In the past month...

Being an hour and a half away from the internet was a bit of an impediment to my blogging so now that I'm home I decided to share a few stories from the past month. If you're interested in having your ear talked off and hearing every single detail of my life while I was there just give me a call. Otherwise here are some things that happened...

March 29

For spring break the sisters decided we would do a community outing to a village called Marealo which is along the Niger river. They didn't know exactly where it was so to get there we first went to San to ask directions at a church there. Then one of the priests called someone he knew who sent his son on bike to an intersection where we were supposed to find him and he would then lead us there. So we drove around until we saw a kid on a bike at an intersection who looked like he was waiting for someone and followed him. The area was super desert-y with hardly any trees. Not the mango tree covered paradise that is Touba. Then all of a sudden in the distance there was a forest of eucalyptus trees. Really bizarre/pretty. So once we arrived we got out all our picnic supplies and headed down to find a nice spot on the river.

We walked over to a tree and were going to set up shop under there, but no we couldnt because that was the sacred tree where they do sacrifices. If I had been alone I would have had no idea, but the sisters saw some basket thing under it and they knew. Sadly we had not brought along a chicken to sacrifice. We found another tree and ate our lunch. Then later we decided to go swimming. Cattle upstream and a crowd of children washing their clothes? Yeah I'll take a dip. I love a combination pool/bathroom/washing machine. Sr Adriana said 'the water is so clean!' and I laughed until I realized she was dead serious. 'Clean' as in the water was not stagnant. The water did feel amazing and afterwards my feet were the cleanest they had been for a weeks. Don't hate- it's hard to stay clean with all the dust. The kids who were there doing laundry swam over to us and we talked to them for a bit. They were cold. It was at least 100 degrees. So our community outing was a great success and believe it or not I did not get sick after swimming in that 'clean' water.

It is the beginning of mango season and since the sisters have 5 mango trees on the property I eat at least 10 a day. Theyre not huge so I'm not exaggerating. Unfortunately at the beginning I had to take a few days off because I got a rash around my mouth that then spread to my neck/chest. I ended up having to take medicine and Jacques gave me a shot. If you know what I mean. Just kidding mom! Luckily that cleared up and I was able to continue eating a nasty number of mangoes.

More stories to come as I go through my journal and reminisce about eating dog meat and other things that happened...

Spring Break 2k11!

Its hard to believe that my time here is already half over. Time has
gone by a lot faster than it did in Duekoue, maybe because school is
actually in session here! Its also very different being in a village
rather than in a town like Duekoue.

Last sunday I went to a different village with one of the priests and
sr adriana for mass. It was said under mango trees, the pews were tree
trunks and afterwards everyone ate together. Sometimes I think 'wow
what a nice life' but then i think yeah its nice to visit and then go
back to our house with running water and electricity...and we eat
things besides various forms of millet. For breakfast they eat mush
made from millet. For lunch they eat to (pronounced like toe) which is
made from millet...the texture is maybe like thick, wet oatmeal. Then
for dinner you guessed it... millet! 'To' again. To make 'to' you have
to put it in a big wooden bowl and pound it with one of those big
sticks. Sorry I dont know the words for those things. Anyway that
takes a long time and is really tiring. Sometimes though they eat
cous-cous...made from millet. and they drink dolo...made from millet.

The people spend about half the year planting and harvesting their
fields. Then they put it in their 'granier' and that has to last until
next year. So this is the kind of place where they have famines
because if it doesnt rain and you dont have a huge supply stored up,
you dont have anything to eat. Kind of a precarious food situation
there.

So sometimes its easy to think 'what a nice simple life' but thats not
the truth at all. Life is really hard and the stakes are higher. The
closest big hospital is in San, an hour and a half from Touba by car
so who knows how long that would take by motorcycle or donkey cart. If
you get hurt or really sick, theres not too much that can be done and
some people wait a year to name their babies to see if they'll live.
The difference between life here and life in the US or other developed
countries is so absurdly huge that i cant really understand it.

We are in San today to get some groceries and do some other errands.
The baker's oven broke so we havent had bread for a week so we'll
probably buy all of the bread San has to offer. This is the start of
Spring break so we have off all next week. The dispensary is still
open so I'll do that and Im in the process of putting covers on a
bunch of books. SPRING BREAK!!

I'm going to stop because I'm getting really hungry but hopefully Ill
be able to write again soon.


bye!

