Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday

Monday 19^th- I took photos of all of the school children with the Mother General (from Rome) of the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis (the sisters who run this convent). All the Form 1 through Upper Form 6 and each class level. Then I had to get the pictures to Sister Mary Francis and she basically told me I was teaching at the school on Tuesday. So I was a bit confused and her head was off in space. She is a funny lady. Later that evening some papers were sent to me to “prepare for my classes” ha ha. So I had Terry ask the math teacher if that was okay and when and what not. AHH yes, I told you all of that in my last blog. Well anyways.. there is some more information. 

Tuesday 20th - So I went up there on Tuesday at 12:30, nobody was in class and the teachers were not even teaching. Sister Mary-Francis took me to a classroom of the Lower Form 6 students who were between ages 16 and 21 and told me to teach them. They aren’t even preparing for the test that she had given me to use practice problems from and so they looked at me like.. “who the hell are you, and do you really think I give a sh**” It was kind of awkard and I escaped as soon as I could and Mr. Gilbert, the math teacher, took me to the Form 5 students who are preparing for the test. The girls were pretty interested and actually really wanted to learn. So I taught them about slopes and y=mx+c  (they use c not b here for the y-intercept) and we did some other problems and then they told me to come back Wednesday at 9, and Mr. Gilbert told them to all be there in that classroom at 9 am.  

Well Tuesday afternoon we went for a walk and I borrowed Terry’s Chaco sandals because I was wondering if I would like some like it. NOPE! I got a blister on each of the insides of my VERY VERY FLAT feet and a rubbed off kind of blister on my big toe (like it didn’t even blister, it just went raw because it was being rubbed the whole walk) and the other big toe is a little blister and under each ankle on the outside is a little raw spot. So I won’t be getting any Chacos. My feet are stained red. Pretty nasty.  Also my toenails are very dirty and chipped. and still haven’t shaved my legs in the last 3 weeks.

Wednesday 21st - Well when I got to the school on Wednesday at 9, they had all gone home for break. So that’s nice, I came home and didn’t so much.

Wednesday night was Date Night, so at 3 the four of us stopped and asked the med students to come and we went down to the Midway for a beer. Valerie met us down there and we had a couple soya (the meat on a stick thing) and chatted for a while. The waitress server lady told us they had been closed because the other guy who was the server had embezzled 300,000 francs, which is like 600 dollars. She just told us out right, and when we asked why he was still downstairs at the place she said “he is just having fun.” There is nothing like private information here. We stopped back by Valerie’s house and picked up Soren so that they could see how Jim makes popcorn, because he is basically a professional at it. We had some more beer, popcorn and cheese and crackers for dinner. 

Ah, after Valerie and Soren left we had some Baroney's Irish Cream on the rocks. That stuff could be dangerous (for me and my wallet). mmm mmm good. I've never had it not in like hot chocolate, and only once or twice in hot chocolate. 

gosh the days fly by.

Today is Thursday- I went to Project Hope and didn't do much.. kind of just helped out with little things and got creepy talked by some creepo and freaked myself out when I came back to the house so I locked the door from the inside and when I left I peaked out the windows before opening it again. He really did not get that in the U.S. women can be independent and don't have to answer to any man or ask for something. He asked if I was married, and if I had a boyfriend and asked why I wasn't married and was asking about who I  am second to. I said nobody. He said that I have to be below someone. Who do I ask for advice from? I said many people. So apparently I'm second to them because I go by their advice. I said but I still make a decision even if they say I shouldn't. But then I ended the conversation because he was creeping me out and all the other men behind him were laughing probably because I didn't understand half of what he said and they thought it was hilarious he was picking on me. 

Then I came home and relaxed the rest of the day basically. My dad and Jim are currently on a walk up on the mountain Boyo or something. It looks REALLY far away but I guess it isn't that bad it's just the haze that makes it appear that far. My blisters won't allow such travel for me right now. I took pictures of the cows instead. They were eating Sugar Cane. 

Prisca is making Fufu and Jamajama for dinner so that we can have a taste of it before we leave. There is also chicken cooking in the kitchen. Smells delicious, looks... eh. We'll see. I'll take pictures and write about it later. 

Less than a week and I'm already home. 

