Plotting my integration curve

Before we all pilled into the Air Maroc plane to head into Africa, CUSO-VSO insisted on giving us, the volunteers, piles and piles of training. In one of these training sessions, we talked about the integration curve. See the graph on the right. As you can see, Happiness is a function of Time. So as time goes by, happiness changes the more we move along the X-axis or, the more times goes by.  Why is this important? Well, the astute blog reader, probably noticed a trend in my blog postings. In the beginning everything was rosy, hunky-dory, and I was so happy I couldn't see anything wrong with my new life. But slowly, reality sets in, and then you are in the bottom of the curve, thinking that everything sucks, and that life is miserable and you hate everything about your new life. I believe I reached that point a few days ago.

So, where am I now? Well, check out image. I am on the right side of the curb, climbing my way back up.  I feel myself settling into my routine. I wake up, have coffee, eat breakfast, go to work. I come home, eat my lunch, that is waiting for me on the table, prepared by my cook. I take a 2 hour nap. Go back to work for the rest of the afternoon. Then I come home, and eat diner that is waiting for me on the table. I eat diner, then I read. Or I write. Sometimes I watch some TV.

Noooo, I don't have a TV, silly! I downloaded GIGS AND GIGS of TV before I moved out of my apartment in November (thank you iTunes!), so I watch that stuff.  I have 5 seasons of Scrubs left to watch. I already watched all three seasons of Torchwood many times since I have been here. I am saving Weeds and Dr Who for later in the year. And, I have watched the new Star Trek movie about 20 times. I hoping a good Samaritan will send me the Avatar movie when its out on DVD. (HINT HINT HINT!)

My quest to gain internet in my own home is almost over. I finally managed to hand in the complete requisition form yesterday at the Onatel. For my Quebec and Ontario followers, this is kinda like Bell Canada. They have a monopoly on telephone lines and ADSL internet, and that is why they are so slow and have zero customer service skills.  So know, all I have to do is wait. They are currently studying my application and Thursday I should get a phone call to let me know whether or not I can get Internet at home. I cannot tell you how extremely happy this makes me.

Another thing that has contributed to my happiness, is that my roommate has left for greener pastures! He did not like living in Yéguéré, so he says. He wanted to be closer to his office downtown. Thats legitimate I suppose. Honestly, I really don't care what he does, but I am glad to have the place to myself. Now, I can manage the house and the employees how I want, and I don't need to embark on negotiations with anyone when I want to change anything. Its my house now!

Last weekend, I had the visit of two of my CUSO-VSO peeps from Ouagadougou. Jolyanne and her beau Ngaba.  Again, I can't tell you how awesome it is to have people visiting me! The more the merrier I say :) As you can tell by the picture on the left, life as a VSO Burkina Volunteer is very hard.  In my two friends' defense, the temperature those two days was abnormally high, and sleep was a necessity.

One thing I had  not realized before coming here, is how much the extreme heat takes a toll on your body. You spend so much time fighting the heat that you become exhausted quite easily. It then becomes necessary to sleep, sometimes its impossible to fight it. Its quite normal to see people sleeping all over the place. Under trees by the side of the rode, on a bench next to a store downtown, anywhere! In Canada, I was lucky if I slept 7 hours a day. Here, I probably sleep close to 10 or 11 hours a day.  I also found that Ngaba is a willing and very cooperative model. Jolyanne is a lucky lady.