1,000 hail marys

The week went by really fast and I teach 9 times a week now so that makes time fly. I teach twice a week at the technical school, twice a week at the literacy center (not to the illiterate people, but to the people learning how to use computers there), and 5 times a week with the boarding school girls. Those are a lot less structured and its kind of annoying because I have to like round them up and make them come to ‘class’. Its an extra hour that they have to be in school so I probably wouldn’t want to go either, but still its annoying.

Sometimes the girls look painfully bored until the end of the hour when they start asking me questions about my life and are suddenly enthralled. Its funny when they ask if Im married because when I say no they keep looking at me like they’re waiting for some explanation because 22? Single? Spinster. Might as well be a hoarder with 15 cats.

Thursday one of the priests came over and wanted me to make signs for a ceremony thing that happened last night. It was a vigil where they said 1,000 hail marys for peace but at the beginning they had girls carry in these signs that said ‘no to war’ ‘no to xenophobia’ etc. The priest asked me to make the signs not knowing that I have the handwriting of a 7 year old boy and that this type of project takes me hours. So Friday afternoon I spent several hours doing block letters that would most people could do in 10 minutes. I was running out of time so I had the boarding school girls color the ‘no’ red on the signs while I finished the others.

When I went to check on the signs the girls were doing they had colored the ‘no’ red, but then tried to color the other letters blue. The marker ran out and so one of the signs had half of one word blue and the other black. Then the red marker ran out when we were doing the last ‘no’. We ended up being able to finish that one and I thought that they looked fine.

Wrong. When the ceremony started each girl walked down the aisle with a sign and they were the worst signs ive ever seen. The spacing was terrible, some letters were thick and others were thin and somehow one of the ‘no’s was only half colored. The sign with the word that was half-blue was a disgrace and on another sign I misspelled ‘tribalism’. (Stupid mistake because everyone knows that in French ‘tribalism’ has an ‘e’ on the end) It was terrible. Luckily part of the ceremony was burning the signs. I was embarrassed, but the signs were ugly to the point of actually being hilarious. To me anyway, but maybe not to the priest who unknowingly assigned an art project to someone so inept.

After my art work was incinerated the hail marys started. I left after a few hours, but sr Yvette stayed the whole time and was there until 5am! Yikes. Sr Vicky goes ‘that’s not prayer. That’s torture’. Shes pretty hilarious.

So things are going well and time is going a lot faster and the language is getting easier. That said I am absurdly excited to come home for Christmas which is very soon! At that time I will be uploading more pictures than you could ever want to see.

Thanks for reading!

wild sunday

Sunday was one of the most bizarre/interesting/outrageous days Ive had since being here. First, mass was 3 hours long because every group (like choirs or prayer group type things I think) had to give a little talk about what they do and then the priest decided to give a homily that lasted maybe 45 minutes. Love me a crowded, poorly ventilated building but 3 hours was a tad long. There was some white lady standing in the back but she left after 2 hours (cant imagine why) so I didn’t get to talk to her. I guess I would have said, “hello. I noticed that you are white” or something like that.

After mass the boarding school girls wanted to take pictures because they had on their fancy clothes since it was the day of the ‘fete’ for peace. So I got my camera and they go nuts with pictures soo we took a lot. As we were finishing pictures two ladies with a baby came looking for sr Vicky who then told me to come with them to the dispensary. The baby was 3 pounds! I had never seen a baby that small. It had a lot of extra skin- it looked like it was wearing leggings made from skin or something. Sr Vicky told me to hold it so she could take a picture and told the ladies ‘its good luck’. Hmm yes the old ‘have the premature baby take a picture with a random foreigner’ good luck charm. Works every time. One of the ladies asked me my name and when I told her she said, “ok then she is Anne. She doesn’t have a name yet”. What the heck? The other lady said something about the name Grace but sr Vicky vetoed that. “grace? No, not grace. There are too many graces. Everyone here is named grace.” So voilà Anne Marie.

