(mis)adventures: door repair

my front screen door has been terribly broken for some time and on sunday, i finally went to the quincallerie (hardware store) in mbirkelane and bought some material to repair it with. i even managed to make friends with the owner. since the kids push on the bottom half of the door and the cats (jamm rekk [rip], rumi, and wolfgang) like to climb the screen, i decided to put wood on the second half of the door.

i've never repaired anything like this before and memories of struggling in shop class made me helplessly long for talla or chris to fix my door. as a consequence, i let the door remain as it was for quite some time until it was finally just torn to shreds and kept together with string and duct tape. this morning bouba ndiaye said some stuff to me about my "productivity" that was completely wrong (he doesn't even live in the village!) but regardless, it made me feel terrible about myself and my service so i sat on my bed and brooded and stared at my broken door. suddenly -- as if to prove bouba ndiaye wrong -- i decided to quit being a damsel in distress and fix the damn thing myself!

chris had given me a good idea of how to go about fixing it so i proceeded to dismantle the pieces (making a racket) and then cut and glue and nail things together. after 2.5 hours...i did it! despite nailing my own thumb a few times, it came out quite well and i'm very satisfied with the job that i did. it reminded me of my childhood when momma gave me (for christmas) a real (that is, not a kiddie-type) toolbox fully equipped with hammer, screwdrivers, nails, wrenched, etc. and i would spend hours in the basement tinkering around -- never really making anything, but just getting pleasure out of nailing nails into wood. thanks for the training, ma!

i totally failed to take a "before" picture, but this is kind of what the door used to look like. it's actually the back door of my hut but they were constructed the same way. except, imagine the door with the screen falling out (both top and bottom), the screen ripping (cats & children), and the door sagging down on the right corner (dinky wood, i guess).

now, this is the "new" door! because of all the extra support from the bottom half, the door doesn't sag anymore and satisfingly slams shut anytime i open it.