The Office Chronicles: Prologue

I had several fellow PCV's read over the following blogs and I asked them all the same question: does this make me sound bitter? Each person I asked tilted their chins down and looked at me over the tops of their seeing-eye glasses. They begrudgingly said, "yes." I remember reading the first draft of this to Julie. It was a year ago. Everything had just happened and she told me it wasn't a good idea to put a three part tirade on the internet for the world to read; it made me sound angry (true) and bitter (in this instance--also true). It wasn't something people would understand unless they lived in Botswana, she said. She was right, but I also feel like I am supposed to articulate my experience in Botswana, the fun as well as the frustrating.
As usual, consider this prologue my disclaimer. I'll sob when I have to leave Botswana. I'll have to leave one home to return to another but whether I like it or not, my relationship with MD has shaped a large part of my Peace Corps service. I'll never be able to separate my run-ins with him from my time in Botswana. As time passed, and other volunteers have had freakishly similar situations in their offices, I think back on the lessons I've learned and I still can't figure it all out.
Just know that my blog, and these (lengthy) entries in particular, are slanted. Its my perception of things and my perception is far from the truth, whatever "the truth" is. Just as many good things have happened since I've been here, maybe more, but for every high, there's a low and don't let any PCV ever tell you different, because that, that's the truth.