there are only prepaid cell phones, so you have to keep loading credit on as you use it. Since Jeyson has been busy going to tribes I told him I would load the credit on from here. So off I went to the lottery ticket store.

Yes, that's where you can pay bills (if you don't do it online like we do) and apparently where you can get cell phone credit - and of course buy lottery tickets. These lottery stores are all over the place here and I have rarely been in one to pay a bill never mind get credit for a cell phone. The process turned out to be really, really easy, but the line was terrible. It took about 30-40 minutes since any time a person over 60 came into the store, they have the right to go to the front of the line! It's crazy to think there is no automatic way to recharge your cell phone. When I finally got to the front I put quite a bit of credit to avoid a return trip, if possible.

Lastly....the lizard. This is actually a picture I found online, but this is exactly what I found one afternoon. A very large, very dead lizard in our yard.

And you thought a dead mouse in a mouse trap was bad! I'm quite suspicious that this was the cat as one of his favorite hobbies is watching lizards in the yard, but he didn't offer to help clean it up. I grabbed the dust pan and broom, held my breath, and hauled away the corpse :)

Oh - and the lizard was so big it seriously filled the dust pan - no exaggeration!

What an interesting few weeks it's been. I hope Jeyson gets back before I have to learn too much more!