Melrose Place…Lome Style

The last three weeks or so I have been living my own reality show. I know it sounds crazy but please remember I’m living in a capital city with European and American people, so I promise it’s a drama! The differences are a little less Hollywood. We don’t have the latest clothes, or cause drama for money, fame, or power, but the basic drama of hurting other people out of selfishness is the core and that is the same. I’ll spare you some of the yuck but here are the tragic points and just for kicks the craziness of the people I interact with.
Julie, my former roommate, began getting calls from a girl’s boyfriend (we teach with this girl). This man would not relent so Julie decides to go out with him, just once (BAD MOVE!). They begin sleeping together. Please note the man lives at the other girl’s house and they are spending entire weekends at hotels and whatnot here in Lome. She then thinks she is pregnant and might have some disease. Mind you I’ve explained that this is not a good idea to her several times. Her attitude went from “Oh it’s just for fun and he doesn’t mean anything to me” to “I love him and we think we could have a baby together”. INSANE!!!!
So the man is clearly NOT welcome in my house! After about a week and a half he tells Julie that he will leave the girlfriend (who we work with) of like almost 2 years, if Julie will be committed to him. Julie agrees and the next thing I know she is attempting to pick fights with me to justify moving out. She didn’t like that I never told her she had to move out and she then began telling me that she couldn’t be friends with me because I was judgmental. She felt that since I explained again and again that this was a selfish thing to do and it’s just flat out wrong! Sheesh!
Meanwhile, the girl (who was losing her boyfriend) begins to suspect he is sleeping around after he spent two weekends away from home and a few weeknights, oh and then the text he sent her instead of Julie about a rendezvous. She’s quick. Then someone told the girl’s friend that they saw Julie and the man together at a bar. These people are crazy. Julie is gone constantly with this guy and what do the girl and her friends (also teachers at the school) do? They come to my house and harass me and try to push open my gate door to inspect my house. They are retarded. Then after they weren’t welcomed in they sit and ring my doorbell for 10 minutes straight. This was Julie’s other reason for moving out; the girls were a threat to me. I think she lost who she was when she began seeing this guy. Julie actually sat and looked me in the face several times and told me that there was no right and wrong in life and that this was true love. WOW! May be we only teach right and wrong in America?

I have been alone for over a week now. She has moved her things out and I have gotten the pity of my director, the tatas, and even the teachers who tried to break into my house. Yesterday one of the tatas told me that if Julie was an African they would tie her hands and just beat her. I told her that wasn’t probably the best thing, but yes, Julie was wrong. The tata told me that I was a good person and I should forget her, she wasn’t my friend. Then she reassured me that all the tatas liked me. I smiled, but my heart hurts a little to have lost my best friend here. I know that Julie has hurt herself and other people more than me, but I still feel sad in the evenings when I’m alone instead of cooking, talking, and laughing with Julie. I know it will get easier as the days pass. I just haven’t been alone AT ALL since I arrived here in August and I was getting used to it. Now I have to get used to just being with Roxy. I’m glad that I have Roxy!