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
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!
did you teach your students about your bagel bites recipe? maybe share the "cook them in the microwave even though they won't be crispy at all like they're supposed to be" secret? miss you lots, writing you an inappropriate email as we speak.
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