Day 12 (wednesday)

A little friend of mine at the mail box center...they're all over the place and great to look at.

Center square, just as we left the DSW.

We had just gotten off a tro tro at ted junction.

Just my view from the back of the tro tro...packed tight with no air conditioning.

Woke up at a decent hour (maybe around 7 or 8) and Maureen was still around and was stringing the clothes out to dry...it was pretty overcast for most of the morning so the clothes were a bit damp.  We warmed some water for the usual coffee and oatmeal and just began talking about culture and random things that were going on in each other's lives and it was really enjoyable.  It began to get closer to noon so I began getting ready.  As we agreed several times the night before, Ernest was going to get me at 12 so we could leave shortly thereafter.  Promptly he showed up shortly after 12:30 and Maureen and I had a pretty good laugh at it.  Then we caught a tro tro into town and stopped at the mid market (also known as ted junction) to switch vehicles to get into the part of town we needed to get to.  The driver was waiting for quite some time to try and fill his vehicle to make the trip worth it...it must have been pretty slow because we waited for 15 minutes or so.  We finally got close to where we needed to go (the DSW) and just departed a bit early as the traffic was pretty heavy (when it's heavy here, it's worse than Manhattan so it's sometimes quicker to walk) and we walked through some side streets and got to the assistant director's office just a couple of minutes late (which turned out to be ok as he was late getting back to the office from court).   I was able to facilitate some Q and A with a young lady completing her national service (sort of similar in description to an intern but when a student graduates they are required to give back to their country by donating a year of their time...they register and are placed, usually by random selection) and was able to get some good information.   Mr. Anthony finally arrived and I was able to ask him some questions and gather some information that I didn't get to on Monday.   He was very generous in providing me with everything that I needed and left the office a couple of times to get the best answer when he didn't know for certain.  We then went to the regional metro office and the head of that department fielded some questions as well.   Finally we were off to get home and made a few stops along the way and I bought some more credits for my broadband stick (I won't make that apparent mistake? That they couldn't explain either).   Along the way I was looking at various shops and checking out the merchandise but had no intention to buy anything.  We boarded a tro tro and we were both exhausted. The seats are pretty close together so I hit my knees on the seat in front of me all the time (there's pretty much no suspension in those stupid things).  As we were approaching ted junction to make the switch, there were so so so many people waiting and when we finally stopped it was mass chaos with people trying to get a spot.   People were rushing the tro tro and jumping in before people could get off so I just had to tuck and bump people the ___ out of my way...don't worry, apparently during the evening like that it is common practice and also prime time to pick pocket people.  We finally got home and I warmed up some dinner and was absolutely ready for a rest.