Back in the saddle.

Home was so delightful that it flew by like summer camp and the sojourn is too quickly acquiring that dreamlike quality that characterizes the best experiences. Now the game begins: “It was only ___ days/weeks ago that I was _____.” If I can make a temporal chain back to it, it must be real; I could skip a stone across the days back to New Years, back to Family Band Take Two, back to 7 Fairfield.

The first 24 hours back in Ghana I was stricken with a fairly dreadful combination of jetlag and comfortlag. The latter is a condition analogous to the first, except that in comfortlag the body is slow to adapt to a change in—or dearth of—things that make it feel good. Family, good food and beer, friends, down comforters, New York City, and driving a car are all relevant examples. My mind forgot that these things were no longer at hand, and so it operated as if they were. It was like arriving at a friend’s apartment and finding it vacant. There was nobody home, and I felt sharp pricks of loneliness for the first time since I began this journey.

But it passed, largely under the radar, due in no small part to the fact that another raucous workweek began the day after I arrived. Back at the office it’s “business” as usual. On Thursday I desperately hope to begin the Pilot Study, which is really a small-scale mock-up of the interest rate sensitivity study I came here to do. But before that ship can sail, I need to (further) train the marketers and loan officers, requisition a color printer and ink for flyers and then print them, convince the management team that everything is going exactly according to plan so they can just lazily wave the thing on, pitch a couple slight changes in operating procedures, and requisition two desktop computers for the loan officers to use. Incredibly, it appears that this may be within reach.

So it has been a busy two days thus far, and the rest of the week should follow suit. By Friday I probably will have forgotten all about Belgian brews and the people I care about. Just kidding. Lest I create the impression that noses are being scraped up on the grindstone, let me relay two scenes from today.

SORRY--DUE TO THE EXISTENCE OF FILTERS (THANKS, GOOGLE) I HAVE BEEN ADVISED TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT WRITING, MENTIONING NAMES, ETC. SO THESE FEW PARAGRAPHS HAVE BEEN REMOVED. HERE IN ACCRA EVERYTHING IS GOING GREAT AND EVERYONE I ENCOUNTER (ESPECIALLY THOSE I ENCOUNTER IN MY CAPACITY AS AN EMPLOYEE) IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. IF YOU WANT ANY MORE INFORMATION THAN THAT, YOU'LL HAVE TO ASK VIA PRIVATE EMAIL. CHEERS!

Yes, back in the saddle. Honestly, five days in (I started this entry Tuesday night; now it’s Thursday) it feels good. It’s easy to get lost in the days, in the mad jumble of sensations and events, in the unintentional comedy. At the moment I’m reminded of my favorite Bright Eyes lyric: “Oh! My morning’s coming back; the whole world’s waking up. The city buses swimming past, I’m happy just because I found out I am really no one.”