I don't know if it's because I'm still tired from last week's training -- or from last week's post-training outing (dancing to the Beegees at Appaloosa until 4:00 a.m.; what was I thinking?) -- but I'm sleeping heavily until 7:30 a.m. every morning, and when my alarm goes off, I'm right in the middle of a vivid dream. This morning I dreamed that Mrs. Kennedy opened a smoothie shop in Badalabougou and I quit Geekcorps to work for her.

Anyway, luckily, tomorrow is Independence Day (45 years!) and Friday was just declared a holiday as well, so I have a nice short week.

Today I'm at work, finishing up writing up an article for our website, analyzing the results of our evaluations and tests, making lists of lessons learned and things to do.

Tomorrow we are invited to the wedding of one of E's colleagues. I'm glad because I'd hate to leave Mali without ever going to a wedding. Almost everyone I know has been to at least one. (Sadly, many of my friends have been invited to funerals as well -- E went to one last year -- but honestly I don't really want to go to one of those.) The wedding is at 9:30 in the morning at the town hall and we don't really know what to expect.

After that, we have a farewell barbecue at Geekcorps for the coordinator, who is leaving after almost two years. This makes me sad.

Thursday will be fun but Friday I'm looking forward to a holiday with no social obligations. I plan on working at home on various personal projects and other things I've neglected for the past two weeks -- like all the email piling up in my Inbox. If you haven't heard from me lately, don't take it personally ...