I’m due for a new posting, but there’s not much to tell you.

I’m pretty much in hot standby, waiting for my departure date to come to me. I have spent the better part of 48 hours playing e-mail ping pong with my far-away handlers and staring at mounds of semi-folded clothing that will soon be stuffed into suitcases. The most pressing issues right now? The steady “no room at the inn” emails that I receive from various accommodation options in Italy. Have I mentioned that I’m going to Italy before I go to Dakar?

I am, and it’s a last-minute addition. Although I leave the US on the 26th, I’m going to first spend a few days in Naples before I fly to Dakar. This stop was squished into my orders so that I could meet the folks who will be taking care of minor administrivia like my paycheck while I am in Africa. Not a bad deal, considering I’m a sucker for Italian food. The only downside, of course, is my inability to secure lodging. I have slightly amusing visions of me sleeping on the city streets using mounds of mafia-controlled trash bags as pillows. That might sound less than enticing, until you reach for the silver lining and remember that those bags of trash probably contain leftovers…of Italian food. So the streets might not be so bad after all.  

Okay, I’m not that worried about this detail. Still, it would be nice to have some reassurance that I’ll arrive at my first stop on my orders after 36 hours of military “AMC” travel and have a place where I can dump my stuff and get into a real bed….but I’m sure that the Navy folks will sort this minor detail out shortly.

Before any of you beat me to it, I will acknowledge (once again) that I really shouldn’t complain about this inconvenience. After all, I’ve got a visa and plane tickets to Dakar. I’m actually going! I know of at least one Olmsted scholar who was also supposed to depart this month, and he and his family are not going anywhere as of right now. This is because their destination country (Russia), is not being exactly charitable with visas.  So they get to sit in limbo until power brokers way above their heads decide their fate. Not fun.

So that’s it for right now. My fingers are crossed for the Wolfe family as they deal with their latest hurdle, and I will remember them as I wander the streets of Dakar in search of my first decent dish of fish and rice.