WooHoo!!!!!

Well, I got the RR position in Niamey, after much negotiating with my program director.  I'll be living in Niamey, eventually in my own house, and keeping track of 25 or so volunteers.  I'll also have a big hand in selecting new villages for volunteers.  It should be fun, and I'm excited about it.  It will have it's headaches, but what job doesn't?  I'll still be working with ICRISAT from Niamey and communting down there once a week to meet with folks.  It's nice to have that decided, since I'm going to Benin on tuesday and don't want to have to worry about it.  That's right... I said Benin! where they have oceans, food, and NO WORK!  It will be wonderful!  We got our visas applied for the other day, and pick them up tomorrow.  I'll be off the radar while I'm down there though, so don't expect updates or emails... I'll try to find the odd cybercafe to give an update, but no guarantees.

In minor news... we went to a fashion show last night that Alex and Alison were modeling in, it was quite fun.  It was a local designer named Kadi, who is probably the biggest designer in Niamey, maybe Niger.  She had an awesome place, felt like we were in a rainforest or something it was so green.  I'd like to go back and check out the guys clothes, I could use something apropriate for lounging on the beach :-).  This afternoon we're going to an embassy guy's house for a pool party, those are always fun!  Hopefully will get a new podcast up soon...

Friday!! Woohoo!

I've not felt this way about a friday in quite a while.  But that's what I get for changing posts.  The grass is always greener...  It's still hot, so I'm hiding inside in the a/c.  My new project is to learn dvorak.  It's a keyboard layout that is said to be more efficient than qwerty.  Right now I'm pretty slow at it (12 wpm), but I'm getting faster. 

Okay, that took way too long to type, back to qwerty for now.  I went to a cybercafe last night.  It looked like a nice place, but the computers were very slow, which was sad as the internet seemed very quick, and they were all set to french.  They had them so locked down that I couldn't change it.  ARG! I will not be going back.  It is interesting though that I'll intentionally learn dvorak, but I refuse to switch to french when it is all there is.  I think that's part of it, I'm not against learning something new, especially if it's more efficient, but I'll be damned if you're going to force me to learn something when there's no good reason they can't accomodate all languages!  Sorry about the rant, it's probably not the last time you'll hear about this one!  We've been planning to go around and rate all the cybercafe's in Niamey, I guess we should get on that soon.  Right now there is only one computer on the internet at the bureau, so I'll be going out to cafes more often until it gets fixed.

I'll be in niamey for a week now, doing some training seminar thing.  Hopefully by the time I come back out here to ICRISAT I'll know about the RR thing, hopefully I'll be the RR.  Wish me luck!

I've turned in my application, and it should be less than a week now until I find out about the RR position. I worry though that it will be delayed because of a training workshop we have next week. The regional trainer is coming in and they want a few pcvs, including me, to participate. It has something to do with improving our new volunteer training and also staff development. Who knows. It will be a nice change though, I'll actually get to sleep in until 7ish or so. This getting up at 6 to catch the ICRISAT bus is getting old.

Dad made a comment the other day. He said that I'm not happy unless I have something to look forward to, some event or change. I guess I never paid attention before, but he's right. I do enjoy the anticipation of events, changes, etc. It's true that when there's nothing to be excited about, or I don't know what's going on in the future, I get very frustrated. As long as I know what's going to happen, and I have some input or control, I'm happy. I enjoy setup and planning, but long term maintainance (read monotonous boredom) doesn't thrill me at all. Take the Hostel for example, it was a challenge, it needed reorganized and updated. I very much enjoyed whipping it into shape and developing a management system, but now I could be happy to give it to someone else. I did all the setup, I just don't want to maintain it. Once something becomes too easy, monotonous, etc, I get bored with it. I don't know why I'm rambling about it, just an insight I've come across.

I think at this point most of my friends are out in the bush and not planning to come in until our meeting in a couple weeks. Michael did move to Niamey though, and is about as bored as I am in the evenings. We've been eating a lot of meat and fry sandwiches and surfing the net a lot. That's my day really; work, bus, meat & fry sandwich, and the internet. If only i could get rid of the first two and turn down the heat!