Driving Lesson

Oh what a day.

Remember those blogs about the pastor who had a horribly disabling stroke? Well he is the only administrator for the nursing school and the seminary. I.E. all files are in his office, all records, etc. Now that he is no longer in his office, we've had to try to find things in it. And omygosh what a feat it has turned out to be. First of all, I think that the pastor was having a lot of little mini strokes before the big one, given the state of his office. Being an expert organizer, I volunteered to try to make sense of the chaos... felt like a challenge that might be fun... meditative, instantly gratifying and one that could let my OCD nature soar. But today I realized that I need to clone myself about 15 times in order to get through maybe the biggest mess I've ever seen. Makes my parent's basement look like an add for the Organizer store. Keep in mind its a small office with three floor to ceiling bookshelves/file cabinets full to the brim of file folders packed with papers of no certain organization all in french, creole, or a mix of both. In fact, I think he used the file folders to more HOLD papers rather than SORT them. I spent 4 hours in the dark, dusty office, and I got through 1/2 of a shelf. I have a stack of "what the heck is this" going, and I've started a file system that myself and the director of the nursing school at least understand... so it will be slow going. I'm not sure why I made it my job except that I get twitchy around disorganization and that so many of my student's are waiting for grades because their tests, their grades (that I handed to the pastor very well organized) are all buried and jumbled in the black hole of his office.

After some meetings and a few erands, I dropped P off at home and then took off for my act of volunteerism for the day: to give my teenage translator a driving lesson. Let me just scratch that off of my list of things I'd like to do when I grow up. It was an exercise in sphincter control, Tourettes control, and faith in the afterlife. son of ah.

I guess I take it for granted that I started driving at the age of 10, sitting on my dad's lap. Hello overcorrection. Dear God, please don't hit the girl, the pot hole, the old man pushing 3 x's his weight in scrap metal, the child--oh God the little child-- the pile of rocks, the very big and very unyielding mac truck. There's a wall, and THERE's a wall, and THERE's a wall... bing bing bing like a pin ball zigg-zagging through the machine.

I finally made Frenaud show me a field we could practice in, and I aligned some rocks to help teach him to drive straight without overcorrecting... taught him a 3-point turn that we'll have to work on tightening up a bit since it took him the entire football field to get 'er done, and starting from stop on a hill. I remembered my lesson with a friend in KC who took it upon herself to teach me to drive stick, and decided to recommend her straight away for saint hood. I also remember my terror behind the wheel the first time with a car I couldn't quite figure out... so that kept most of the shriek out of my voice.

Truth-be-told and dramatics aside, F did an amazing job. He won the Most-Improved award on day one. He's a smart guy and is excited about learning, so after an hour, he could drive a straight line, turn a tight 3 point turn, and get a car up a hill with only a few spun-out rocks. I am proud of him. He's already better than some of the drivers on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Side note, I had to learn how to go from stop to start up a hill in PaP by myself, driving out of necessity for the first time, the shear terror of hitting the space-crampers 1 inch off of each of my bumpers teaching me how to hold the clutch/accelerator in balance. Fear teaches, I tell you.

So anyway, I am home, safe, in one piece, and the Galloper is no more crappy than it was this morning. ;)

I think I deserve a very very stiff drink.