Gaining Independence…. with only a minor glitch!

This entry was written on Sunday, September 18th.

The title says it all – today I gained independence, and with only a small bruise to my ego. Allow me to explain:
This morning I (finally) moved into my own cottage. I left bright and early with all my belongings, both those that I brought from Canada and those I have painstakingly purchased this week. I spent most of the day cleaning and unpacking my place and managed to make it livable. I even made my first meal – a peanut butter sandwich and tea! It felt good not to be served, and not to have to make table chit chat! I’ll post pictures just as soon as I get the carpet, couch and other things I am still waiting on.
At around 3:30pm, one of the drivers, Salathiel, came to give me a driving lesson. Salathiel and I have become friends this week, as he has driven me into Harare twice now and we talked a lot the whole time. He is 53, and has worked as a personal driver, truck driver, and teacher, among other things. He is a pretty wise man and we have exchanged lots of stories about Zimbabwe and Canada. He had offered to teach me how to drive manual since that is the car that I am being given by my employers. So today, he came and taught me how to drive. I was incredibly nervous for this lesson because I felt all the odds were stacked against me: I would be driving on the wrong side of the road, on a crappy dirt road, and in a huge truck. In the end, though, driving on the dirt road was a blessing because I didn’t have to worry about traffic lights and other vehicles. Within an hour, I have to say, I was pretty darn good! (Nate, are you proud of me???)
After our lesson, I took Salathiel back to HQ (this is the headquarters of the farm, where I have been staying this week and where I will be teaching). I departed HQ , in good spirits because I was headed back to my NEW cottage in my NEW truck – what independence I’d gained in just a few short hours! (As an aside, my cottage is in “D section”. There are sections A-J in this farm, all of them little compounds, which are essentially villages – gives you an idea as to the scale of this farm). As the sun began to set and my vision decreased (it’s the worst at dusk – should have had my glasses!), and I dropped Salathiel off at his home, I glanced at the time – 6:05pm. “Good,” I thought, “I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”
I don’t know where I made the wrong turn, or even if I made one at all. I veered left at the fork in the road – as I thought I should – but things were looking suddenly unfamiliar (keep in mind my poor vision). Eventually, I turned back, and “corrected” my “mistake” (I use quotations because I still don’t know if it was a mistake). I drove down THAT road for a while and came up to some other section compound. (Night has arrived). That wasn’t familiar so I turned around again, convinced that there was some OTHER fork in the road where I needed to turn left. (Keeping my cool). Couldn’t find it, went straight, got lost again, turned around, started headed to that same compound. (Heart racing, not quite keeping my cool). FINALLY asked someone for directions, their directions told me to turn left at the fork in the road where I THOUGHT I had turned left, so I thought those directions were wrong. (No longer keeping my cool). But I followed them anyway, then I went straight at the next fork.
Confused yet? I sure am.

FINALLY, at 7:20pm, in pitch black night, I rolled in to my compound and, with immense relief, entered my cottage.
See? I gained independence today. Only with a somewhat bruised ego.