Bored and Sweaty

During my interview to join PC more than two years ago, the recruiter asked "What makes you bored" Then she asked "Do you get bored easily?" Minutes later she completed the hat trick by posing "How do you deal with boredom?" At the time I felt it was on odd point to belabor. I mean, how could my life-changing adventure possibly not be non-stop awesomeness?

Fast forward two years. It's the three weeks between Marche Maroc (a PC organized craft fair) and summer camp. I'm sitting in my underwear eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon while a fan blasts my face and I watch the 10th consecutive episode of X-Men the animated series. Boredom, surprising as it may seem to other PCVs, has largely spared me over the past two years, but summer is a time when ennui shows no mercy.

Summer days at home, when the youth center is closed, tend to be long, humid affairs when the temperature can top 115 without anyone making too much of a fuss about it. Add the fact that water and power go out on a daily basis and you've got the makings of a grade-A hellhole.

While this perfect storm of misery only happens a couple of times a year, it is important to always have a set of strategies on hand. With that, here is a list of tactics I've succumbed to in order deal with the desolation:

• stare at the wall
• finally kill colony of cockroaches in bathroom
• spill water on floor, watch it evaporate
• read five-year old copies of The Economist (watch out for this Obama character)
  
• creep on fb
• burn self with water fresh out of the tap
• solve crimes
• use the time productively to better myself as a human through study and personal reflection...just kidding
• sweat buckets
  
• write this piece of shit