Where there's a well...

...there's a way... to screw up.

In the past six months I have learned many things the hard way. Including but not limited to, when to accept or politely refuse a meal invitation (awkward if you choose the wrong reaction); I have no sense of direction (three aimless hours in the sahara desert is definitely the hard way); while eating meat, it is essential to chew slowly, in case there are bits of bones strewn about (in a word, OW, when a molar finds one of those buggers).

At the well I have been the cause of several disturbances. Ranking from least terrible to most:

3. Although many people shoo away the thirsty donkeys that wander around for puddles, one day I decided to pour a bunch of water into a cement container, for the nearest one. (They always remind me of the donkey in shrek and I just can't resist pretending it's my pet for a few minutes.) After luring in many donkeys, and exhausting my arms from hauling up water, some other people showed up at the well. They laughed at me, and got a bunch of spiky sticks and beat the donkeys away. Poor, spiky stick beaten animals. And as usual, I was the weird one out, wanting a donkey for a pet.

2. I dropped my water bag into the well. This is embarassing more than anything else, because other people need to use their bags, that are curiously made out of tire rubber, and immensely long ropes, to fish the fallen bag out. This incident only lasted about 10 minutes but my face burned red the whole time as I stared at my escaped bag. Called "baggle" in Pulaar- cute, right?

1. The worst mistake I made at the well, was, in a nutshell, borrowing a defunct bag whose rope broke when I was hauling water. It resulted in a two hour escapade of trying to get the baggle out, that had sunk allll the way to the bottom of the well. The sun was setting on the clamoring group of women that had commenced to fight about the etiquette of borrowing bags, and taking care of ropes. I stood useless to the side while the woman whose bag I had broken glared at me with her one good eye.