My ten days without a computer

Two Tuesdays ago (The French have a word for this situation, but we don’t in English. One of the few things that I found my maternal language is lacking.), my house was flooded (I unwisely didn’t close my windows during a storm, thinking having access to the cold air was more important than keeping water out of my house.) and my Mac charger that has been on the fritz for a while decided sitting in a pool of water for an hour was the last straw and called it quits. (Hence the flood of blog posts last weekend when another volunteer whose Mac has been broken since as August let me borrow her charger.)

Between then and now, there were many times when I didn’t know what to do with myself. I read four books. I went to sleep at 20:30. I spent some time staring at the wall, finding patterns.

But I also got more sleep than I had in weeks. My head was clearer than its been in weeks. I spent less time in my house than I had in weeks.

There are times when I legitimately need a computer to get work done here. But there are also many times that I use it mainly as a crutch to pass the time. (When I first got home this Sunday, I had to resist the urge to sit and watch all the episodes of Homeland left in this season.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though I live in country where almost none of my neighbors pass hours reading Reddit or stalking people on Facebook, it’s hard to imagine my life not being able to do it. I use the phrase “you don’t know that you’re living in the dark if you’ve only ever lived during the night” to describe my experience here a lot. This may be one of the first times that I’ve thought I’m on the wrong side of that experience.