Black Hole Blogging

Walking into in internet cafe after 8 weeks without plumbing or power feels a bit like emerging from underwater. You quickly gasp for air, but its sudden abudance can also overwhelm you, and the noise, previously muted by your isolation, quickly becomes a deafening roar. The Black Hole is named for the remoteness caused by the absence of North/South roads running through it and the name is fitting. At some points, the "route nationale" is nothing more than a dirt path, and at others it actually does go underwater. I'd upload a picture to illustrate this, but this being the Black Hole, that could take several hours. I have been able to upload a few pics from training onto flickr, viewable at www.flickr.com/photos/cmcnally. Good luck to my fellow volunteers getting those to load.

Anyway one of most interesting things I've noticed in the first two months at site is that despite the isolation from the outside world, the little town where I live is positively busy. Bustling is not a strong enough word. Everyday there is a cacophany of activity just beyond our door. Buildings going up, furniture being made, various festivals being celebrated and of course, the marketplace, with at least a dozen vendors each day who trek in carrying loads of produce to sell to us "city" folk. We barely have a second to ourselves, with visitors and business popping up at all daylight hours. This is not what I expected, as evidenced by the three Russian novels sitting on our bookshelf, still uncracked. Seems like Anna Karennena will have to wait until retirement.

I'll post more about work specifics later but I wanted to get things started with some observations, and add my thanks to Marshall for setting this up. I think group blogging for PCVs could produce some really interesting and unexpected results, so I really hope that people post whenever they have the chance and/or inspiration strikes. Remember, you don't have to be sitting in front of a computer to write a post. I hear Planicka will even post things for you if you dictate them to him via BLU radio. You just have to compliment his stache first.

-Charlie