St. Patrick's Day

In the morning I wore a shamrock headband to work and everyone just thought it was hilarious, and of course I had to explain it was St. Patrick’s Day. My dad and Jim wore Leprechaun hats.

We got all dressed in our green shirts (well I just had a green sticky felt thing I pulled off of the wall Terry decorated with) and we put on some head bands and the hats and festive earrings and the four of us took Irish Soda Bread and Oatmeal Banana cookies down to the convent. When we got there they all wanted to take pictures and then feed us a feast! So they gave us some cookies and a banana and a coke.

I then caught up with the med students and midwifery students from Belgium.  Valerie  and Soren are both 23 and in their 2^nd to last year of med school. Ariane and Bie are 20 and 22 respectively and in their last year of midwifery school. All of them are spending 3 months here as part of their rotations in clinical. European medical school is different because they go directly out of their form of high school and undergraduate is all a part of their medical school rather than having to just take pre-med requirements before going to med school. I don’t know the ease of getting in or anything but just a different system.

I was going with them out to Bamenda and then Valerie, Soren and I were going to Bafut to see the Bafut Village Palace and the Fon (chief, king kind of guy of the tribe). Of course we weren’t spoiled in having one of the hospital drivers taking us so we took a taxi from Njinikom.

Taxi’s are just really old Toyota cars that have been down a cliff and back up probably 3 times. They are beaters. So we have to wait for enough people to fill the car, even though there are 5 of us and a driver ready to go already. After about a 20 minute wait another lady shows up wanting to go to Bamenda. We pile in. The other lady, Bie, Ariane and myself in the back seat (none of those other gals are any smaller than I) and then in front is the driver, Soren and Valerie. Another taxi driver shuts the car door as I lean in as far as I can to not get my head slammed. I’m basically leaning against this door that the paneling is hanging on by tape and the window opener is broken off, hoping that the dang thing doesn’t fly open on the drive to Bamenda. An hour and a half later we arrive in the outskirts of Bamenda.  That’s like squished in a car driving to tri-cities. No seatbelts duh. This drive cost us each 1000 Francs or 2 dollars.

From there we have to get into the main city of Bamenda via another taxi. We find one and climb in Soren Valerie and I in the back Bie and Ariane in the front, then another man climbs in. it’s a busy Saturday in the city so we are trying to weave around people,  potholes, motorbikes and other cars. They dodge a pothole before they dodge the person.. no joke. One man was walking down the middle of the street and we were following him so extremely close I was confused at what was going on.. then the taxi driver (who looks about 16) just decides to run him over. He hits him right behind the knees and the guys legs buckle and he kind of falls off to the side over the hood of the car and starts yelling at taxi driver who yells back to not be walking in the road. Then about 30 seconds later a motorcycle goes by and breaks our side mirror off so it’s dangling down the side of the car. Everyone keeps going. This ride costs us like 200 franc or so (I can’t remember but that’s only 40 cents).

We get out downtown and stop by the Pres Craft/Pres Café because Bie and Ariane hadn’t been there yet. The oranges here are actually not orange they are green (not cause they aren’t ripe.. they are literally just green with a little yellow) and the inside looked and smelled really good (it was orange). Valerie was having one since you can’t find them in Njinikom.

Valerie, Soren and I have to find where to catch the next taxi out to Bafut so we stop a motor cycle (which I didn’t want to take but it’s way cheaper just to go to another part of town). While Soren is talking to him Valerie says I can get on and sit in front so it’s not as scary. So I climb on behind the driver and Soren says.. wait it’s just around the corner we don’t need to ride it. So I get off and on the way burn my calf on the dang exhaust pipe. I TOLD YOU I WOULD COME HOME WITH SOME NASTY SCAR!!!

We start walking and can’t find it and have no clue what we are even looking for. Germer, one of the nurses at the hospital told us to get a taxi at the Fish Market (whatever that means) and that it should only cost 400 francs to Bafut from there. We finally just grab another motor cycle guy and ask him where to get a taxi to Bafut and he takes us over there. So I rode one! It wasn’t too bad and it was short. I mean we grabbed one motor cycle for the three of us.. and the driver. Driver, Me, Valerie and Soren all on one little motorcycle thing.. Valerie is really small and Soren isn’t a big guy, but still.. 4 people on one motorcycle, 3 of them white.. we got a lot of looks. But they carry 2 guys and a coffin on those things.

