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!