Long time, no blog

Its been awhile! I thought Id be able to write more often but the one
day the sisters were going to San was a day I didnt want to be more
than 15 feet away from the toilet. In the past few weeks Ive just been
getting used to the routine as well as having some new experiences
like eating pigs feet, drinking gin out of a plastic bag, being asked
by a group of middle aged people if the US is near France and learning
the french version of the hokey pokey.

I really like working with the literacy stuff which is good since i
spend most of my time doing that. Its cool to see the reading get
easier for them and Ive only been here 2 weeks so it must be really
cool for sr genevieve who basically started the whole thing a few
years ago. The sisters have been in touba for 25 years but the
literacy center and boarding school have all been built in the past 5
years. I spend a decent amount of time with the boarding school girls-
reading, playing dodgeball (bring it) and sitting with them at night
while they study. I think they appreciate my calming presence- like
the night I saw a huge spider come in the room and I jumped out of my
chair and ran outside. Minor disruption but seriously the thing was
huge

The dispensary has been interesting and its nice because Jacques
explains things to me and then I tell him how to say it in english.
its fun. He takes his sweet time so its funny after being with sr
vicky who was always rushing. There are fewer patients here but its
nice to be with someone who will take the time to explain to a girl
that no, you have not been pregnant for 15 months because thats not
how it works, whereas sr vicky would say something like "what?! cant
you count??" Awkward question when the answer is probably no.

Last week there were a few days I didnt go to the dispensary because
everyone was out in other villages taking part in a measles
vaccination campaign. On wednesday sr lucie decided i should go along
on what i thought would be a short trip to a village close by. We left
at around 9 and jacques says, "its a little far". It took over an hour
by motorcyle (sorry mom- it was more like a motorbike) and by the time
we arrived i had blisters on my hands from the death grip i had had on
the motorcycle.

It was a really tiny village with a seemingly endless supply of small
children. I just kept track of how many kids there were while jacques
gave the shots and threw the used needles on the ground because
shortly after we got there he realized he had fogotten the safety box
for the needles. As the pile grew he says, "if the regional director
saw this he would be really mad". So of course an hour later the
regional director of the campaign shows up and was none too pleased
with the small pile of syringes. He and two othe guys stayed for a few
minutes offering several criticisms and even chastizing me for not
reminding jacques to bring the needle box. Right. My bad. After they
left jacques laughed and couldnt believe that they would come all the
way out here where the road wasnt good. He claims that guy likes to
follow him wherever he goes.

At this point i thought we were done but it was just break time.
jacques fell asleep in his chair but i was on like a chaise lounge
thing and felt a little weird laying down in front of a bunch of
people i dont know in a villlage i dont know so I just kind of sat
there. After that we did another round of vaccines and then it was
lunch time so jacques and I ate with a guy  from the village who had
been helping organize things and his wife. The 4 of us sat around one
big bowl of rice with fish sauce and ate with our hands. Theyre used
to that, but by the end i had rice all over the floor. jacques was so
encouraging saying, 'once youve lived here for 4 years youll be able
to do it'. Thats nice.

After lunch i thought we'd leave but more people had come from
surrounding villages so we kept going until all the vaccines had been
used. Then we sat around talking (ie i just sat there because they
were speaking boré and only jacques and one other guy spoke french)
and then we moved to another part of the village and hung out for like
3 more hours.

We were drinking a beer that they make out of souhrgum (spelling?)
(and serve out of empty gas containers à la superbad) when someone
broke out little plastic bags of gin. The bags said 'Gintons london
dry gin' so when they found out i spoke english they asked me what
that meant and that was when someone asked if the US is near france. I
said 'you just need to cross the ocean' and then jacques took a few
minutes to explain some geography.

Later i realized they were talking about me and jacques says "i just
told them you want to marry someone in this village". I laughed and
said i have to finish school. Otherwise id definitely love to marry
someone who doesnt speak my language and has grown up in a remote,
male-dominated vollage with no cell phone service.

It was around 430 when we left, with a cardboard box full of used
syringes strapped to the back of the motorcycle and a chicken (gift
from the village) dangling from the handlebars. Jacques went back the
next day to finish but that was the day i wasnt feeling too hot. I was
disappointed because it was one of the most interesting days of my
life.

So thats it for now from hot touba. The weather changed suddenly and
the other day it got up to 50 ° celsius which im pretty sure is like
200° fahrenheit. Still though its not humid so i like the weather
better than cote divoire.


hopefully illl update soon...bye!

Bobos in paradise

Hii!!
Im at an internet cafe in San and thought Id fill you in on the past week...

