Thursday, January 26, 2012

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

My very own slacker spiral

It all started with a little additional work stress, too much fun on holiday adventures, and then moving to a new home. All of that added up to a complete disregard for my blog. My apologies to those of you that have faithfully checked it over the past month. I humbly admit I am a bum.

So my very biggest news is that I moved. It wasn't really my first choice, but I've learned, when in Africa, you don't always have a choice. I've been homeless since November. Yep. That's right almost three months without residency. I don't really want to go into details of why, but Peace Corps and I decided that my home wasn't really that safe for me anymore. My wonderful friend Christie graciously offered me her home in the interim, and I began my house hunting.

I have since added house hunting to the ever growing list of things that are much easier in America; its right up there with daily meals at Taco Bell and maintaining sense of dignity. Anyway, there's no Craigs List or online apartment listings or bulletin boards or anything other than hearsay. After about two months of this I started feeling like that little leprechan who knew his lucky charms were somewhere but couldn't ever quite catch them.

I gave up.

I hate admitting it but I just couldn't do it anymore. By January Ginger and I had moved three times, which is not easy on a puppy or me for that matter. A wonderful house, that was promised to me fell through, and it was just the end of the line for my sanity. It didn't help that I had exhausted all of my temporary housing options and I was left with two choices: 1. Sleep in my tent in the yard of a cooperative Adventist or 2. Move 65km to big-city-Blantyre where there was a wealth of housing options and a fabulous job opportunity.

So here I am.... moved from the spiders and the dreaded outhouse, and my fancy counter top and my little garden, into a rooftop apartment with all the comforts and conveniences of America. I'm right back to massive, overwhelming culture shock, but I strongly suspect my hot shower will help to wash that away quite quickly.