New Faces

I've started working with new education (my sector) volunteers, who arrived on the sixth of July, and just returned from travelling to the training villages with them. I got to spend nearly four days in Bambako, my home last year and the place where I fell in love with this country. It was a great time, to be able to help the trainees get settled, to have a chance to see how much I've learned in a year and what has become "normal, and also to have a chance to communicate with the people who knew me when I first came here. It is a wonderful little village, and in a way I'm jealous of the trainees for the time they will spend there. But, like so much in life, I wouldn't want to have to go through the process again of learning all the lessons that now make me appreciate that place so much.

As I reflect a little on the last year, I realize that I haven't been posting as much as I'd like recently. One reason was probably identified by a trainee when he said that I seemed "so normal here". I'm adjusted to this life, and fewer things cry out to be written down. One of the new folks, on the evening of his first day in village said that he really felt that he had a lot to write in his journal that night, after not quite feeling so motivated during the first week - spent here in Kombo. This experience has become more "normal" than I realized it would. I'm used to the harassment and hassles, the heat and humidity, the greetings and food bowls, and all the other things that used to provoke journal and blog entries. So, I'm asking for new topics.

What do you want to read more about? I don't get (m)any comments, but I've changed the submission process to make it quicker and easier, and I'm hoping people will submit their ideas so I can fill out the picture. I can tell you all about the buttock-mangling ride down the south bank road that defined yesterday, but I feel I might have written enough about transport for now. I could rant about the education system, or my job stresses, but it doesn't strike me as fresh these days. So, what's it going to be?

I'm in Kombo until Sunday or Monday, getting ready for a week of training sessions and going to an All Volunteer meeting on Friday. It's very exciting stuff, but I'm going to try to post as often as I can while I'm down here, to make up for the recent lack of activity here. And pictures. We'll get some of those up too...