My Moat

I almost broke my ankle two nights in a row. My landlord’s family, in my absence, dug a trench along the back of my house, presumably to drain rainwater but probably just to mess with me. They probably wait outside my house at night with night-vision goggles and high five when I fall in the trench on my way to the bathroom (life can get boring around here – but it’s always fun to laugh at the gringo). Nevertheless, I think they’re on to something.

I intend to expand and extend the trench, through child labor, into a moat. It will be too wide to jump across and deep enough to drown in. The drawbridge will be extremely and unnecessarily heavy and must be hand-raised by children, whose tears will lubricate the gears (yes, it will have gears, but they’ll hand-raise it anyway). The moat will of course be populated with sharks with laser beams attached to their foreheads.

This will make it difficult to go to the bathroom without being eaten or fatally wounded but it will be worth it, for reasons that I will unsuccessfully try to justify in the next few paragraphs.

As the rainy season descends, I’ve realized that plans will often get cancelled and I will have more time for home improvement projects. At first, I was considering building furniture but I’ve never seen a chair or footstool strike fear into anyone quite like a shark-populated moat. You may wonder what purpose such a moat could serve, besides manslaughter. That just shows how narrow minded you are.

1.    1. It will assert my dominance in the community as “craziest gringo”

2.    2. It will deter unwanted visitors

3.    3. It is a natural place to dispose of organic waste (e.g. carrot peelings, uneaten rice, bodies, etc.)

4.    4. It’s a perfect place to host aquatic gladiator fights (haven’t you always wondered who would win – a shark or a group of piranhas?)  

5.    5. It’s American.

It’s already been seven months of service and I haven’t created anything extremely dangerous in my community. What the community asked for was someone to help the local businesses. What they really need is a child-enslaving lunatic with a dangerous moat around his house. Because, at the end of the day, isn’t that what the Peace Corps is all about?