le 25 decembre

Christmas #1 in Niger

I have...
- had a terrible time falling asleep last night. Did not properly prepare to sleep at the site. Didn't plan ahead to pack my mosquito net and worred about mosquitos, malaria, and probs breaking a PC rule. Worried about insulting the country director. Worried about getting to bed in the midnight hour instead of the nine o'clock hour and being mad tired today. Put some chair mats on a dusty floor to sleep. Was just all over the place. Wanted to sleep in, but was up by 0730-0800. But felt back in the spirit after a few exciting conversations with my friend about his (awesome) secret santa gift, and my run, cals, and shower. Helped to think, it doesn't matter if I'm a bit tired today. The point is to relax. On the black board, under "Little Joy's", I wrote "mad laughs and shenanigans". Under "All I want for Christmas", I wrote "24 (or 12 maybe???!) hours of anxiety free relaxing".
- worn my pajamas all day. Got several WTF comments about my sweet hospital pants.
- learned in the past two days that a member of our stage ran at University of Oregon. Their team won..cross was it? one year while she was there. I felt real stupid beacuse I think I commented earlier that no one in the stage had been a serious athlete or could understand what it's like to put fitness aside....but obviously I was mad wrong. Other people too, but specific to my sport, she makes me look like a recreational jogger.  A reminder that for all the work, I was not all that great, and for all the preparation, performed poorly in a good number of races. Hopefully, I have learned something. I give her, and other people in those situations being at the top of fitness or anything else, a lot of credit for putting it all aside to do something like Peace Corps. She said PC is always something she wanted to do and that running was about having fun and she never really wanted to run professionaly and running will always be there. Mad props to her.
- to shake off some stress, did a few pickups during the run today.
- had hot chocolate with breakfast. Christmas right? Well, we have hot chocolate out for EVERY break. It's also 100 degrees here. So...hot chocolate on Christmas, but doesn't exactly make sense like that.
- won a game of scrabble
- eaten way too much candy
- gotten a pair of super sweet Aidias rip-off kicks (black and white) that I may sub in for my brown "dress" shoes for swear in. Secret santa was so much fun, maybe more so because of the dearth of packages. I think it's helpful to get back to the spirit of the day to just have everyone give and get one gift. It was a good time.
- been again apprehensive about returning back to my host family. But plugged right into a soccer game and all was well.
- succeeded in having a real convo with the fam. Difficult because the quality isn't that great. It's also tricky because we haven't talked for real since I've been here. A lot to catch up on all around. Once I'm at site, I will use my phone more.
- succeeded in getting the Jman on the phone, but then my credit was gone and I lost him. Jam bambata.
- had my meeting with the country director. Apologized for the inappropriatness last night. Got to mention some of my (MANY) points, and was glad she made me feel I could talk about them and that she was listening, even though I know she didn't have the time. I said I would type them up for her. Selfishly didn't want to have to do this. Just wanted to talk them out from my sloppily written notes...that it took me a few hours to prepare anyway. Was pleased that she commented my shenanigans and MC-ing and that she said I would def be called upon over the course of the next two years. Not happy she asked about whether we could imagine ourselves in our villages (how could we? for those of us who had never been to Africa before?) or if we had thought about ET-ing (early termination...leaving early). I'm glad they talk about it outright, but the way she asked it....was not cool I thought.

I have not...
- been at all pleased when staff told us we had to vacate the training site and return to our host families after lunch. Luckily for everyone, someone got the message, and we got to stay together until six.
- (I or anyone else) received any packages. Apparently, the airport in Paris was shut down and evacuated due to lots of snow...so for us, Santa is grounded in France.
- written notes to my stage mates. Will have to do this in next four days.
- failed to get through to Nyika in OR when I was so pumped that morning here would still be Christmas Eve on west coast.
- (due to credit being sapped so quickly) failed to get in touch with any other friends in USA or UK.
- secured an Eng tutor for my baba.
- felt terribly homesick. Again, hard to really feel it's legit Christmas. Hard to wrap one's mind around snow in CT in December.

On the whole, a pretty relaxing day. But went by pretty quick. Tough to squeeze in all the relaxing and chillaxing that needs to happen. Will miss having all the stage around when we move to site.

Merry Christmas everyone!