The reason they came to the dispensary was because the baby was born a week ago, but the 17 year old mom died. So it was the baby’s grandma and friend who brought the baby in to buy formula…and apparently to name it.

Then in the afternoon it was this fete for peace and there were big tents set up. All the boarding school girls were there but I was sitting at the table of hot shots with the nuns and priests and some fancy ladies and the mayor. Also there was some extremely spicy chicken.

Monday at the dispensary sr Vicky was really on top of her game in terms of tact and sensitivity. This woman brought in her niece who was 3 years old and weighed 13 pounds. The mom herself didn’t bring her because ‘she doesn’t know french’. So sr vicky really let this lady have it and literally said ‘it would be better if she went to heaven because no one wants her. Shes just going to suffer.’ Umm. Hopefully the 3 year old was also deaf. Its easy to think ‘wow that’s super mean’ but maybe if I had been here for as long as sr Vicky has I would be the same way. Id like to think that I wouldn’t be but who knows.

In the afternoon I was looking for some of the girls who were going to have an English lesson later that day when BAM white people! One of the older girls was walking them to the house. I should have played it cool and made them wonder who I was but no. “Bonsoir!! Je m’appelle anne!!” Really over excited. It was a man and a woman working for the European union to supervise the elections. She was from Portugal and I think he was French. They were wondering if some of their people could stay here at the house. Then at the end of the conversation the lady said ‘I find the level of security and sanitation here really good’. Good thing she wasn’t around last night when sr Vicky had to have a talk with the boarding school girls because someone pooped in the shower!

So things are going well and the teaching is getting easier even if everyone mercilessly makes fun of my accent. I tell myself that theyre making fun of it in the same way I laugh at people with strong accents- in a good way. Not sure that’s true but that’s what I prefer to think.

Im at the internet cafe because the power was out for awhile and when it came back on the world wide web wasnt working! I tried connecting a bunch of times just because i cant get enough of that melodious dial-up sound but I was denied and so here I am. A boarding school girl at my side of course.

The week went really fast and I think this is the first time in my life Ive looked forward to the weekdays and not so much the weekends. On the weekends I dont have much to do so I end up doing a fair amount of lurking...around the house...in the yard... you know just being a lurker.

I had my first english class that actually went well. It was the most basic english to the first year patisserie students and it went a lot better than the other 'more advanced' class. The first year students are more on the same level whereas the second year is just kind of a disaster. One kid doesnt read or write, another is 26 years old and I cant imagine what she thinks when I ask her to repeat 'january' 17 times. Then theres the girl who didnt know how to say '4' in english sitting next to the kid who seems to be good in english and is probably bored. The classes for the patisserie students are nice in that theyre at the technical school in a real classroom with walls as opposed to the gazebo things where I meet with the boarding school girls. Theres usually someone playing soccer or something right next to it.

Only slightly less disastrous than second year patisserie is the older boarding school girls. This one girl has had english for 5 years now and didnt know what 'almost' meant. I dont want to say its a lost cause but its a lost cause. That said some of them seem really interested and smart and I enjoy teaching english to them. Before coming here this girl who Ive talked to multiple times asked me to help her with her homework and we were doing it and then all of a sudden said 'anne you are so pretty.' it was strange so I was like 'oh. uh. thanks' and then shes like 'your purse is really pretty you should give it to me'. ohhhhh ok I get it. I told her shed have to wait until april.

This other girl asked me if I had a friend for her or something like that. As usual I only kind of knew what was going on and I was like 'ohh to write to?' so I dont know what shes looking for... pen pal? pen pal with benefits? Its hard to say.

Not too much new at the dispensary. The guy that sr vicky thought had aids came back on wednesday with a sealed envelope from the hospital and she opened it and he was HIV positive. It wasnt clear how much he knew since she kind of opened it in her lap and then put the letter back in the envelope. Then told him to go to the hospital to get the drugs for the 'sickness of the blood' and told him how important it was to eat and to not miss a dose and stuff like that but Im not sure he knew what he had. His friend was with him again- he only has one leg! What a duo.

