An evening at Saram...

February 27, 2007

9:15 PM

There are many nights that seem to disappear from me and from my memory. It has become a regular occurrence for me to simply just fall asleep after a certain hour. I don’t know if this means that I am getting old or if I am simply incredibly tired. Well heck why not both. You see, the evening times are very strange for Lincoln and I. Our days are wild and jam packed or at least mine is, and I have no doubt that Lincoln’s is as well in his own way. So by the time our day begins to slow down around 5 or 6ish depending on the afternoon’s activities, we gather ourselves in our apartment for a good bit of wasting time, playing guitar, throwing darts at our wall, or simply just sitting and taking a breather. We often talk about how much work we have to do, or haven’t done, or didn’t do, and how much there is still to be done. Maybe it’s all the same, but it goes to show that by that time the nature of our conversations are very lost, but not all. There are some very meaningful talks that we have at this time of the day. Often about how the school might run more efficiently or what we can do to be better teachers. It’s very much like the post game pep talk from the coach, and Lincoln is my coach, who always prepares me for the next day. After that, we often go our separate ways for a while, Lincoln usually, and more close to always will head to his office, and be the good teacher and get some grading done, yet his intention to do work is often times, more than not, overpowered by his tiredness, and I end up finding him many nights asleep over his students essays in a comatose type nap. I tend to sit around our apartment continuing a lot of the nothing that was being done earlier. I make a lot of empty attempts at a lot of things, or I’ll make a run to the market for whatever we might need for dinner that night. By this point it is anyone’s guess what we will have for dinner or when. That is usually one of the conversations that we have before we break our separate ways, hence the need to go to the market. We also must decide, our hunger to work ratio, which one is bigger or more important that evening, and usually work will win. Our satiety seems to be replaced with a need to get something done. Of course before the 24 hour power miracle of Chuuk occurred, our dinner and work time was often times decided by when we had power or not. If power form 4-8, we might try to get as much done till 8, if 8-Midnight, then we would try to eat, and get all the wasting time done before the power came on, so we might get work done after the power comes back on. But this whole 24 hour power miracle has truly revolutionized much of what we do. It is amazing what you can do, when you don’t have to depend on when you will have power to see, or do much. But back to the evening, it will often happen that the time will pass us by, either forgetting to look at our clocks, or simply trying to correct one more paper or play one more song on the guitar. But by the time we sit down for dinner, we find that it’s 8 or 9 or sometimes 10. It would be really hard to give you a mean average, since it is so varied, but it seems that so much of what we do here is! No day is ever the same, no evening ever the same, sometimes we even have time to play a game! But too often for myself, especially when those meals come late, I find myself completely worn out from being able to do anything. I lie myself down on the floor, stretching my growing belly, and then 9 out of 10 times will fall asleep. It’s funny how customary it’s become because, now after dinner finishes, and I tell Lincoln I am just going to lie down for a few minutes, Lincoln simply just says, Good Night, and knows that he won’t talk to me until the morning. This usually isn’t much of a problem, yet it has caused me to forget to brush my teeth countless nights, oops! But, I think the ADA says that once a day is enough…right? And so it happens that 9 out of 10 nights, or more like 4 out of 7 nights I end up falling asleep on the floor of our living room on a nice straw mat. The reason is not borne of a desire to live simply, but simply from being too tired. But I have found it to be very comfortable and enjoyable to sleep on the floor, and often a night will choose the floor over my bed. This is also in part due to the fact that my bed is covered with clothes, or books or a collection of everything and anything that I may have acquired during my day. I guess something’s never change, huh? But it makes me feel at home I guess. Messy but not nasty, my freshman year college roommate was nasty. He left rotting fruit, and 5 week old pizza boxes that were spilling left over ranch, and buffalo sauce all over the floor. I just leave my clothes which are usually 83% clean or 90% sweaty on the floor, but it tends to be the first and not the latter. Either way, its home, it’s never a routine, or I guess it’s as routine as spontaneity can get, and the lack of monotony makes me a happy man. I love living here. I love living here with Lincoln, and I couldn’t think of wanting anything more!