Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Wait for it....wait for it...

Since last Monday (Jan 26th) I've been very attentive to the Malagasy news. There have been some political riots (I guess that would be the proper classification) which have caused the Malagasy government to be unstable. Through news translation, either about 44 or 100 people died in the initial riots on Monday, the President was over thrown by a mayor who looks, and was criticized for being, very young, and now the President is trying to be back in power but it seems like he's willing to work things out in a more calm manor. The good news about this, as it relates to me, is that the Peace Corps is very on top of the situation and has the safety of their volunteers at top priority. This means that the current volunteers are all safe and it sounds like some are hidden away until it all gets better and those of us waiting to go are going to wait a little bit longer.
Having an extra month is a good thing I suppose, especially if it means a safer situation for me and my fellow volunteers. My thoughts while waiting to hear our fate were filled with just as many nerves about my dental paper work going through as they were about our departure date. Now that I've been through the ringer with all this dental stuff (really earning my stripes if you ask me) and feeling under pressure to make the deadlines, I feel some more relief that there's now more time for everything to get processed.
I'm also glad to have another month with Buttons and Boo (although Buttons has made several attempts to sit on the keyboard as I'm typing right now and is running my patience low-it's a good thing she's funny and cute and can get away with it), telephone conversations: fortune and glory kid, fortune and glory, hopefully time to get to camp and work on a project there, more time with family, and more time to put on a few more pounds as Vicky is quite concerned about my low weight holding me through two years of rice! It's nice to feel like I'm doing the right thing by eating doughnuts and cookies! So I'll be trying to keep busy for this next month. I would like to get a job, but as I told Chris last night, I don't want to not be able to visit with people in this month because of work because I'll have two years of that excuse.
I also think the delay is okay because I'm not sure if I was really ready for departure as planned. I'm not sure what it was, maybe because my teeth were still potentially going to delay me even more. But I'm sure by March I will be good to go. I feel like I need to do more reading and last minute learning. This will be good. BUT, I am tired of the snow.

Happiness is safety first.