Then on friday we had to go to the bigger town to buy medecine because everyone and their mom who came to the dispensary this week had a cough.

This post just got deleted and was then rediscovered so im going to go before microsoft encounters another problem
bye!

past few days

(insert empty promise about uploading pictures here)

This weekend was pretty uneventful but I did go to the internet café and did indeed fail at uploading pictures. First I had to wait a while to use a computer because apparently all 5 of the available ones were out of order. Then the speed of the upload was glacial and Sr Vicky had sent a boarding school girl to accompany me so she was sitting there staring at the screen with me. Then I became convinced I was about to have a stomach crisis and wouldnt be able to make it back to the house and the mental images were enough to make me give up and go home. So I guess I’ll just have to wait…UNTIL I COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!! (flight purchase pending…)

Sunday after mass I was walking back to the house and this group of girls was waiting for me and told me to sit down so they could mess with my hair. Sure knock yourself out. It was pretty funny but then this one girl took my arm and looked at it really closely and said ‘your skin is so pretty I want my skin to be light like yours’. That really bothered me so I tried to explain that ‘chez moi’ girls do things to make their skin darker- you know a kind of ‘we want what we cant have’ thing. Unfortunately I got kind of tripped up on the necessary vocab and I don’t think they had any idea what I was talking about.

Monday I didn’t cry at the dispensary so that was cool. I did however get a reminder of how clueless I am. This guy came in who weighed 41 kg (not trying to be obnoxious with the metric system here but I don’t know exactly what that is in pounds) and was so skinny and apparently had had diarrhea for a month! I was thinking ‘what a nasty case of malaria!’ and ‘that was really nice of his brother to come with him!’ and ‘if I was sick for that long I probably would have started a blog about it!’ Bloat d’ivoire? Ugh sorry. Anyway sr Vicky told him to go get a blood test at the hospital and while I was thinking about what kind of illness would last that long sr Vicky suggested that it was probably AIDS. That thought never crossed my mind and I figured he had malaria like everyone else.

Other story of note was this pregnant woman. She was 9 months pregnant and had walked alone all the way here from where she lives in ‘the bush’. Hard to say how far that is but when youre that pregnant I would imagine that any distance would seem too far. Why no had come with her was beyond my understanding. Sr Vicky did an exam and told her she had to have it today so the woman was going to walk all the way home and try to have it there with the help of god knows who. Sr Vicky told her that if she hadn’t had the baby by 5pm, she would then have to get all the way back to the hospital in duekoue to be induced. The woman reacted as if sr Vicky had just suggested she try a new shampoo. No sense of urgency. No need to rush. Her reaction was especially surprising considering the way sr Vicky described the situation. ‘you have to have it today. If you don’t the baby will be dead. Then you too. Youll both die and that wont be good. Look at this. (there was blood) This means your baby is suffering. You need to have it today’ etc etc. She is not one to mince words but despite that the woman got up and started to walk home calmly.

Sr Vicky also sometimes does this thing where she looks at what someone has named their baby and says ‘what? What is this? What kind of name is this? That’s not a name, no one knows that name. That’s not French. Do you see that here? (points to a calendar with names on it) No, that name is not here. You have to add one. When was she born?’ She then unceremoniously chooses a new name for the baby and adds it to the babys record. It is so bizarre to me that you would take your baby for a check up only to have the nurse tell you that the name you chose isn’t real and therefore you must choose another. I laugh every time it happens because its so strange and sr Vicky is so intense about it.