He then asks around for us for a taxi, which was nice of him to help us. It cost us each like 100 Francs for that ride. He finds us a taxi with only one other man in it. So the three of us in the back with a really nice car, hardly any scratches on the outside and actually put together on the inside. He said 1000 francs for all 3 of us to get to the Bafut Palace. The guy in the front turns around and starts chatting he says he is a Fon from the Bambui or something tribe and told us to come visit him tomorrow. We didn’t obviously but hey we met another Fon supposedly. Another person climbs in half way on the ride. It was only about 20 minutes. He takes us all the way to the Palace.

We meet this guy who is going to show us around the palace. It was 2500 francs (5 dollars) to go inside, and 1500 (3 dollars) per camera. So we decide to just use my camera and split the price. The man showed us around and we could go in the museum where he told us stories and showed us all of the little statues, animal pelts, outfits, tribal warfare stuff.. We couldn’t take pictures in there.. even though that’s really what would have been the most interesting. The palace was mainly just this big museum building, several houses put together in a compound and the chiefs hut house thing.

There were rocks out front that warded off any bad spirits and warned the people of bad people coming into the village. There were two huge rocks he said they used for when someone committed a crime they were tied up to the rocks and wild animals were taken from the forest to eat them. In the museum the sign said they were hacked to death first by Jujus then wild animals were brought in to eat them.
those are the rocks in the background. the closer one is to detect bad vibes coming into the palace

They had Juju outfits in the museum that were just big dress things completely made of feathers, and these huge dog animal thing masks and little ankle bracelets made of shells to make noises as they dance.

There were leopard pelts, elephant tusks, an elephant skull, leg bone and the foot of an elephant hollowed out in there too. Also several python skins. Obviously there were animals here at one point.

The chief’s house was like some hundreds of years old (it was really old looking wood). Its thatched roof and lots of carved wooden poles as the walls. We couldn’t go in. And we didn’t meet the Fon. So the rest of the thing wasn’t all that interesting. He has 75 wives, 50 children. I think like 25 of the wives were his father’s before he died but the son is required to marry them.
This is the kings house. Nothing too interesting. The whole palace wasn't MUCH different from the rest of like the town. Cleaner maybe but basically the same living styles.

We rode another taxi back, wasn’t too crowded and he charged us 900 francs for all 3 of us. We got out and found another bike to take us into the city part again. I got a picture of the meat they sell on the street. Literally like every part, bones and hunks of meat sitting on old wooden tables just out there. Intestines and skin and noses and everything every part out there. EW.

We met Ariane and Bie back in Bamenda and got something to drink and then rode bikes to the other taxi place and some man found us a taxi. He thought I was Valerie’s mom! Probably because I’m much taller, but I don’t look older… but they can’t tell us apart just as much as we can’t tell them apart.

This ride we had the 5 of us, the driver, two other women and a baby from Bamenda to Njinikom. There were 4 people across the front and 4 of us and the baby in the back. Very crammed. We stopped at Mr. Baker and I got a little chocolate croissant that I ate Sunday when I was really annoyed.

It was light when we left Bamenda but half way through it got dark, and there is barely a sunset here, it just goes light to dark . The lady in the front seat just chatted us all up the whole time wanting to know all about us and how we are all going to be her new friends and yada yada. She was kind of crazy. She even sang a song for us and practically elbowed the driver in the face multiple times.. it was scary riding through the hills at night. There are NO lights cause very few people/areas have electricity in the houses and no street lights of course and even the other cars have minimal headlight capacity. We made it i'm alive.

Sunday was pretty laid back. We went to church in the morning and Jim told me I could get right up and take pictures whatever go out in the isles and everything.. but I was too shy for that. I took several though. It was the 8:30 children's mass and the reason Jim and Terry only go Saturday nights is because Sunday morning is always 2 or more hours. It lasted an hour and 45 minutes and they said dang that was short. There were lots of cute kids, I could barely understand the priest but it wasn't too boring because of all the people. People were coming in and out the entire time. And all the school kids sang it was kind of cool. 

