Hello to all! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. My last 3 months here since returning from my harrowing vacation have been full and productive, which is not to say frustration-free! I've been working to plan a training for village agents who will sell condoms and oral rehydration solution (for diarrhea) in the villages, and we've started pulling together a proposal for funding to build a health post (a very basic village health care facility) in a village 15 km away. It's hard work. I don't enjoy working on these projects; they require a more Western system of planning ahead and scheduling, and after the fifth missed meeting I'm ready to tear my hair out. I prefer my daily tasks, the friendships I'm developing more deeply, cooking, reading, teaching my "little brother" to read.

The wet season is over, but the real heat of the dry season hasn't started. It's about 90 degrees in the afternoon, but it gets quite cool at night, so I can sleep. By February, everything will be dry and dusty, the heat will be 110 degrees during the day, and the night cool won't be enough to dispel the heat from my sunbaked house. I've been in Wawaya now one year, four months, and eight days. I only have eight months left. It's odd to be living through seasons I've seen before. It's not all new now. I'm very used to it here now, life has become somewhat rote, I don't think abut it much anymore. Certainly, I'm aware I'm still in Guinea, but it's just life and work now. It's odd, too, to be able to see the horizon at the end of my service. Two years seemed interminable. Now I worry if I'll get all my projects done before I go. I can pretty much see what I'll be doing during the rest of my time. It's no longer an abyss of the exciting and unknown.

I've had no major illnesses (knock on wood), no terrible things happening, lot of crummy things happening (theft, disrespectful coworkers . . .). Elections are next week, so I'm hoping they are peaceable.