At the end of the day….

January 23^rd 2006, 2020B

I really doubt that this is going to be a very long post, given that I’m already in bed, & the sleepy drugs are starting to do their groovy thing. Besides, I typed up an entry for this only yesterday, & it’s not that there’s much of anything going on right now to talk about here :p

About all of real interest that happened today is there was a brief earth tremor at around lunchtime. It’s funny how our reaction to something like that is often out of all proportion to the event itself though. I mean, the tremor today was barely noticeable, but when it happened, Hans – the other medic here with me - & I stopped chatting dead in mid-sentence and gave each other one of those “Uh oh…..did you feel that too?” looks that lasted a whole shit load longer than the tremor itself did. I imagine you know what I mean, when you have that “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling, where you hold your breath & wonder if the universe is about to drop on top of you that always seems funny in retrospect.

Then again sometimes the other shoe does drop, with tragic consequences, so perhaps a “disproportionate” reaction isn’t that strange after all. But what I really find remarkable about these little tremors we feel from time to time here in Burundi, is that it’s apparently the volcano at Goma in the eastern DRC that’s getting restless again which is causing them. About as best as I can figure from the admittedly low-detail maps I have access to, Goma is around 400km from where I am now, and the amount of force required for me to feel something that happened so far away must be mind-boggling. I doubt it was much of a tremor in Goma itself either, but that I felt even as little of it as I did over that distance makes me happy that I’m not any closer. At least the military evidently has someone in Goma studying the volcano, so there should be enough warning if the sucker decides to blow that we’ll be able to safely evacuate our personnel from there – there’s a small contingent of SANDF firefighters, cargo handlers, & medics stationed at the airport in Goma. Or at least stationed at what’s left of the airport at Goma after the last eruption :p

The fact that the SANDF actually has a vulcanologist of all things in service, is a source of some amusement to me I must confess :p I can just see the meeting, where some UN bigwig is asking for troops for a peacekeeping mission, and the reply being “Sorry, we haven’t enough troops or tanks to do the mission like you’ve asked, but we do have a spare vulcanologist you can use….”

Anyway, other than the brief moment of worry brought on by the restless ground, pretty much all I’ve done with my day is play a little Desert Combat Extended – a few more maps & different models compared to the regular DC, but maybe worth a look at the next lan – and do a fair bit of reading. The game was fun enough, but the reading I thoroughly enjoyed, having decided on a whim this afternoon that I was going to read through all the blogs that I’ve saved on the pc since I’ve been here. I only made it through Gareth F’s & Noelle’s today, but it was fantastic to read their blogs again, from July last year till now, and see what’s been going on in their lives since I’ve been away. BTW, Gareth, you really need to update you blog more frequently man :p

Hans, the other guy here with me, probably thinks I’m in need of professional help right now though, as while I was reading them I’d frequently burst out laughing at something either Gareth or Noelle had written – in particular, Noelle’s description of how her perception of He-Man has evidently changed over the years had me in tears I was laughing so hard. “Ultimate gay fantasy” indeed lol And having read through Gareths’ blog again, and being reminded of how excited he was to have met Denbeigh, just makes me want to meet this interesting young lady all the more.

Tomorrow will likely also be spent reading through some of the blogs I have saved, most likely Shirlz’ & Ash’s, both of which are fairly large – Ash’s in particular – and should keep me going for the whole day. One thing I’ve noticed about the other blogs that I read, is that they all make good use of images – Noelle’s Girlz’nGames strip and pics of the gang, & also Ash’s photos for example – to bring their blogs “to life”, and make them more interesting & engaging for the reader. That’s something I’d love to do myself in this, but with my net access being what it is…. Maybe when I get home, & have access to a decent connection all of my own, I’ll go back through this blog and add a few photos & so on to old posts where appropriate, as well as hopefully to any new posts from then on.

One downside to going through these blogs today has been that it’s really brought home to me just how long I’ve been away, how much I’ve missed in that time, and how much I’ve resented that lost time with my friends. It wasn’t an especially cheerful realisation I must admit, but I’m consoling myself with the thought that I have an incredible group of friends, & that it won’t be too much longer before I get to see everyone again.

And on that note, I’m going to have to bid you all goodnight, as the immovaine is making it hard to focus, & sentence construction is also proving rather challenging lol

Till next time then ;)