I decided to stay at the hotel today. Weird, really, considering how feverently I wished to be allowed to leave the hotel just two days ago, during the period of house arrest that we experienced here. But now that I know that I can leave whenever I want again (not the country, though, the airport and borders are still closed), sitting here in a dark hotel room, reading scientific articles, feels perfectly fine. Elli needed to get her evaporation measurements started, and I need to figure out how to solve this situation of my groundtruthing points not being completely random, so this seemed like a good use of both of our time. Next week, I will be doing transect walks in four villages, so I’ll have plenty of time in the field, don’t worry.
I’m kind of impressed by myself, really. Elli and Desiré got up at five-thirty this morning, and I woke up too and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I ate breakfast and listened to a podcast, and then I started reading. And now it isn’t even nine yet, and I have already read two articles on the use of remote sensing in social science, and especially land use classifications. Very useful stuff, and read so early in the morning too. I feel like some kind of hyper-efficiency condition has come over me. Usually, reading just one article takes half a day. Sometimes, I have severe concentration problems.
It’s Sunday. Just a moment ago, the singing stopped from the church down the street. I must admit, the singing was so much nicer than what we usually hear coming from that place. In the evenings, they have a kind of screaming prayer, and the first times I heard it I thought it was some kind of serious fight. No, said Deisré, they’re just praying. That’s West African protestants for you. Screaming praise to the lord like they were being chased by bush demons.
I keep on going back and forth between feeling like what I’m doing is amazing, to thinking it’s crap and that I have no idea of what I’m doing. Right now, I feel like I know way too little, but if I pull it off, it would be damn cool. Especially since I came up with a considerable part of it all by myself.
Katja Malmborg 