We didn't do much, took a nap, went out for a beer. Made tortillas from flour, salt and water and had sort of quesadillas.  I may have to do it at home sometime. There is fresh pear (avocado) here, but it really just looks like the avocado without the brownish green skin, it's just like a more smooth very green skin. Interesting. The pit is much larger too.
here's a cute kid.

Monday I did a little work in the Project Hope treatment center but not much. I took pictures of Mother General (the like head of all Terciary Sisters Of St. Francis, so head of this group of nuns was here) with all of the school kids up at the school then I gave Sister Mary Francis my pictures so that she could print them. Some how she roped me into teaching at the school today, not really sure what I'm teaching how or whatever. We'll see. I told Terry to talk to the math teacher and see if it would cause too much confusion or if it would even be helpful. 

Did I even mention what I did Friday? Thursday was the pigery blessing I believe I wrote about that already. Friday was just kind of hang out and then we played cards. A game called Rage it's pretty fun I might have to get it when I'm home. (birthday mother? it is in like 4 days)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KATHRYN!!! (if you're reading this it's 1 am on your birthday!)

Mine is in 4 days!!! :)

Okay I'll write about that teaching crap later. 

WE NEED RAIN HERE!! It's so disgustingly dusty! Send it this way Portland.

March 14th and March 15th

What an eventful couple of days.
let’s see, yesterday (Wednesday) we went to Bamenda (about the size of maybe the tri-cities). We went to a couple markets and the big city market which was just little store after store after store of just stuff, shoes, clothes, food, kitchen stuff.. I mean basically a massive food and department store, some covered outside and some not. My dad bought Quaker oatmeal, Jim bought some baskets to organize his office.

Then we went to the Pres-Craft, an arts and crap (as Terry calls it) kind of place. Really it was like almost museum-y, gallery-y like not too big of a place with just masks and boutiques (like wall hanging art things), musical instruments, nik-naks, bags, furniture.. all Africa-y things. And below is the Pres-Café where we had lunch. I had a banana-paw paw smoothie (paw paw is papaya here) and a caprese pasta salad. It was delicious. Very American but that’s why they like to eat there. It was very good and very nice. Basically sounds like one of the only places they eat out. For 5 of us to get a delicious, larger salad/meal and a drink (smoothie and/or coke or both) it only cost 20 dollars American. It was Jim, Terry, Godwin (the driver), my dad and I. Quite cheap (for us), but comparatively  to wages that would be very very expensive. We spent quite a bit of money in the Pres-craft.

We also went to the Vatican, a little grocery story like place to get cheese mainly a couple of other errands for the convent and then we returned. The drive is about an hour and a half. We saw so many cows being moved on the road, but the cows are like those big “Brahman” with the horns.

After returning to the house we grabbed some cold beers (which are 23 ounces here) from the fridge and went down to another one of the little houses verandas out back, where the Dutch who come to fix the little crooked legs will stay next week. It’s a nice covered porch and quiet compared to here (Jim and Terry’s hosue) with the like crazy mother you want to call protective services on living next door. It looks out over the cow pasture and the hills. Really quite amazing.

Today (Thursday) Terry informed me not to work too hard because we had to go to the Blessing of the Pigery! Project Hope (the group I work with) raises pigs as an IGA (income generating activity). They just completed lots of construction to the little pig farm so they were blessing it today. At 8:30 Lillian informed me that we better prepare to go down (that is VERY EARLY for Africa time as it was supposed to be happening at 9 (but Africa time that would mean like maybe 9:45 to start). The Sister who is like the supremum or something of all the Sisters of St. Francis is visiting from Rome, so she cut the ribbon. Sister Rose gave a little speech. There are many lifted pens for each pig. I took tons of pictures. One of them is Sister Rose’s favorite and when she opened the little pen he just laid down for her to pet him. It was so cute! Sister Xaveria even climbed up the ladder into the pen ha ha. They are just dang hilarious. I’ll try to post many pictures it was so interesting. That was my “African Wildlife Safari!!” After the blessing they had a little gathering in the hospital library (which is fairly measly) where they had fufu, jamajama, katikati (chicken), and some pork (mmmmm J ). There is no such thing as appetizers here as a gathering, they always have fufu and jamajama and usually chicken. A daily meal though for everyone is fufu and jamajama. Fufu is the ground corn and basically just water that is mashed up into a doughy rubbery kind of mushy ball, and jamajama is the huckleberry leafy stuff they cook and looks like cooked spinach. I tried both, I had to at least once.  The fufu is just mushy kind of bland with a nasty hint of something gross and the jamajama is bitter, would be better with a different spice or something. Of course I even did it with my hands like the locals!!!