I got to Bamako last weekend without a problem. Except sitting on the runway for 5 hours in paris. Good thing they make you pay that fuel surcharge so you are able to idle on the tarmac for hours on end. So I got in at around 2am and the sisters were there to pick me up. Night owls!

I spent 2 days in Bamako one of which I slept almost the entire day. The other day I hung out with 2 Austrian volunteers who are spending a school year there. A person that works for the sisters had us over for Malian tea (an art form i dont yet understand but which takes hours) and we spent a few hours with him and his family... while listening to jams like My Heart Will Go On and some obscene lil wayne song that made me glad I was the only there who understood the words.

Next day we left for Touba. 7 hours on the road and then an hour and a half on a dirt road/path. The sisters call the bigger dirt road "The bush highway". So we got there in the evening. I sleep in the boarding school building; but have my own room and shower. It's way cooler here than cote divoire thank god. I have been cold multiple times already. Apparantly though that will change in a month. This is after all the "antechamber" of the desert, according to 1 sister.

In da house we have Sr Genevieve (france), sr adriana (argentina), sr jaquline (togo) and sr lucie (italy). Yes, Im actually here to do model UN.

So heres what I do- i spend half the morning at the literacy center where we practice reading and do a little math. Yes thats right Im teaching them how to read in french and do math. I know few people who are as bad at math as me, but luckily its just addition. I can handle that, but I draw the line there. I also only teach a group of 4 and we have a classroom so its pretty nice. One girl is 21 and shes really cool. Apparantly last summer when she was at home her dad tried to marry her off but she was having none of it and now lives with her grandparents. BOOYAH
Then I go to the dispensary/clinic and hang out with dr Jacques. His french will take some (a lot) getting used to, but he explains everything to me and at the same time hes learniing the words in english. He studied it in school, but wants to get better so its fun.

Three afternoons per week kids come for reading "renforcement" and then after we play for a bit. Next week we are breaking out the games like puzzles and stuff.
Then evening-ish we practice reading with the boarding school girls and at night when they study, Im like a study hall monitor. They are really good about being quiet and studying.

Sure its only been a week, but Im going to go ahead and say Mali kicks Cote divoires butt. And sure we only have 1 president instead of 2, but I like it a lot. The weather is nice (for now) and everyone has been super nice.

Touba is definitely in the middle of nowhere buts its very pretty. Theres not really cell reception there so when the sisters in Bamako wanted the provincial to call them, they had to call some radio stsation and then someone heard it and came to the house to tell her. Its a donkey-cart kind of place that makes me feel like I took a ride in a (hot tub) time machine.

The sisters place runs on solar pannels and has pigs and chickens its like a quasi farm. If you want to iron something (which i dont) you have to put hot coals in an iron.
Im going to go but hopefully Ill be able to update soon! Next weeks looks like more of the same and I think Im going with Sr genevieve to a meeting about giving a pig to a woman like a microloan thing she wants to get going so that will be interesting.
Oh also, I was all "dang Im getting here so late into the school year" but nay. It started in January. Some kids came in december, but thats the harvest season so most came after that. School goes from Dec/Jan to June-ish and they have so many holidays during that.
ok thats all for now
Oh- Bobo is the largest ethnic group here not, as i was shocked to learn, 'bohemian bourgeoise" like that book.

Sister Act pt 2

We all know the expression- if at first your plans are foiled by political instability, try try again. So on Wednesday I'll be heading back to West Africa to help with the upcoming presidential elections in Chad. Just kidding. I'll be going to Mali- a country with no elections until 2012 and relative stability...and a 30% literacy rate. You win some, you lose some.

I will be living in the Segou region of Mali in a town of 3,000 called Touba. The nearest map-worthy town is called San. Touba is the former home of your friend and mine, Sr Vicky, who spent 5 years working at the hospital there. The sisters pay the salary of the Malian doctor (Mali boasts .08 physicians per 1,000 people) who works there and the hospital is apparently fairly large and includes a maternity wing. Sr Vicky went as far as to call Touba "un petit paradis" but I can't help thinking that she's playing some sort of joke on me, based on the fact that a sister I met in Benin told me that when she lived in Touba, they would put their sheets in the freezer before going to bed. At least they have a freezer?

So just a heads up that this blog will be continuing for the next few months. I'll update it whenever I can, but feel free to shoot me an email anytime! I might not respond as quickly as I do here (my computer and I are basically dating) but I really did appreciate all of your support when I was in Duekoue. Speaking of support...let's hear it for my parents!! Really though they are awesome.

