I am sick of traveling.
Two weeks ago, I was in Pagala as a trainer for the 2010 stage's Mid Service Conference. Last week I was in Tsevie designing the syllabus for the incoming EAFS stage. This week I am in Kara learning how to do this country-wide bed net survey.
Coming up from Tsevie was interesting. We were about 15k out of Tsevie going north when the traffic stopped. We got out and walked up to see what the problem was. A Voltic (bottled water) truck went off a bridge and a crane truck was trying to pull it out. The problem was that the crane was blocking the bridge. Of the only north-south paved road in Togo. They moved the crane eventually so we could get by.
Being back in Tsevie was seriously weird. Being back in Gbatope was weirder. I hadn't been back since I swore in. The place has changed a lot. New marche. Electricity. The road still sucks and there was an accident on death curve. Blood all over the road. One guy's knee looked destroyed. There were three charcoal circles on the road, so who knows what that means . . .
Anyway. I saw a lot of my language teachers from stage. Aisha gave me a big hug. She's responsible for most of the french that I know. I went with Alex one night to eat with my (our) host family during stage. My host mamma about tackled me. Daniel 2 knows enough french to talk to me now. It only took me 4 hours in the bush taxi ride down to remember their family name. ah well. It was nice seeing people again. Being in Gbatope and knowing enough french to figure out what is going on is a bizarre feeling.
Then it rained and Tsevie turned into a swamp. And I wanted to go home back up north.
The thing growling under my bed was a kitten eating a small bat.
Its finally happened. Technology has passed me by. What the hell is an "ultrabook"? I was looking at laptops online last night (found a place with fast wifi in Kara) and I ran across them.
All of this traveling and stuff is stressful. I like being in village. Its (mostly) peaceful there. If I'm gone for a week, my garden goes to hell. My house gets dirty. I can't keep tabs on projects in village (i dont even want to know about the status of our rabbit project) and i feel generally out of touch with everything. Is N'Tido going to CPN to keep tabs on her pregnancy? Are the girls practicing football during the vacation? Etc etc.
It doesnt help that i think im developing insomnia
fast wifi and hot showers are things of beauty. A/C is a siren. it sounds cool (haha pun!), but it screws you up in the end.
i promise this is the last blog post with a kitten reference in the title for awhile