Lunchtime Sun

Today I was taking a poop in the lunchtime sun.

It was hot, obviously. It is hot here almost all of the time. Unexpectedly, the mornings
are still cool until about 8:30. I usually start to stir around six, and recently have been
letting myself lay about for a long while in the cool. Actually, it's not so ridiculously
hot here. Perhaps I've acclimatized or I don't know what, but I'm not as floored by the
heat as I expected to be. And I'm getting used to being sweaty all the time - which isn't
actually true because there are usually ten minutes or so after a bath, and then the middle
of the night, when I'm not sweating at all. AND, on my recent trip to Kombo, I bought a
little fan, which I can run on my solar setup and be very nearly comfortable at any time of
day. It's amazing!

Anyway, back to where I started. Squatted over my pit latrine, I thought about how hot the
sun was on my running-with-sweat back, but how I didn't mind it, I was even enjoying it a
little. I knew that I could just have a bucket bath right away, and it just seem to be that
big of a deal - I am staying well hydrated, I know how to handle the heat, and even as I
type this, sweat rolls down my chin and is almost a comfort, if it weren't a little
embarrassing to be dripping with sweat. But, I am doing well, I'd say. May was supposed to
be a boogey man of a month, the one that broke one's back, but I am hanging in there and
getting a laugh about how afraid of it I was.

The hard thing is probably going to be the long haul, the constant sweatiness once the rains
come, and just dealing with it until mid-November. But, bring it on! At least today. I
well remember being in this same computer room writing a couple posts back and being
bitterly unhappy with the sweat and it all. Ups and downs, life and all of it.

Every few days a thought passes through my head: "in X days, I'll be thirty years old."
Thirty is a new number, one that had important connotations for most of my life. My brother
and I both said we could feel justified doing anything until we were thirty, then we should
settle down and get serious about the future. Or something. Now I realize that life just
keeps going, and I'll keep being me on May 30 just like I am on May 11. But, it still seems
to be more important than any random birthday - it's not 22, when I didn't even know it was
my birthday until I was writing in my journal and put down the date. So, I'll be thirty.

And I'm so ready for it. I'm realizing why so many people said that they would never trade
what they have learned about themselves for the years it took to learn it. It's much easier
to get through life now - not easy but easier - that I've spent the time doing it for a
while. And I don't waste so much time with the unimportant stuff.

Maybe that's the best part about Peace Corps. I have the time to realize what's important
to me, and the freedom to make up my own mind about how to pursue those things. Freedom and time are things that I have perhaps valued too lightly in the past, and things that I'm sure
I'll not have enough of in the future. But for right now, I'm in a sweet spot. In Africa,
sweating and dirty. Life couldn't be better.

love,
Zac