i wish i had photos for you

...but i don't. it's miraculously friday again. the fact that i don't have pictures feels kind of nice. one doesn't take pictures of their repetitive daily life, right? and i'm approaching that point. this is what my typical day looks like:

7:00am first alarm goes off (a nice british-sounding lady coming from my cell phone actually says, "it is time to wake up. it is 7 o'clock. it is time to wake up")
7:30am i stop hitting 'snooze' and get out of bed
7:33am twenty minutes of yoga in my living room, listening to 'trapeze swinger' on repeat
7:53am-8:25am get dressed, eat toast, drink some OJ, brush my teeth
8:25am-8:35am stand outside waiting to be picked up, usually denying taxi drivers that pass by and are SO confused why there would be a white person loitering on the side of the road
8:55am-1:00pm sit on the computer in my cubicle. read the news. talk to jonathan on gchat. read some blogs. do a little bit of work. look at photos. think of music to download
1:00pm-2:00pm walk to the dining hall with josh and debbie (two other young white cdc people). talk to the girls in swahili who work at the cantina (they don't make me feel dumb). gossip about anything and everything and everyone we can think of. drink a cold coke and whatever they have on special. maybe "take" a bowl of fruit if i'm feeling crazy.
2:06pm-4:00pm do the same thing i did in the morning.
4:00pm-5:00pm panic that i haven't done any real work all day
5:00pm-5:30pm sit in the backseat of a car in traffic
5:30pm get home. sit on my balcony and read until dark
7:00pm go run on the treadmill for 20 minutes. sit on the stationary bike for 10.
7:30pm put on a pot of water to boil so i can make either a) a bowl of green beans b) an ear of sweet corn c) some pasta
8:30pm-11:00pm talk to friends in the States (who are now at work) on gchat. Look at flights to far off places. download music. search IRC's job database. send emails. start on the yellow-brick road of the internet and click on things and follow it until it takes me to the emerald city (i haven't found the end of the internet yet)
11:00pm-12:00am "watch" an episode of mad men and fall asleep. realize the next day i fell asleep during the episode and have to start halfway through.

so! now you know. i will say, i am enjoying the solitude. this whole 9-5 job thing has made me appreciate the quiet and my balcony sits and having an empty appointment book. this past week a friend came over for dinner, which mixed things up a bit. i also got a drink with some american girls (one of which is moving back to the US to work with the IRC in Baltimore and another one I coincidentally worked with in Ghana in 2006. small world.) So, for two of the 4 nights I had places to go and people to see. (i'm making friends!)

i also finished "the road to hell", and learned loads about the politicalization of food aid by U.S. agriculture businesses. international aid really is one large corporation. the more starving children we see, the more we donate, the more money is put in the pool, the more NGOs sign up to take a stab at it (or UNHCR, UNFDP, NATO, CARE, IRC, yada. yada. yada.) a lot of loopholes. a lot of shortcomings. the author recommended trimming all the excessive NGOs and putting someone in charge (like the UN, but actually effective) of monitoring their money and programs and reporting. kind of like these guys or these guys or them but it needs to be implemented by governments and if they're the ones getting economic benefits and serving their own interests, it is highly unlikely (read: not in a million years) they will implement a watch dog system for their own cronies. {sigh} now what to do with that $24.95 a month I'm donating to PlanUSA to an alleged Bolivian girl who sends me letters?! i feel like a fake. Helping or hurting?

but now it's an hour to lunch. which means i begin doing work. i should also mention if you ever see spelling errors on here, feel free to tell me. some of you are doing so and it's appreciated. i strive to be a person that doesn't need 'spellcheck' to survive and appear educated. i miss you all and i hope you're having a great weekend and staying warm and daydreaming of summer, 'cause i am too.

and i've been listening to robyn (is she an awkward dancer?) and reading about the success of cell phones in kenya. and i just picked up 'Dark Star Safari' and three pages in I'm a bit annoyed but thinking maybe i'll write a book. If you search Amazon for a minute, it seems that any westerner who has done the Peace Corps or traveled in Africa is qualified to also be a novelist. Good to know I could try to publish the blog if the the job hunt doesn't work out.