This afternoon after my English class at the technical school we were finishing lunch and one of the priests came over looking for food because apparently whoever cooks for them made only eggplant or something like that. So he started eating the rice we had and insisted we turn on the TV so that he could continue watching this heinously dramatic movie from the Philippines. So dramatic you would have thought it was a spoof. He knew all the characters and we all ended up watching it. The French was simple so I liked it and the high drama combined with the low budget was hilarious. He also brought the good news that theyre sending Americans to supervise the elections- and not just to the capital! He seemed to think some Americans would be coming here to duekoue- hello new best friends! We’ll see what actually happens but its fun to think about.

Well this was longer than I expected so thanks for reading!!!

Duped again

Hi! Things are still going pretty well here and nothing too eventful to report. Yesterday I went with Sr Vicky to a town called Daloa that’s about an hour from here and is bigger so we went to buy school supplies and medicine. The whole thing took a little over 6 hours and I found it kind of stressful because we were trying to fit so much stuff into the truck and nothing could go in the back since it was pouring. We went to 3 different groceries stores because at the first 2 they were out of stuff we needed. I was hurtin for a Costco.

Today was the dispensary and it was a little rough for me. It was going fine until this woman came in with this girl who was like 7 and said that both of the girls parents had died and her grandparents too and she had no siblings. The woman was her great aunt and had just started taking care of the girl. Sr Vicky gave the girl some medicine and told the great aunt where to enroll her in school but the woman came back a little later because the school was too expensive ($20 for the whole year). This was a little much for me and I started crying only to find out later that the story was a lie. How messed up is that! I was all sad and wanted to pay her tuition and everything. At lunch Sr Marguerite really laughed at me (in a nice way) and proceeded to tell me about 5 stories that were as tragic if not more tragic than the girl’s from this morning. All the stories were fake and it was just people trying to get the sisters to pay their kids tuition. It really sucks that people do that but if I were as poor as these people Im sure id be doing the same thing. Especially if there was some overly sympathetic and gullible American within earshot…

Then about an hour later this 16 year old married girl came in who was pregnant and after I took her blood pressure and sr Vicky did her exam, the girl started crying. At this point I didn’t know that the previous story was fake and I was still a little upset about it. So heres this 16 year old girl crying over her pregnancy and then I started crying. I think I hid it pretty well but I felt really ridiculous. She was probably wondering who in the world I was and why I was crying. Sr vickys commentary didn’t help. It went something like this: ‘You know Catharine? (a girl at the boarding school) Shes her same age. But she wont be playing soccer. No. Only babies. Just babies for her. How many wives does her husband have?’

At lunch after sr marguerite had finished making fun of me for crying about the first story she agreed that yes this second story was indeed very sad.

So that’s the dispensary update. Im doing some English stuff with the oldest girls at the boarding school so I should go get ready for that.

Thanks for reading!

village people and first day of class

First of all- picture update: apparently it takes 10 minutes to update 1 picture here at the house so im going to try to go to the internet café this weekend because I guess its faster there.

On Sunday I went with sr Vicky and one of the priests to a village for mass. It was about 30 minutes outside duekoue and made duekoue seem like new york city. Our arrival caused a real stir since there weren’t many other cars and then to top it off sr Vicky and I are white! Everyone come look!

Their church was a dirt floor, mud wall, palm frond roof type thing and mass was said with a megaphone in 4 languages. For the first few minutes it was just in French but then for the readings and for the homily they had 4 different people taking turns with the megaphone. At first I was thinking ‘this guys accent is so strong I cant understand anything’. Turns out it was a language from here and not just French with a major accent.

So after the mass which took approx. 10 years because it was said in 4 languages we took the obligatory ‘white person surrounded by lots of black kids in a village’ picture. Then we went to the house of the church secretary (I think that’s what he was). We sat outside but under a roof and they gave us lunch and cokes which was super nice. There was this rice with really tasty and spicy sauce but I had a hard time the meat since im not a big meat fan in the first place. By ‘had a hard time’ I mean I had to chew on each piece for around 5 minutes. Despite that it was very generous of them and they were really nice.

