she's electric

Ok, so I've had my first two "official" days and I think my brain is on meltdown. In terms of meeting staff around the office, most of them seem nice and the atmosphere is dynamic. There's lots to do: papers to push around, organizing meetings, events, completing things that should have been done yesterday and - naturally - waiting for anything is standard procedure.

That being said I am slowly getting accustomed to the office environment and I am trying to read up, work out, and get a grip on my role as much as possible. Since it appears I have an average of 982379487398 things to do any given day, I find my head spinning from sheer overload as to "how the hell am I actually going to get what I need to get done in an 8.5 hour day?"

In light of these anxiety-attack inducing thoughts, I've decided I'm NOT going to be hyper-hard-on-myself. I'm just going to move at a steady clip, learn as much as I can about the org's activities here, how the work and the people (we serve) at the heart of it can better be promoted and hold onto the belief that as time progresses...so will I. Remember: sink or swim.

Ok, now on to the non-work related stuff (you know...the stuff that's hella better)

The Super: I went to a Rwandan/Ex-pat wedding on Saturday, which was just brilliant. I will sort through the photos and try to get some posted over the weekend.

The Good: Yeaahhhhhh! I found a place to live!!! It’s a 3 room place + living room + kitchen + bath and is newly renovated/furnished for a fair price (at least for Kigali).

The Bad: The apartment isn't ready until July 1st (BOOOOOOOOOOO!). However, I am fortunate enough to have a very gracious colleague who will let me split the rent at her 3 bedroom place for the month of June until I can move into my place (bless!).

The Other Bad: I have to shell out half of the cost of one month's rent to the "real estate agent" (your average Rwandan who possibly has a good network or just a knack for knowing when there are free places around town) who "found" the place for me. Putain la vache

The Ugly: There have been a couple of times when I've been taking a shower that I'll be washing my hair, putting conditioner in my hair or rinsing my hair and I'll feel my hands tingle and - sometimes - go a bit numb. I was really perplexed by this the first 2-3 times because though the water was warm, it wasn't so hot that it could be burning my fingers. It wasn't until sometime over the weekend that I figured out exactly why my fingers were tingling and why it felt so hot closer to the shower head.

You see, the shower head is "plugged into" an electric source .

Ah yeah. Can you dig it? Picture it: normal bathtub with tap and shower head coming out from the wall. Normal, right? Now add an electric cord of some sort running from the top of the shower head, up along the wall, across the bathroom to find that it plugs into the outlet underneath the mirror.

Yes, I couldn't quite believe it myself:
Technically, I am electrocuting myself every time I take a shower.

I am really perplexed by the whole thing as I can't quite understand how that is possible - I mean, is there some kind of barrier to prevent the water from being in contact with the electricity? Is it like boiling a pot of water on the stove? In a kettle? Am I at risk of seriously hurting myself if something goes terribly wrong (e.g. a short in the wire).

I mean after all these years of being reminded repeatedly to NOT use a blow-dryer, hot iron, flat iron, clothes iron, radio, TV, cell phone, normal phone, toaster, computer near the bathtub, I find it completely bizarre that you can just plug a SHOWER HEAD into the wall to get hot water.

Que diable vraiment