For anyone who is curious or who would like to see a website last updated in 1999, the volunteer program run by the sisters is called VIDES and can be found at http://vides.us/. The international website is http://www.vides.org/

Thanks for reading and I'll hopefully be updating soon from Mali!

Pictures!

Hi Everyone
I decided to put pictures on Flickr instead of on here. That way you can look at as many as you want!
Enjoy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notedivoire/

Finally home

I'm finally home so I thought Id write a last entry since I'm not sure I'll be able to go back to Duekoue. I left Duekoue last Tuesday and got home an entire week later after having gone to Benin, then Spain, then Paris, then Chicago. When I got to Abidjan things seemed pretty calm, but then the sisters started saying I should try to leave earlier so I got a little nervous.

Then there was the standoff in front of the Golf Hotel where Outtara's government is staying, then the US embassy got hit by an RPG, and on Saturday the US government sent an email saying to leave while there are commercial flights available.

So Saturday was a pretty panicked day. The sisters took me to the airport to try to figure something out because my Air France flight had been changed to Sunday morning, but the travel agent in the US said that it was cancelled. We found a flight to Cotonou, Benin with Air Ivoire and then went back to the house to wait until the flight that evening. Back at the house however we learned that someone with Gbagbo's government would be holding a youth rally so they took me back to the airport so that they wouldnt have to be driving during the rally. I got to the airport for the second time at around 1pm to wait until my flight at 7ish. Luckily I met up with this lady who works with the sisters and an American with his Congolese wife. We all hung out all afternoon at a restaurant and it turned out to be a really good time.

My flight was delayed a few hours and we didnt end up leaving until around 1030, but by that time I had found an American girl who had been living in Abidjan and working for CDC. So we hung out and I was happy to be with someone since I would be arriving in Benin without a visa. We finally got to Benin at around 1230 and as we were filling out immigration cards this police man came up to us and said 'are you american? are you anne?' So the sisters in Cotonou had been alerted and the police man was there to help me figure out the visa situation. Unfortunately by 'figure out the visa situation' I mean 'charge us both 80 dollars for a 15 dollar visa'. Then he said that he would be keeping the passports overnight at the airport. That really freaked me out but the sister who picked me up seemed to be ok with it.

So I made plans with the other American to meet up the following day and the sister took me to their house. The next day we had almost the whole day since the flight wasnt until night. Lucky for me they were having a party for the teachers at their school so we spent the day eating and dancing. It was a great day to be in Cotonou.

That night we went back to the airport and tried to get the passports back. The policemen who were there that night found out that the guy from the night before had charged us 80 dollars and were not happy. The girl I was with wasnt supposed to be charged at all since shes employed by the government and he had way overcharged me. They were nice enough to give us the money back after giving us a long and sass-filled talk about how 'normally when people come here without a visa we send them back to where they came from'. I didn't ask if 'imminent civil war' was worthy of an exception.

So then I spent a solid amount of time at the airport in Benin since the flight left 5 hours late. At 330am we finally took off for Paris. Then we had to land in Barcelona because of the snow in Paris and stayed on the runway there for a few hours. Later we took off again and this time were able to land in Paris...at this point we were arriving about 8 hours late. Charles de Gaulle was a mad house, I couldn't find a United representative and whats worse is that I couldn't stop crying. I was seriously pathetic trying to describe my problem to a US air guy who said there was nothing he could do to help me. I had slept through the meal on the plane so I was hungry, tired, thirsty and just wanted to be home.

I was fumbling around with a pay phone when I saw a group of people who looked American so I asked them if they were American and after that everything got worked out. One of them had a phone that I was able to use, they offered me a beer and I then spent the next 12 hours hanging out with them in Charles de Gaulle and having a great time. In the meantime my brother and law worked his status magic and got me booked out the following day on a flight to Chicago...with all my new friends! The people at the airport gave us mats and blankets to sleep on and the next day we finally left Paris.

At this point it was Tuesday and I had left Abidjan on Saturday. I of course missed my connecting flight to North Carolina so had to spend some quality time in lines in Ohare figuring out a new flight. Finally on Tuesday night I was able to leave Chicago for Charlotte. So now I'm home. My luggage is still on its way, but I really couldn't care less. Im just happy to be home, away from Liberian mercenaries, and not stuck in an airport.

Hope you all have a merry Christmas! If there is some sort of miracle and things calm down, Ill keep blogging from Cote d'Ivoire. Or maybe I'll end up somewhere else. Or maybe I'll just stay home...at least until I'm in the mood again for some airport excitement.