This afternoon we had an adventurous walk. We went down around-a-bout back direction and went to the 8-day market (so every 8 days it’s here in Njinikom). It’s really just a local thing with like crap clothes and used looking bras, lots of beans and onions, tomatoes, garlic, cassava root, sugar cane.. that kind of stuff. Nothing too interesting, but it was something to see. We stopped at the Midway and had a beer then headed back. Oh and had ice cream. Which was scary cause if it had milk I was afraid of a stomach ache, but it was kind of sherbet texture but creamy vanilla flavored, even though it was pink and white.

On the way back we ran into three little boys doing the tire rolling with a stick up and down the road. It was quite impressive! We watched them for a bit and took pictures and they followed us all the way back to the hospital rolling their tires and trying to do tricks and showing off for pictures, we even tried it and tried to have them show us but it was a fail. They hold the stick low when they are going on flat and up hills to kind of push it, and on down hills they use the stick on the upper part of the tire. All they need is an old motor bike or bicycle tire and a stick with a Y in it at the end. We also saw lots of other kids and some women coming back from the market with LOTS of stuff on their heads, in their hands, and a baby on the back.

For dinner Prisca made “Salad and Pancakes.” It was cabbage and carrots cut very very small and they stack it and shape it on the serving tray, then onions layed on top and some green beans throughout, and boiled egg on top. She also made some sort of creamy dressing that was pretty good. Pancakes were crepes really, maybe just slightly thicker but essentially the same exact thing.

Today (Friday) the rest of the spam snuck it's way into our soup... it was basically just left over soup. pretty good though.

saw a cockroach in the cupboard with the files, I made Lillian get the rest of the files out for me. 

okay back to work.

Monday-Tuesday March 12th and 13th

Monday I worked until 2 of course when it closes. Ha ha.

Mid-afternoon I went outside to go find some crooked legs to take pictures of and when I did Abduh and his buddies came RUNNING OVER wanting to play ball and take pictures. I ended up just telling them to put their tongues out, then stand with one leg up, make moose antlers, lay down and put a leg in the air.. and do all these weird things I could think of. Every time I took a “snap” they all came RUNNING to me looked at the picture and RAN back to take more. It was pretty cute. There were like 10 of them that showed up in the process. Bintu was in trouble so she couldn’t come up for the pictures.

For dinner Prisca made omelets. Basically eggs with tomatoes carrots and green beans (diced so small you’d never know they were green beans) and made into a flat thing she rolls up. Basically just an omelet. Terry said with the number of westerners who’ve been around they kind of know some fairly typical foods. It was really good and on the side it was potatoes, which were like made like fries but not completely fried like fries. Terry puts jam on them cause that is what her grandmother always had done. It’s pretty good that way as well.

Tuesday I worked til 2 again. We went for a walk to Bochain (which is a neighborhood within Njinikom). Up on the hill we could look back over at the hospital. It was a great perspective. Then we walked through Terry’s school and saw the dormitories and classrooms. The girls dorm room we saw were old school rooms with about 12 bunks in them… I mean 12 spots where a bunk was sitting, some with two but a lot with three beds per bunk. So we’re talking 30 to 40 girls sleeping in one room. The different rooms are separated by “forms” or the grade levels essentially, of the secondary school. The lower forms are typically 10 year olds but it’s very easy to repeat forms or to start when you’re older. So there is a bit of an age range. I mean they didn’t even each have a space for their suitcases. There were clothes hanging from the bed posts, the ceiling the window… drying or just for storage.  If that was college for me I would have dropped out. They do their own laundry and dishes because they each have their own little dish set they bring for meals. The food for all the boarding school students is cooked in this one tiny little room with an open fire. I couldn’t even stand outside of it cause of the smoke.

The kids are just too easy to take pictures of because they love it. Here are some from Monday and Tuesday.