Monday is the busiest day at the dispensary so it was from 7:30-1:30 without a lull in patients. The number of people who have malaria is insane. When their fever is too high we give quinine shots and now sr Vicky has me fill the syringes which I had never done so that was interesting.

Back to malaria though…the other night this lady who works for CARE was over and she is in charge of a 5 year malaria project/study here. It was interesting hearing her talk about all, especially since I had just finished reading a book about malaria that really made it seem like it’s a hopeless cause unless the entire country becomes much more developed. Then today at lunch sr marguerite said ‘I don’t know understand why everyone makes such a big deal out of AIDS when there are so many people dying from malaria’. Seemed a little harsh to me but either way malaria does kill a lot of people.

I had my first official english class at the technical school today and I think it went well. Theyre students learning to be patisserie chefs (such a coincidence because I too am a real culinary genius) and theyre 14-26 years old.  There are only about 8 of them in the class which is nice and it is very basic stuff like how to pronounce the alphabet. I made them repeat everything so many times they probably wanted to slap me. Sr Vicky had told me that lots of repetition was necessary and it definitely was. They were pretty shy and probably thought I was really bizarre.

So things are going well here and Im about to go play soccer with the boarding school girls. We played on Saturday and it was funny because they scream a lot. Probably because I was kicking the ball in their face repeatedly. Just kidding but anyway thanks for reading and I really hope you can see pictures soon!

Out and About in Duekoue

This morning sr vicky and sr yvette had to go to a meeting so there was no clinic/dispensary. So i was kind of sitting at my desk thinking about the english classes and wondering if i could somehow make verbs interesting. As much as i was enjoying the homesick fest/pity party i was throwing for myself i decided to go out and walk around and take pictures.

I took some pictures around the house/school and then went out on the road and started walking toward the center of town. It was really intimidating and everyone was staring at me because i was the only white person. Also I was wearing my unicorn costume from halloween last year. No so I wasnt wearing a costume but still everyone was staring. I guess it would be like seeing an albino squirrell. You know they exist but you dont see them often so when you do its kind of neat/weird and staring for at least 2 minutes is very necessary.

I had been walking for a few minutes when this woman said 'ma soeur' (my sister) to me. Im still not sure if thats a regular greeting or if people think im a nun since i live with them. Then this woman said my name so i turned around and shook her hand and then she pointed to her friends baby and told me that they had tried to go the dispensary but it was locked. I explained that sr vicky was gone but the woman was like 'but look' and the babys eye was all big and swollen because something had gotten in the eye. There was nothing I could do so i just told her when sr vicky would be back. This conversation took place outside the hospital but i guess she couldnt afford to go there.

At this point i was feeling supremely out of place and stopped taking pictures. I decided to buy a phone so I went to a store i had seen that looked nice. Air conditioned! They had a phone but no sim card so i left the store and some guy about my age was like 'ill help you buy a phone'. He had heard there was an american in town. cha ching! i knew i was about to get horribly ripped off so i said 'ok great!' and proceeded to walk around town with this guy to buy a phone and sim card and credits for the phone. I knew it was much more expensive than it should have been but it was hot and i was flustered and compared to prices in the US it wasnt bad. So after awhile I had a phone and my new friend had been kind enough to program his number into my phone. So thoughtful.

So I walked home after saying no to a taxi he tried to call for me because 'the sun is big' as he said and i guess he thought i would get burned. I was about to go into the compound/mission whatever you want to call it and this older guy was like 'oh ca va?' and started asking me how everything was going. Unfortunately I had my phone in my hand so he says 'oh you have a number? we can exchange numbers!' I have so many new friends.

