National Lampoon's Wiener Vacation

"I hear the rain a comin',

it's rollin' 'round the bend.

And I ain't seen the sunshine,

Since, I don't know when."

- a take on Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues

I don't even know what to say about the weather these days. We had four months of winter without any rain, and then May happened. Since the start of the month it's been non-stop storming. Which, I would complain about more if they weren't accompanied by some epic thunder and lightening. I know I compare this place to Arizona all the time, but these daily afternoon thunderstorms are straight of my childhood vacations to Flagstaff and Sedona. The temperature - thankfully- drops a few degrees and the village comes to a standstill, watching & waiting, until the storm passes a short twenty or thirty minutes later.

Now, there is a lot I would love to write about these days, but somehow it all comes back to feelings tied to, results of, or reactions to the Marrakech bombing and/or the death of OBL. Both of which the Peace Corps has asked us to temporarily suspend our first amendment right on. Though it's a no-go topic for the moment, we'll see how long I can keep my mouth shut for. Probably not that long.

Happy news, however, I'm seeing my brother next week! No, he still isn't allowed to enter the country (note: in addition to military not being able to enter the country, no other Peace Corps volunteers are allowed to vacation here either. It's a complete shutout - Oh, except for us of course) buuuut, I was granted leave on short notice to go meet him in Vienna! So, in addition to seeing my brother, we'll be staying with two of my very good friends and the vacation also happens to coincide with my birthday. Success!

I must say, it has been well earned though. These last few weeks have been chock-full of primary school activities, Medical Clinic preparation, and grant proposal drafting in addition to regularly scheduled classes at the Dar Chebab. Not to mention the copious amounts of GRE studying I'm having to do these days. The five days in Vienna (well, more like three with two days travel) will be a welcome change of pace.

Sidenote: In attempt to come up with some sort of pun for the title of this entry, instead of coming across a classic sausage joke or Schwarzenegger reference, I stumbled upon a mathematical concept of something called a Wiener Sausage... talk about a mind trip. I was SO confused for least 15 seconds.

I got this:

Instead of this:

Ps. It's worth noting that the caption underneath that first picture was: "A long, thin Wiener sausage in 3 dimensions." Not kidding.