For dinner on Tuesday night Prisca made beans and rice; basically black beans and white rice and this tomato saucy stuff to put over it, with some vegetables. It was delicious.

Here is St. Martin De Porres Catholic Hospital. The convent is down in front on the right above the barn thing. That is a cow pasture that the Sisters take care of and make cheese from their milk and what not. Up to the left is the house we are in. It's straight down from the tree line where the one round looking tree bump is in the sky. the Yellow one. The yellow one slightly more to the left of is it Dr. Eugene and Dr. Dabo (Spelling?) duplex. This is the most impressive of the buildings in the area. 

Here is Sister Xaveria with her newborn great niece. They all sang and danced praising the happiness of a new baby. It was quite amazing to see. I guess when she was born the night before Sister dropped the head of the mother she was holding screaming screaming ran out to see the rest of the family and yelled "Matrina is back!" She had just lost a niece and two other family members and I guess their family was very down and when a baby girl was born she was named Matrina (spelling) and another word that means "no more crying." It was pretty amazing to see them all so happy and rejoicing. Sister X is the Matron of the convent and so basically runs the hospital. She is from Njinikom so a lot of her family is around. She is always so happy and cheerful seeming and always singing and dancing. 

I have homework, and it actually downloaded correctly does that mean I have to do it?? :(

SPAM - March 11th

Today is Sunday I’m not sure what I’ll do today. I’ve been reading The Night Circus. It took a bit to get into... more so because I was only reading 2 or 3 pages at a time and I was lost. But once I was able to read a larger CHUNK I started understanding that I don’t know what’s going on and that’s the point. I’m still kind of lost but I like it so far. I’m 20% into it. I love my kindle. The font size is big cause the next down is too small seeming… but this way I can set it on my lap and just sit there without losing my place.

I’ve also been playing the free game Jigsaw words… right now it’s on a Real or Make Believe? Titled puzzle but I can’t figure out what three of them are: a Symbolic Creature of Purity, a Werewolf and Mexican Gargoyle. I’ll have to look it up when the internet comes back on. It was driving me crazy last night.

Oh yeah! I won a game of Minesweeper on hard FINALLY! After so many games and attempts. It came down to 2 tiles and 1 mine. Either one of them would have satisfied the numbers surrounding them and I literally had to just guess. I got it.
That’s the closest I ever have gotten I usually get down to a chunk the size of like 20 tiles and no clues on which tiles will be mines and then I have to guess and I mess up.

What else have I been doing… nothing really. I’m going to edit some of Shayla’s engagement pictures today and hopefully be able to email some more tomorrow.

Knock on some dang good wood for me (I did), no stomach problems as of yet. I haven’t eaten anything too weird other than the soya. But we’ve had spaghetti, scrambled eggs, lots of soup, some noodle stuff, tuna salad (MOM I ATE IT! And I liked it!)…

The typical food here is Fu-fu and Jama-Jama. Fu-fu is made from ground corn and basically put into a spongy ball. Jama-Jama is made from wild huckleberry or bitter root (like leafy stuff), they just mash it up and like cook it somehow. Looks kind of like cooked spinach. I haven’t tried any of it yet.

At women’s day I made friends with one of the doctors kids with my camera. Little Bintu loves having her picture taken but man is she a little brat. She likes to scroll through my pictures and look at them all but she won’t let her brother Abu have a chance or take a look (? Sounded like Abdul Abu.. but apparently I wasn’t saying it right.. so in my blog his name is Abu).  Bintu is probably about 5 and Abu is probably 7 or 8, my guess. But they live right down below our duplex in another duplex on the hospital grounds. I went out to try to take some pictures of the crooked legs and Bintu and Abu came RUNNING to me. They wanted to see my pictures again and Bintu is just so grimy and dirty bleck. Then Abu brought some other friends over and we stood and looked at my pictures for like 20 minutes.  They each wanted to press the button and then Abu wanted to take some pictures. All the while Bintu is pulling on my freshly clean hasn’t been worn yet shirt.. and then guess what? She wipes her snotty nasty little nose on it and then looks at me like.. “oops” all innocent like. I mean it’s like dirt permanently caked under and around the fingernails and grimy snotty dried and runny nose and everything. Abu doesn’t look near is dirty, probably just the difference in age he knows how to wipe his nose. I really wanted to walk up to the hospital and take some pictures, but I got trapped!

