dominoes + motivation and India to Midland

It has been POURING rain since about 2AM. I mean cats and dogs, I've never heard rain so hard in my life - at one point I thought my roof was going to cave in. That said, it was very difficult to get out of bed this morning, and this blog is probably the only (sort of) productive thing that I will be able to accomplish today...

For anyone who knows me (and my family) you know that I(we) LOVE a good game of Mexican Train dominoes. The thing about dominoes is that it doesn’t really require TOO much brainpower, so you can be a winner even after you’ve had a few drinks – hence the reason why my fam loves it ;) The same groups of folks in camp that play Bourre also play dominoes. I’ve never played with them because I always thought that they were playing some version of dominoes that I had never heard of – turns out I was wrong. They play train dominoes with a set of double-nine, as opposed to the double 12 or 15 that I’m used to, and they also keep score.

Anyways, one of the first guys that I met when I started working here is a man named John Quebodeaux, aka Queb, one of the million Louisiana natives here. He has been working in Africa for the past 12 years and is finally getting out of here and heading to an assignment in Brazil. His last day was Thursday, so this past week has been a blur of going away parties for Queb – one of which was an intense domino tournament on Tuesday night. I’d like to say that I was the champion, but unfortunately I lost $7 – it’s very high stakes over here.

I think I’ve mentioned that there are 2 guys that I worked with in Bakersfield that are here in Malongo – Nick and Shay. We try and get together at least a few times while we are all here at the same time. It’s so nice because we’ve known each other for a while and can talk pretty openly about whatever we want. I went to dinner with Nick before he left this week, and I was talking to him about how I’ve been having a tough time motivating one of my team members and that it’s starting to wear me down because I’m failing miserably. For those of you that know Nick, you know that he is a wealth of knowledge – some of it is worthless, but knowledge none the less. Anyway, he told me to look up a speech by John Wooden about winning and succeeding (watch his speech HERE). Mr. Wooden is a precious old man who coached basketball at UCLA. In his speech, he talks about his life, career as an educator and coach, and things that he learned from his father that helped make his career a success. Three things that his father instilled in him were:
1. Never try to be better than someone else
2. Always learn from others
3. Never cease trying to be the best you can be
These three simple things have helped me reassess how to go about both managing people and myself. I’m guilty of becoming so frustrated, throwing in the towel, and taking the “it’s not my problem” attitude – but once you reach that point, you’re no longer trying to be the best you can be.

On a more personal note, Mr. Wooden explains his thoughts on reputation vs. character. My parents can speak to the fact that growing up I was always very aware of what people thought of me, and I would have given anything to be liked by everyone – moreover I just wanted everyone to be friends. In my eyes, my mom had little compassion during my high school years and did everything she could to emphasize the fact that is doesn’t matter what people think of me; what I think of myself is the only thing I should be concerned about. At the time I wondered if my mother had EVER experienced high school because clearly she had no idea what she was talking about. As I’ve grown older (and much wiser), there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think to myself “hmm, my mom was right” (NOTE: I rarely admit this to her). In Mr. Wooden’s words: Reputation is what you’re perceived to be and Character is what you really are. In life your reputation truly is out of your control, so focus your time and energy on building your character – damn it, she was right again.

butterfly for Momma!

In other news – my boy finally finished his crazy Indian adventure, and is safely back on American soil…thank goodness! Let me preface this by saying that when I went to visit him in December, 7 days before he was scheduled to leave for New Dehli, he had NOTHING planned. The good news is that he works with several folks from India, and we had them over for dinner to map out a route. The bad news is that when planning said route these people, who’s home country is India, were telling me that they were nervous for Chad – which by no means calmed my nerves. He also had not gotten any shots, malaria medication, or even made a packing list – however, by the time I left him he had done almost everything he needed to do :) Still, I’ve been pretty worried for the past 4 weeks, but now I can officially say that he and his friend Barrett traveled 3000 kilometers along the West coast of India and successfully completed the 2014 Rickshaw Run! He doesn’t know it, but I stole some of my favorite pictures from his Facebook page to share (not creepy at all)…

the route

pre-race trip to the Taj Mahal...super cute couple (disregard Chad's barely there "mustache")

rickshaw/home for 13 days

new-found besties!

I’ve been jamming out to Rodney Parker and 50 Peso Reward album Apology: Part 2 all week (which I highly recommend), and it’s really given me the itch to see some live Texas Country. I know that Rodney and his guys are a fan of West Texas, so I Googled upcoming tour dates and they just happen to be in beautiful Midland, Texas on a weekend in February that I don’t have anything planned. After spending 4 years in Lubbock I’m well aware that Midland isn’t your typical vacation destination, but 2 of my favorite people live there and I think that’s justification enough to jump on a plane for 1.5 hours and spend a weekend in God’s country – see you soon Kennedy’s!

boa noite!

22 days down, 9 to go! xoxo