October 20th 2005, 2010B
This is just going to be a quick follow on from the last post really – it’s not been long enough for much of anything to happen to put down here really :P
Pretty much all I have to talk about is that we’ve received information – unconfirmed as yet, as par the course for this place – that the mission to Burundi will be carrying on for what looks to be another 18 months to 2 years. As such, this contingent will be rotating back to SA in February, & there won’t be any trip through Tanzania to get the vehicles back, or at least not for quite some time, so I likely won’t be staying on till May.
No, instead of staying on till May, I’ll likely be staying on till August ’06 instead. The short version as to why boils down to money – I’ve said before I’m probably going to be out of a job in September next year, so it only makes sense for me to feather the nest as much as possible before then, & unfortunately that means staying here in Burundi as long as possible, where I’m earning an extra R12k a month, maybe more if our allowances do go up. I’ve applied for my contract to be renewed, & there is a chance it will be, but I can’t count on that & as such I need to build up the largest capital reserve that I can. I’m going to say right now that this is not something I want to do, because I really don’t enjoy the idea of another 6 months away from my home, from my friends, but if I don’t stay I’ll be shooting myself straight through the foot. I may still decide to say “fuck it, I don’t need the money that badly”, but at the moment I’m very seriously considering staying the extra six months, & frankly the sooner I make up my mind and get my head around the idea of being here longer, the better off I’ll be.
One thing that will make the additional time away a lot easier to deal with is that today I made a plan today to find out about the wireless net connection available here in town. It’s not going to be before December that I splash out the cash, but it’s 99% certain that I’ll be online under my own steam from the end of the year, & won’t have to worry about using net cafes’ or fighting for a gap on the work pc after that. The existing service available is, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking expensive - $2k to set up & up to another $1k a month subs after that, depending on the bandwidth you’re looking for – but in December the isp is planning to roll out a service similar to the I-Burst I have at home, at what sounds like a similar price. I’ll wait till then to see if I can’t get a connection at a more reasonable price, but if it doesn’t work out then I’ll take the hit to the wallet & get my ass online regardless. Either way, I’ll be splitting the costs with another guy who’ll be staying longer with me, which will make it more affordable.
Another thing that will make an additional 6 months away easier to bear is that I’ll have chance to go home for 2 weeks or so. It’s not as much as I would like, or rather I’d really enjoy chance for another 2 weeks at home in say May, but it’s at least some time at home with the people I care for. There’s always the chance that the Air Force will break the plane or something, so I could always end up spending longer at home, but at least I’ll have those 2 weeks.
Anyway, that’s about all I can say right now, but I’ll post any new info here as I get it, in addition to getting hold of as many people on the phone as I can. Again, I’m really not keen on the extra time away from everyone at home, because I seriously miss all of you, but I really don’t know that I can afford not to stay the extra time. Necessity is the mother of all fucking headaches, if you ask me.
Tell next time then.
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