Getting back into the swing of things…

November 21^st 2005, 0640B

It seems that I’m still struggling to find the motivation to sit down with this lately, but at least it’s not taken me quite so long this time to work up the enthusiasm, but given how comms with everyone at home have been lately I really need to make the effort. To say that I’ve not had much contact with anyone lately would hardly be an understatement. This is also likely only going to be a quicky before I jump into the shower, but something is better than nothing I guess & I likely come back to this later during the day.

So what’s new in the life of Ian lately? Not much in all honesty. The last two weeks in Bujumbura went fairly well, even if they got off to a rough start – my first day back I spent laid up in bed with a migraine, which was not fun I can assure you. I also wasn’t too busy while I was in town, so I had a fairly pleasant & relaxing time of it. Even if I find myself far more tolerant of the capital these days, two weeks is about as much as I can handle, so I was quite happy to get out of the place yesterday. This time I’ve deployed to Muramvya again, & while I wasn’t too keen to come back here so soon, I’d still rather be here than at Kabezi which is where I’d been scheduled to deploy this rotation. I’d wanted to go back to Mwaro again, but at least I’ll get to spend my next deployment at Mwaro, over the Christmas period, which is exactly what I’d wanted so I won’t complain.

I’ve only spent one night at Kabezi since I got here, and it’s not actually because of the place itself that I didn’t want to go there this rotation, but rather the company that’s there at the moment. I can’t actually say that I even clashed or had shit with anyone in the company either, but rather only that I just wasn’t comfortable with a number of the staff members. Nothing specific either, just one of those uneasy feelings. The chances are that it‘s just symptomatic of the general frame of mind I’ve been in the last month or two – not that bad, but certainly not the best either – but I thought it’d be prudent to avoid the “problem” & asked to be deployed somewhere else instead. My boss, being the nice lady she is, agreed even when I gave her such a lame ass reason, but couldn’t send me to Mwaro as I’d have preferred as it would have completely screwed up her rotation schedule.

So far as other work related news is concerned, I’ve still not heard anything back regarding my application for extension, or had any confirmation about the increase in our allowances. Both are still looking highly likely, but as I’ve said before here I’ve seem many a “dead certainty” evaporate like the morning mist in this organisation, so I’ll wait & see what happens. I’m still quite positive about another 6 months here, or more honestly I’m convinced it’s the best way forward for me, but I can’t really say that I’d be devastated should I get on a plane home in February and not come back. The money I’d get would really help – I’d love to say “I need it”, but I don’t really believe that, only that it would make life easier – but I’m very mindful of the time with the people who are most important to me that I’m losing by being here. And it really doesn’t help that the locals have been seriously getting on my tits these last few weeks – I really don’t know if I’ll last another 6 months here before I give in to my homicidal urges where these fuckers are concerned.

Anyway, that’s all I have time for right now. I’ll catch up again later I’m sure, but cheers till then for now ;)

0855B

Back again, one very cold shower & a little admin later. It’s still up in the air as to which is worse, the cold water or the admin – I mean, I’m exactly not fond of freezing the delicate bits first thing in the morning, but I also hate paper work with a passion so there’s not a lot of choosing between the two.

On the personal side it’s also been fairly quiet lately. Given that comms with home were so poor this last few weeks I’ve been rather out of touch with how everyone is at home, which I’m not happy about. In fact about the only people I was able to get hold of at all, other than a few emails, were Shirlz & Ash, & it’s not as if I managed to have as much contact with either of them as I’d have liked, Shirley in particular as it seems that she’s been having a rough time of it the last few weeks. I was at least able to get hold of both of them on the phone for a brief chat before I left town yesterday morning. Hopefully when I get back to town in early December comms will have improved some so that I can do a little catching up. If I’m really lucky by then I’ll also have a little news about both the extension & the wireless internet service that I’ve mentioned previously. If the wireless service is actually what I’ve been promised it will be, & the extension has been granted so that it’ll be worthwhile to spend the money, then I’ll have far better comms with home before long. I’ll also finally get to start playing WoW, which I’ve been looking forward to for bloody ages lol

I’ve been reading through the pdf manual that’s installed with the game, & I’m quite impressed with what I can gather from it. Let’s hope the actual experience of it matches my expectations though. On the subject of games, one that I’ve spent all together far too much time on lately has been Dungeon Siege II – pretty much every free moment in fact, & it’s one of the reasons I’ve not updated this blog more frequently. It’s not bad at all, quite similar to Diablo, but it’s not so good that I can tell you why I’ve spent so much time on it lately. I’ve just had this nagging compulsion to finish the damn thing, but it’s helped the last week or so fly past so I’m not going to complain lol Rob at home really enjoys it, & I can see us spending more than a few hours on it over a lan when I get home.

When I’ve not been glued to DS2, I’ve been spending my time going through the movies that Rob sent up on the external drives. There’s not much there that really grabs my interest – I’m become really fussy when it comes to what movies I’ll spend time on – but I’ve really enjoyed the History Channel stuff he included, mostly documentaries on WW2. One thing I’m very happy about is that I wasn’t a soldier then, because some of that shit is just insane – the Americans alone lost something like 2000 dead just getting off the beaches at Normandy for example, never mind how many were injured. Not my idea of a fun way to spend a June morning, that’s for sure. The world would likely be a very different place if they’d not done it though.

One thing that happened in the last few days that I’m seriously pissed about is that I managed to destroy – not merely break – my bloody sunglasses, through sheer stupid clumsiness. I sat on the damn things of all things, & in the contest between my wide ass and the durability of the frames, my ass won. I only bought them in July too, a few days before I came up here, and it’s not as if they were cheap – don’t buy Ray Bans from Edgars if you can possibly help it – so you can imagine that I’m not amused. And just to add insult to injury I’m going to have to replace them in a hurry before I start getting migraines, which means I’m going to end up dealing with one of the most annoying Burundians I’ve come across so far – the sunglass salesman who hangs around outside the camp in town. No matter how many times – and it’s often I assure you – I tell this guy I don’t want his stolen Ray Bans, he insists on shoving them in my face every time he sees me, yelling “Five dolla! Five dolla!”. And I just know that once I’ve bought one pair from him, he’s going to redouble his efforts to sell me even more of the damn things from then on. It’s enough to drive a man to drink, I tell you. Not that I need much convincing to have a drink, you understand :P At least I was able to convince the guy who kept trying to sell me a flick-knife to pester other people. This clown, as a sales gimmick, would thrust out his hand at you whenever he saw you and flick the blade out – not from close enough to pose a threat, but plenty close enough to cause consternation. Needless to say I didn’t take too kindly to this, so the next time he waved his little flick knife at me, I waved my 10” kukri back at him. I nearly got in trouble for that, but he got the point so it was worth it.

By the way, Mark, a kukri is a knife, so you can stop smirking now – I know just where your sense of humour went with that last sentence :P

Anyway, I think I’d best end this off for now as it’s starting to get a little on the long side. It looks as though I’m getting back into the habit of updating this thing at least, which I’m pleased about – it’d started to look like this was going to be another pastime that had fallen victim to apathy. Now if I can manage to start taking photos again I’ll be sorted…

Chances are I’ll be going into the capital for “town pass” on Sunday, so I’ll upload this then, and also hopefully make a few calls & get off a few emails that I owe people.

Cheers for now though ;)