I'm really starting to love my little life here. It surprises me to find that Gone West really is the sort of place where you get invited to spend a Sunday evening peeling apples and canning applesauce in someone's kitchen, just for fun. I had these fantasies when I moved here of dinner parties and hiking and drinks on the terrace. I wanted a social life, in a way that I didn't have the energy for in New York and didn't have the varied people for in Tiny Little Town in South Sudan. And just what part of that has not turned out to be true? None. It's my new reality, and I love it. I'm still working on making enough friends to keep me busy whenever I want to be busy (amuse me, people!), but the ones I have are pretty rocking cool. On Saturday, I went to a party that involved pouring layers of liquor into tiny glasses so that you can actually see the layers. This is surprisingly hard, and what I want to know is: how cool are the people who came up with this plan? So cool. I love them. It's like chemistry class WITHOUT A GRADE. And NO TESTS. I love all my nerdy friends.
I also love my little apartment. I have a bed and a couch and it's all so warm and cozy in red and orange. I finally have a bookshelf (courtesy of my lovely sister and a birthday I just had), and I got around to hanging my fabric map of Africa purchased on the street in Monrovia in front of Abu Jaoudi's and my geometric poop painting from eastern Rwanda. (What? You don't know the geometric poop paintings of eastern Rwanda? They are made by shaping ridges of cow manure on a sheet of plywood, setting it out in the sun to dry, and then painting over it in white and black paint. They actually started as painting on the sides of houses until crazy touristical people came along and wanted to take them home with them. I think. Unfortunately, the place where women actually make them, out on the road that runs from Umutara down to Kibungo, is extremely difficult to find; also no one speaks English. Good thing I know how to say 5000 francs in Kinyarwanda. Or did.
And no, there is no smell of manure. This is what mine looks like:
End parentheses.
And at the risk of getting even sappier, and even though I know one is never supposed to write about one's job, I love my job. Without going into too much detail, because that is always dangerous, for quite a while I had a job that required me to show up every day and go somewhere new and work with new people. It was exhilarating at times, but also sometimes boring and exhausting and I always, always had to be impressing new people. It was like a five month long interview. Now I have a work home and I work with the same people every day and they are fantastic and I am actually competent at my job and I love going to it every morning. It's actually the very same job that I was doing for the previous five months, so the exhilarating part is still there, I just don't have to be making first impressions every day. I belong somewhere.
AND, I have health insurance now. GOOD health insurance. I pay FIVE DOLLARS to go to the doctor and FIVE DOLLARS to get a prescription. Even the pharmacist when I went last week, after she helped me track down my ID number and all, said, "Wow, you have really good health insurance." (Which is exactly what I just said. Aren't you glad I just told a story that added nothing to what I said?)
So yes. Love, lovety, love. Can I use this word any more often? Are you gagging on the sickly sweetness of this post yet? Go right ahead. Gag. GAG.
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