The Baseline

Here are a few more disconnected things from my head:

I finally (just this evening) put something together to present my (unfinished) baseline survey to the world.  If you're interested in a little more in-depth information on water and sanitation issues in my village, send me a message and I'll hook you up with my data.

Last Saturday, I went back to my homestay village for a night.  They kicked the boyz out of 'my' room so Nagnouma and I could sleep in there together (although I would have been happy jammed into her room), and before I left on Sunday, Nagnouma cooked me really amazing lunch (they killed a chicken for me!) and everyone was super nice.  I didn't get to see my togoma, as she was out of town, but I may go back next week with the other Sba PCVs.  They treated me like I still couldn't say the most basic things in Bambara, and kept speaking around me without expecting me to comprehend.  It made me feel both incompetent and smug at once, because I was once more a child in their eyes, but I knew I understood more than they guessed.  I don't know if I wanted more pomp than I got or not, but it was just as if I had never left in so many ways.  I spent a good chunk of the time just sitting with my little brothers making tea and chatting about ridiculousness.

Going from that back to Tubaniso for IST made the last three months tend to fade away almost to nothing.  Except that I'm still in the hermit habit, so being here at training is hard for me.  I feel obliged to socialize, but I'm spending most of my time alone (on the computer) or in one-on-one conversations (and not that many of those).  The sessions, however, have so far been well planned and relevant.  Most of them have even been interesting.  Of course I got some requisite back-at-Tso sickness, but it's just the edges of a mild cold, so it hasn't really slowed me down.  Except that I almost fell asleep in class today, but I took a long nap afterward, and I want to get a good chunk of sleep again tonight.

Seeing all these people again, with whom I had all those formative experiences in pre-service training, and now after three months we're all a little calmer... it's overwhelming.  Seeing Colleen again, seeing all the Sba-ers, delights me, but I feel like a stranger amongst all these people.  To be honest, I feel more isolated here than I do in my village.  Even if I don't have even a language in common with some, there's a proprietary feeling that I belong (to? in? is it important in this context?) with the people of Zamblala.  That being said, I'm not especially isolated either here or there, and I'm still feeling good.  I think my mental state has actually improved over the last three months, to a higher plateau of good-feeling, if you will.  You know sometimes you're really up, sometimes you're really down, and the rest of the time you're just at that neutral level?  Well my neutral level is happier than it was in the states.  Of course, this makes the plummet and the climb much more intense when I do get down, but it's not very often.

And for the moment, there's dance music pumping and relaxing to be done.  God grant you the peace of the night!