Although i was majorly swindled, everyone was very nice while they were doing it and being in a small town is nice because i never felt unsafe or anything. plus everyone knows there is a 'blanche' in town so no one will mess with me. My large stature helps too.

ok well thanks for reading this and sorry if there are a lot of spelling errors but the keyboard is different. bye!

quick story

Its been a few days and Ive just been getting used to things/wallowing in my homesickness. just kidding! (kind of)
Just a quick story about a car ride. There had been this girl here named Lucy who like did housework kind of stuff for the sisters and had gone to school here. so so nice. Once she was cooking and told me to turn off the stove but I didnt know how and when she came back the onions were burned but she was so nice about it. Anyway she had to go back to her village so they asked if I wanted to go. I love a good sunday car ride so of course I said oui.
We left at 4... ie we left at 4:45. A guy who is a friend of the sisters and works for the UN drove us in a UN land cruiser which I thought seemed a little over the top. Turned out to be very necessary. We drove for a while on a paved road and then started on a dirt road. We drove past villages like that you would see on TV with the barefoot kids with the big bellies. It was like watching one of those commercials minus the dramatic music and celebrity narrator.
So anyway that was interesting to see. The driver has worked for the UN for a long time so even though we had to zig zag across the road to avoid holes he felt comfortable going at what felt like 70mph. Im sure it was much slower but we were going fast enough to get that feeling in your stomach like when youre on a rollercoaster so obviously i was carsick.
We kept going and going on this road that kept getting narrower and with bigger holes. The holes were huge and filled with so much water that several times we went into the hole and the water/mud came all the way up and covered the windshield and we couldnt see. I guess it was funny because sr yvette and the driver were laughing.
This went on for like an hour until finally we got to a hole that was too deep and the car kind of got stuck and the wheels were spinning and stuff. At that point Lucy got out and there were some guys on the 'road' who said they would help her get to her village. She said that if we hadnt driven her she would have walked from the sisters house to her village which took us almost 2 hours by car.
It was getting dark and it started to rain so we turned the car around...which took awhile since the road was so narrow and filled with water. Finally we started heading back and I learned Lucys story.
Shes from Burkina Faso but a few years ago her mom was accused of sorcery (hogwarts trained? i wondered) and so lucy had to come live in this village with her uncle and can see her mom with her uncles permission. Sr yvette didnt know where her dad was. Lucy wants to become a nun and i hope that works out because she was so nice.
It was a rough ride but I was glad I went and got to see some villages.
Ill try to write more soon..thanks for reading this and thanks for the emails they are very much appreciated!

Hi everyone!
Sorry that there arent pictures yet..they will come soon!
The past few days ive just been getting oriented here in duekoue. im staying in the house with the sisters-sr vicky, yvette and marguerite and have my own room with a shower so its really nice.

Thursday night there was the biggest storm ive ever seen/heard/experienced. Tropic thunder, if you will. Im sure that kids were scared because i was fairly certain it was the apocalypse.
It was impressive but then we didnt have power for like 36 hours. LOL!

Friday was my first day at the dispensary and it was apparently a slow day. It was all kids except for i think two people and basically everyone had a fever, cough, diarrhea problems. malaria for all! Thats an oversimplification but you get my point.

Living with the sisters is really great and this would be much harder if i wasnt with them. We eat all our meals together and they think its funny when i dont understand their french. The only thing they find funnier than that is my english. Heres how it goes- they ask me to say something-for example barack obama. So i say it. then they laugh so hard...are in hysterics as they try to say it like me. They do this exaggerated i-sound-like-theres-something-in-my-mouth accent to try to sound like me and it actually is hilarious.

Sr Marguerite is always asking me if im scared. Was i scared of the thunder? was i scared that it was so dark at night? am i scared about the elections? i say 'ummm un peu?' i dont know maybe i should be more scared about...everything.

Today at mass there were maybe like 200 people and i had to stand up at the microphone and introduce myself. It went well i think and they clapped especially when i said ill be teaching english. It was at the end of mass like where they make announcements so the guy who came to the microphone after me made some comment about my french and everyone laughed. im sure i sound absurd to them so i would probably be laughing too. in fact i did laugh.. just trying to fit in you know.

Thanks for reading this... i feel a little weird using their computer for a long time so im going to go but will write again soon.
bye!