You're the Worst Kind of High Maintenance

Have you seen When Harry Met Sally? Obviously this is a stereotypical favorite, but it really addresses a lot of everyday issues. One of my favorite lines is when Harry says to Sally, "You're the worst kind of high maintenance. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance." This my friends, describes me. I've known this my whole life...however, I've never been told this by a total stranger...until I came to Africa.

To get to Senegal for WAIST (West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament) we took a 21 hour bus ride from Kayes (many actually started their trip in Bamako, so add another 10 hours to that) to Dakar. We arrived in Dakar around 2:30 am, since we wouldn't be able to arrive at the place we were staying until later we stayed on the bus in the parking lot and slept until about 6 am. We had originally had a deal with the bus company in Bamako that they would drive us to our specific destination IN Dakar, unfortunately, this deal fell to peices early on.

That morning I decided I'd see what I could do about making a deal with them so we didn't have to pay for taxis. I found one guy and he said he'd help me but he kept disappearing. He came back to our bus a little later to get some sugar he'd left in there. He asked me to hand it to him and instead I held it hostage. As we were walking he kept saying "give it to me." I kept saying, "when you help me I'll give it to you." When he realized what I was doing he laughed and then went up to Casey (a guy friend of mine) and said, "are you married to this girl?" Casey said, "No, why?" The man said, "Because she has a lot of stuff on her back." The literal translation of "she's a piece of work" or "she's high maintenance and she's annoying me." I eventually gave him the sugar once he said he honestly wasn't going to drive us or try to help us. We found taxis and got to our destination just fine.

Casey thought it was pretty funny too. Ah well...C'est la vie.