WAWA

Have you ever worked on a project that would mobilize people for a specific task? It takes an enormous amount of resources—time, financial, physical and emotional—to prepare people for a special program, event, or project. Then, just when you are ready to launch you receive word that the program, project or event has been scratched! 

Very frustrating! Many times over the years I have used the expression “All dressed up with no where to go.” There’s not much else you can do. Circumstances beyond your control scratch the whole mission and all you can do is wallow in self pity. 

While living in West Africa we would often stand in line at a government office for over an hour to get an official stamp on a document that we needed to either get a package out of customs, to get a permit for something, or to make a special purchase of something that was in limited supply. After waiting for a lengthy time, the person behind the window or desk would announce that he or she was closing for the day. Mind you there were no hours posted nor were there any other places to go to get what you needed. 

On other occasions you would be lined up at the post office to buy stamps. When your turn finally came after a 20 minutes wait they would say you are in the wrong line or sometimes they would say, ”We are out of stamps today.” 

One time when Cheryl was shopping she found some canned chips. She bought several packages on our once a month shopping trip to Ouagadougou. The next month when we returned there were none on the shelves, so she asked someone in the store. They said that they sold so fast that they could not keep them on the shelf so they decided not to order any more!!

Every time something like this would happen, all the westerners in West Africa would just say to themselves (or sometimes they might want to yell), “WAWA!” WAWA stands for West Africa wins again! There was absolutely nothing that you could do about the circumstances, and you needed some comic relief, so you would just have to be satisfied with saying WAWA. 

This morning we awakened early, had breakfast and dressed to drive into Atlanta for my 31st treatment. I have not had a treatment since last Thursday as the cyclotron has not been operable. Yesterday they called me very early to let me know that I would not be having a treatment, but this morning they did not call. After trying to get someone on the phone for an hour, we got all dressed up and ready to go. I decided to try a different office at Emory and finally received word that the machine is still not working. Cheryl was on one side of the kitchen bar and I was on the other looking at each other and we both said, “All dressed up and no where to go!” That was a WAWA moment. 

Hopefully the malfunction technicians will have the monster machine working soon so I can have my final three treatments.