Summation of Three Weeks

Wow!  I haven't had a post up in about three weeks! 

Well, in three weeks, I lost 15 pounds (this is not a good thing), got sick for the first time (it wasn't too bad, I just had to get rid of the thing that I ate.  Although admittedly, it is not fun when food at various stages of digestion goes out of both ends of your GI tract at a hundred miles per hour), watched the dismembering of a goat (tastes like chicken), saw the arrival of seven new volunteers (in the town, there are now six German girls, two Swedish girls, and one German guy (I haven't met him yet), and been continuing to learn more of the work at the hospital.

There should be epic poems composed about how much I have read in the last three weeks.  I have read "Things They Carried" (awesome book, couldn't recommend it more- I read it in one sitting), "Witch of Portobello", "Molokai", "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", "Crime and Punishment" (I started reading this before I came back from the Kakum/beach), and "Atlas Shrugged".  At the hospital, after the initial flurry of activity in the first two hours (making beds, dressing wounds, removing stitches, etc), my job consists of monitoring vital signs every 15 minutes to an hour, so I take the three to four hours at the hospital during which I would otherwise be idle as well as the two or three additional hours at home after work to read.  Unfortunately, I have exhausted my library, but tomorrow I will take the one hour tro tro ride to go to the nearest big town to pick up science textbooks that I asked my parents to send me.

I have been exercising very rigorously.  Everyday, I do 300 push ups and 500 sit ups, and either run for 30 to 90 minutes (sometimes joined by Philine but usually by myself), or play soccer.  The running trails here are beautiful.  Once I run five minutes away from the house, I feel like that I am in an episode of Man vs. Wild, and I'm Bear Grylls venturing through the vast, green, interminable African jungle.  A couple of times, I have gotten lost (very scary), but other than that, the runs are awesome.  I never thought that I would enjoy running so much.

There is no other way to put it: I'm happy here.  I've been told that human beings are the happiest when they have a daily routine, and so far, I have found out that this is true.  In addition to waking up early and doing everything with a 100 % effort and fervent passion, achieving a comfort level with the Ghanaian culture has helped immensely.  Somehow, I am just as comfortable here in the village using bucket showers (sometimes rain showers) as I am swimming in the pool in my parent's dream house. 

It is rainy season.  Sometimes, it feels like that the man or woman upstairs forgot to turn off the faucet to the sky.  Perpetual puddles occupied by hundreds of tadpoles have formed in some of the paths.  When it is raining hard enough, I take my shampoo and body wash and take a shower in the rain.  It is actually very economic: saves the human effort of having to fetch water from the well. 

If I could change one thing, it would be the presence of a piano.  I have been inquiring constantly for the wooden instrument, but so far, I have not had any luck.  Sometimes, I feel like a part of my soul is missing.

It is so weird whenever I come to the Internet Cafe and go on facebook, I see everyone back home posting about how college/high school is.  It feels like high school was a lifetime ago.  It's just a blurred memory that comes back once in a while.