Wednesday - August 10, 2004
When I got up this morning, I noticed that Pet and her family had returned from their journey to South Africa. In the middle of the night, I remember waking up to Smiley barking furiously at something, and it must have been them. Later, I found out they arrived at about 4am. Morris apparently got up around 7am and went to work too! I cannot imagine driving almost 12 hours, getting less than 3 hours of sleep, and heading to work.
After arriving at work, I sent out an email offering the books I've read for free to people I know here. Three of them went quickly. The Witness Protection Program book and the haunted house novel were not claimed. Shame! Someone will take them, though, because I am not carrying them back to the US.
Otherwise, the day was pretty slow. I gathered information for the measles partnership call (my last one!) and had to translate a very LONG update from West Africa into English. Thank goodness I have taken French in school. It makes life easier here to be able to at least understand the point of documents written in French. The call itself went well. I was alone for most of it, representing AFRO, but Balcha came in just in time to discuss some surveillance related topics. Soon, the call was complete, and I found myself finished with the main task of my time here! The weekly updates will go back to Casey next week.
Paola asked me over to her house for dinner again today. I think she knows I'm gay, but I can't shake the feeling she is asking me over for a date or something before I go. I'm probably imagining things, but I tend to listen to my gut in matters like this. I've turned her down twice for various reasons, but I could only put her off so long. I've agreed to come over for a light dinner next Tuesday. Hopefully, it will just be dinner and I will feel foolish for thinking she might have other…ideas.
The tickets didn't arrive today, which concerned me. I emailed Emma at Off2Africa, and she got back saying that she found cheaper tickets on the plane, so that was the delay. She was getting me a small refund. The tickets should be delivered tomorrow morning, and she will call when she sends the courier out. I'm pretty excited about my trip to Victoria Falls. I partially packed last night with the clothes I will need. It's just a weekend trip, so I'm not carrying much.
I hung out with Pet and her family last night. Pet and Morris both looked like death warmed over. Pet at least had been able to sleep in, but Morris was working on 3 hours of sleep. Pet didn't have a stitch of make up or anything. I felt bad for them! They bought a dual decoder for the satellite TV that knocked out service for a day. This will enable me to watch what I want in the cabin while they watch what they want in the house. It will be nice; pity it couldn't have been added earlier!
Turns out that Richard and I won't be able to take a vacation during the week he's off in September. It's STOP training, and everyone in the office is going to be out either on leave themselves or on official travel. It's likely to be just myself and Lisa Cairns in the office to support STOP from the measles side. Therefore, I must take one for the team and not make a fuss about a vacation. Hopefully it will buy me some "good employee" points! J I am bummed about not being able to take a vacation though. That will leave a week at Thanksgiving and then Christmas to take a vacation if we want. I'll have to see what Richard wants to do. On both holidays, we will upset family if we go off somewhere, but for my own sanity, I may need it. I haven't had a real vacation since going to NYC at New Year's, and anyone reading this journal knows that Zimbabwe is not exactly a vacation. You don't WORK on vacations! J He took the news pretty well when I called and said it wasn't a big deal. At least I still get that Friday off to go to the adoption seminar weekend we have planned. That was the last day of STOP, so it wasn't as big of a deal. I still wish we could have gone somewhere.
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