A 'normal' week

Last week was shockingly normal after the holiday on Tuesday and almost everyone came to class so that was nice. For the class with the people learning how to use computers we spent Thursday in a regular classroom so that went a lot better. Also at the beginning of class Sr Marguerite gave them this pep talk about how the UN mission here asked her for 2 people who knew computers well and who also knew English but she had no one to give them. She said the salary they offered and it was 3 times bigger than other jobs that the students might get after they finish. So they were all really focused that day. When I told Sr Marguerite how focused they were she said ‘well otherwise they spend all their time making fun of your accent and then come to me and imitate it’. Harsh.

Friday at the dispensary nothing too new except this one girl with this huge burn all over her shoulder/arm, but who had waited weeks to come in and so it was a mess. Her mom was with her and said ‘well I was taking care of my rice fields’. Oh ok I see. Then this tiny baby came in who was 5 days old but who hadn’t eaten anything since being born. He had his fists all clenched and Sr Vicky tried to feed him baby bird style (with a syringe, not with her mouth) but said his tongue and throat were all hard. The mom had had the baby at the house and Sr Vicky said that whoever cut the cord didn’t use a clean instrument and she thought the baby had tetanus and would die because there was nothing to do. Dang talk about a stupid death.

Friday evening we played soccer and usually I exert as little effort as possible but I had a lot of energy so I ran around a lot. Bad idea and I felt really sick later and on Saturday I didn’t feel well either. Sr Vicky said, ‘The girls are strong and can handle the heat. You need to go to bed at 8:30’. So it wasn’t the best weekend and now I have a new bed time.

That’s it for today. The elections (the sequel) are in a week so we’ll see how many days we have off school this time! Thanks for reading!