It's pretty amusing to me how "hard" things are down here, even though I'm not nearly as busy or stressed out as I was back home. Before I came into the Peace Corps, I was working a full time job that required 40+ hours of work a week, on average about an hour and fifteen minutes of commuting each way to get to work and taking night classes twice a week after work. I also managed to train for a marathon, travel a lot on weekends to see family and friends and hold down a decently active social life in Philly where I lived at the time. On top of this even, I was able to do a bit of reading for pleasure, averaging about a book a month or even a little more.
Coming into the Peace Corps, I figured that I would not be working nearly as much or nearly as hard, I wouldn't be taking night classes and I wouldn't have the disposable income to have such an active social life. Therefore, I figured that I would have plenty of time to do a lot of reading, catching up on a lot of books I have been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to. While most of this is true, the reading part certainly is not. I've now been here for 3 months and I've completed a total of 1 book. Its not that I don't have the time, its that I'm a lot more tired than I thought I would be. I'm not sure if it is the stress of still adjusting to the new culture and ways of doing things, trying to get used to the never ending heat or just plain laziness kicking in. All I know is that when I sit down to do a little reading, I might make it a total of 5 pages into a book or magazine before I pass out.
This last Friday was a great example. After a week of traveling over a lot of the island, I was in the office on Friday to sit in on a meeting and get a few things organized. Certainly not a tough day. In reality, I don't think I accomplished anything other than working out my travel schedule for next week, which should be considered an accomplishment seeing that it took about 2 hours of talking with 10 different people to get 4 trips planned. Anyways, I was able to leave work around 4 pm, watched the parade of the Jamaican Olympic track athletes in Kingston (the Jamaicans have not stopped going crazy for Bolt for a solid month now) and made my way home by about 5:30 pm. After having some leftovers for dinner on the veranda of my host families house, I figured I would try to relax and do some reading for a few hours, then have a drink or two at the bar nearby before going to bed around 10 pm or so. Nothing to stressful, just a relaxing Friday evening. Well, I sat down to do some reading and the next thing I knew I was waking up and it was 3 am on Saturday morning.
This is not a rare occurence. Almost every night during the week, I struggle to keep my eyes open much past 8:30 or 9. Oh well, I guess I'll soon adjust, or just get a lot of sleep that I have been missing out on for the past few years.
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