Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Screen vacation

Usual house activities: data entry, reading, being awesome.

Entertainment.  Africa has helped me take a break from many of my vices. In particular, my “screen time” has been cut pretty drastically. The internet is terrible here, and we only have 2 logins for 7 people so I don’t get unfettered access to nyt.com, style.com, facebook, google searches for “funny blogs” or “cute puppies” or any of my other usual cyber haunts.

Harder to deal with, perhaps, is the fact that Africa has made me break up with my boyfriend. And if you know me, you’ll know that by “boyfriend,” I’m referring to my blackberry. A recent acquisition, my bberry had become a crackberry as quickly as everyone predicted. I told myself that the med school application process justified knowing the status of my inbox 24/7 but the truth is that I’m 22 and I have no business important enough to necessitate constant communication. I tell myself that this is a break, not a breakup, but I think it’s in everyone’s best interest

I’m also very happily devoid of television here. This is not particularly hard for me at all (except when I hear about Christine’s toddlers and tiaras Halloween costume). The one time I have watched television is at the father’s house (where the monkey is). He inexplicably has satellite TV which everyone watches after dinner. Out of like 200 channels he had us watching a cartoon. Of talking shoes.  There was a girly shoe and a pirate shoe. What were the cartoon shoes talking about? I don't know. Because it was in Chinese. So yes, the 15 minutes I got of TV time in Malawi featured Chinese talking shoes.

But after 9pm Lacey and I were the only ones up. Free from the tyranny of Chinese talking shoes we grew delighted with the possibilities.  It was Thursday night and Lacey had seen NBC on the channel list…30 Rock anyone? Turns out NBC= Namibian Broadcasting Company. So my screen vacation lives on.

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