Its now into my second week at my lovely new home of Edea, and things are starting to get settled. I do have a great deal of furniture and a semi-working fridge that the previous Peace Corps tenants left me. Its made my life quite a bit easier. In fact, to cinch my semi-laid-back lifestyle, I hired a housewoman this week. She started on Thursday, and comes twice a week to clean the house -mostly the floors- and hand-wash my clothes and linens. Its really a wonderful thing, and I highly recommend it. For this, I pay her 12,000 CFA per month (including 2000 for moto transportation, since she lives a little too far to walk)- this is about the equivalent of 22 dollars, but represents a third of an average secretary's monthly wages. In Edea, they get paid about 35,000 per month.

I went to the market this morning to do a more thorough check of what was available. I came away with a papaya, five oranges and five mandarins for a grand total of 650 CFA, a little over a dollar. Sometimes, I love this country.

My neighbors have gone from overly curious to decidedly indifferent. In general, I think they've decided that I'm not going to open my doors and talk to them all day or whatever. I'm not sure exactly the best way to handle the situation, but I think I'll let it evolve over time. Some of the neighbors who are not adjacent to me seem to be quite happy everytime I see them though, which is nice. Work on the other hand is going quite well. The people I work with and the current clients of the cooperative have all been great to me, and have taken me out to lunch several times this past week. We've already started talking about how we can help the cooperative and even some of the members who have outstanding loans. Work should continue to get better and better.

On the free-time front, I've had a lot of it. I have completed the Salman Rushdie book-interesting, but not fabulous. Not a must-read, unless you're interested in Pakastani history, in which case its quite fascinating. I also finished "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kuntera or something like that. I think they also made it into a movie. Anyway, highly, highly recommended. I really did enjoy it. Its a bit deep at times too, which is a little different for me. Now, I've switched things up a bit and am halfway through "1st to Die" by James Patterson. Quite fun to read.

I'm out of time, so until next week- keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars!