18

Some of you are privy to the fact that today began for me at roughly 02h45 this morning when I woke up for no particular reason and found myself unable to go back to sleep. Again. Given that the Land of Nod was nowhere on the horizon, I used the early morning hours to catch up on some emails and have a very exclusive dance party in my hut. So exclusive, in fact, that even writing about said dance party is a severe breach of my self-implemented confidentiality policy here in the village. Although I could probably walk around in a neon green spandex unitard here and nobody would think me any more out of the ordinary than usual.

Given my 4hrs of sleep between 2 days, I drifted through my day in a bit of a daze, which is a shame seeing as my days are numbered.  I’m feeling a little frantic and split these days. Like a dog who is having a hundred tennis balls chucked in every direction and is so excited by this rarity that he doesn’t know which one to go after.  With the end drawing near, I don’t want to waste one moment. I want to be everywhere at once and spend each second soaking up every aspect of life here, from the people, to the places, to the heat, to the stray dogs, and yes, even to the chickens I’ve been cursing for their cock-fighting antics since day one.  Needless to say I’m finding sleep difficult these days.  Sleep depravity is a currency I’m willing to deal in though, if it buys me more time to be conscious of where I am, and where I will be leaving indefinitely in the coming days.

Speaking of payoff, or something of the sort, I drifted home from the office today and found that a certain someone has recently revealed that he knows my name!  As I was in my room preparing drawing material for the kids who come by after school, I hear his usual rapping on the door, this time accompanied by something new: “Pebeh!” he calls. “Pebeh!”. Oh my god, I almost died. Little nugget is adorable, and far too smart for his own good. Look out world, boy genius is on his way!