Vivid Dreams

I'm surprised. Surprised that only after one month I'm more or less adjusted to life on a new continent in the third poorest country on God's green earth. Surprised more so that it's only been one month. Waking up with a rat chewing on my leg, learning a new language, visiting a virgin rainforest, learning a completely different structure of government and education, finding new places to spend time with friends (heck, making the friends to hang out at the new places with), and adapting to countless other modifictions to everyday life are only a few changes that I've fit into a short month. The once foreign rhythm of the day is comfortable now. Waking up at five to the echoes of prayers that the mosques spray across Makeni and drawing water from the shallow wells to wash with (food and body alike) are unremarkable tasks now. The short walk and hundreds of 'hellos' between my house and the training center is as familiar as the walk from my college apartment to classes, or the drive from my house outside Dexter, Oregon to a friend's house in town. Playing basketball in the evenings with the kids at the pastoral center could almost be taking place on a basketball court at the Y in Eugene, or shooting around on the court next to Dexter reservoir.
I suppose what's surprised me the most lately is my realization that I've forced the experiences and occurrences of this new life into the paradigm of my life in the states- the rapidity and comprehensiveness of the categorizing being the surprising part. Of course I would try to assimilate new experiences to my old pattern to try and make sense of them, but I hope soon I'll learn a new way of living instead of trying to modify my old one. For example, as i'm writing this, i'm taking breaks to chase a mouse around my room with a dress shoe while Ke$ha blares from my abandoned headphones at my desk- the whole scene lit by a solar powered light. I can't be sure, but it seems like the eyeless fish head in my rice sauce is watching with a bit of disapproval. I don't think any Sierra Leoneans would be caught in such an absurd situation... I hope I naturalize sooner rather than later.
Today strayed a little from the normal routine though. The SL-2 group of Peace Corps volunteers found out where we're going to be stationed for the next two years of our service! It's sobering to think about being so singularly seperated from the other volunteers in the group, but this is what we came for. No one had anything negative to say about their site, and I couldn't be happier with my placement. I suppose it's appropriate that coming from the NW of the US that I'd end up as one of the furthest NW volunteers in Salone. My village of 1,800 is named Mambolo and is located on the boarder of the Port Loko/Kambia districts. It's close to the water (salt) and around 30 miles from the regional capital of Kambia. I'll be teaching Physics and Chemistry to the Senior Secondary School students (which at the moment seems daunting) and I can't wait to get to site and see my school. I was concerned when I read that the roads were almost impassable during the rainy season, but the fact that Pan-Pans (motorboats) run from Mambolo to Kambia, and even out into the ocean down to Freetown, placated me to say the least. I may or may not have already fantasized about a sunset motorboat ride past the beaches on the Salone coast to Freetown... once or twice.
Having learned a sufficient amount of Krio, really a broken, crude dialect of English, all of us volunteers are now breaking up into regionally specific groups. I'm learning Temne with a few other of the northern volunteers, while those in the south are primarily learning Mende. The smattering of volunteers between, or in specific regions, are learning more specialized languages. My host family seemed pleased that I'd be learning the language they speak around here in Makeni where we're training, but one woman in my compound- gifted with the ability to kill a good mood- just said, "Eee boo... dem get boku Flay dem (mosquitos) na Mambolo."
Well as much as I could write about how excited I am to drop knowledge bombs on my, as of now, unassuming Salone students in Mambolo, I suppose I should call it a day. It's 9:30 after all. I hope all of you back stateside are doing as well as God could make you. Don't take anything, however small, for granted. Take comfort though that, like the citizens here, even if you don't even have little things to appreciate, you've still got each other to be caring for. And they're there to care for you.