When I'm Warm More Likely That You Notice Me.

Good god, I can't believe it's March 27th already. I left on what day, the 16th? Could that be true? Because that actually makes me feel better if it's the case. That would mean that I've only been here eleven days. It felt like much more because I'm so worried about my work deadline and was so pissed at the local NGOs for slowing me down (they are NOT working towards our April 13th deadline with any expediency and it's screwing up my timeline) I felt that time was flying by. Have I seriously only been here for a week and a half? Not bad. I'm doing well, then, making progress professionally despite recent setbacks, and learning and seeing new things. I've been lucky to have had many enlightening conversations during my time here with both the locals and with the people I meet.

This evening I had dinner upstairs (the green part of my house) at Cindy and Grant's place. They've lived in so many countries -SL, Senegal, Kyrgykstan, and Kuwait amongst others - and have a beautifully decorated apartment full of African masks and middle-Eastern statues. It's the kind of place I've always wanted for my future home. We were joined by Jeremy, a recent addition to Save the Children who is helping us with logistics and emergency planning. He lives in Senegal and has lived in Nigeria and Kenya, so the group had all kinds of entertaining stories to tell about African snakes (a Mamba snake is apparently very common here and can stand up on its tail up to 2 meters and is known for attacking cars.) We drank Malibu Rum-and-Cokes. We ate chicken and potatoes with mango chutney and had salad with homemade dressing that was surprisingly incredible. Chocolate cake with icing was a beautiful dessert. You wouldn't believe how incredibly important it is to have a home-cooked meal here and how intensely amazing the women cooks are. Elizabeth cooks for them twice a week and I fully intend to sneak upstairs the next time she supplies them with an African feast.

I'd had an absolutely horrible day - what is it with the fact that I've had SIX ex-boyfriends either come on to me or suddenly write to me with no prodding whatsoever in the last six weeks?! I have been an emotional hemophiliac for 6 weeks now - and this dinner invitation was a wonderful way to end my professionally- and personally-shitty day. One ex-boyfriend is a lot to handle. Six is ridiculous. I guess Cindy felt sympathy when she saw me walking around with slumped shoulders and called me upstairs to join her for dinner. I came upstairs and when she put a rum-and-coke in my hand I almost collapsed with gratitude at her sympathy for an obviously Anguished Anna. A couple of drinks, an amazing dinner, a beautiful sunset, puppies to play with and so much talk of law, politics and stories about Africa totally brought up my spirits.