Needless to say I came back and changed shirts, washed my hands and arms and used a Charmin wipe on my camera. Now I’m going to wash my hands again.

Then after reading for an hour out on the porch, little Bintu sees me and comes in the gate. This gate is no gate. It’s a balcony and porch gated off by a waste high railing style gate then a cement patio (with nothing in it) and then a gate gate, like entrance to someone’s property gate, big green with a door that opens within it. The Hake’s have never had them do that before. But she made a friend and just decided to come in. (Jim Terry and my dad are all up at the hospital making Sunday rounds as this happens, I don’t go with them after last weekend’s incident) I tell Bintu she can’t come in but she and several others start coming in anyway. So I go out there and scramble them away from the solar panel light chargers we had out charging up in the sun and start playing a game of ball with them. It was kind of funny kind of annoying. The big kids have NO respect for the little ones. Shoving them down the hill and hitting them and the ball away from them.  They all just yell “Hello, to me” over and over when I throw the ball to them. One little boy’s pants were around is thighs not his waste, another little girls dress wasn’t covering much as she sat on the hill and they were all covered in dirt. Then a couple little ones cry and then pick their noses. I played for about an hour and tried to come inside at one point after the game died down but they followed me; opened the gate right up. So I ran inside with my camera and kindle so they didn’t try to pick it up and play with it, and drop it. Ugh. Then I came back out told them they needed to leave they couldn’t be inside the gate and I had to drag them back out basically. As I finally got them back out Jim, Terry and my dad came up over the hill. Jim told Abdu (I heard another kid saying it and there is definitely a “d” sound in the name) that he cannot come inside the gate. So they put the little bar across it so it can’t be opened easily and we came in for pancakes.

The two little guys on the right played with me. The green ball is the ball we played with at first, and that's the little boy who's pants wouldn't stay up and would cry every time he didn't get the ball. 

The rainy season has arrived too! Yesterday it rained a little and we just had a great big storm. The rain just broke through and it started coming down.. it sounds a lot harder cause of the tin roof so we went outside and I mean it’s legitimate rain but it’s not like tons. Then it gets harder and harder. Huge drops of water, no lightness about it. It’s so loud inside the house with the tin roof and all the tin roofs around. It took quite a bit of rain to really get the ground wet it’s been dry for basically 3 months the dirt just sucked it up.

I can spend hours on the internet at home but not quite sure what to do when I don’t have it here. I keep falling asleep trying to read.

Guess what Terry and Jim hid in the casserole for dinner!? SPAM. Ha. As the ham pieces and it was not bad in one bit. Right after we finished Jim says, “We were trying to think of the best way to disguise our first serving of SPAM to you guys..” Ha ha it was really not that bad. I wouldn’t be able to look at it or read the ingredients but eh for a dinner in Africa…

Sardines, spam.. hrm what’s next.  

The Crooked Legs Have Arrived - March 10th

(writing this Sunday morning but won’t be able to post until later, probably Monday)

At Project Hope on Saturday’s they don’t dispense drugs so it’s more of a catch up and have meetings day. Mac was back in the office finally so he had me tally up all of the HIV screened people from the free screening they had done on Friday in Fundong. There were 656 people on the list and I tallied the number in each age group from < 15, 15-19 and so on up to 50+ and all the positive in each age group. There were only 15 positive in the entire group. I then did it a second time cause I had three more tallies than number of people. Ha ha. The second time I had 1 more tally than total people but whatever Mac said. Then we looked at the list of patients I had updated and he thought we should add more information. So we decided on age of starting treatment, sex and address (which is just the town/village they are from). Now I will be going through ALL of the files on the shelves in the treatment center and entering the information for ALL of those patients. Quite possibly it will take me the entire week.

My dad was called in to work often throughout the rest of the day. But we took a quick 35 minute walk into town and back (kind of a loop in one route back the other). We were sure sweating by the end. It was hot and it was 2 in the afternoon. We saw two interesting things. One was a woman with feet turned completely horizontally inward (if vertical was normal feet, looking down from above they look vertical). Crazy the deformities here. Then as we came up and around a curve a bunch of kids dressed as “Juju’s” came running toward us. They were wearing old cloth wrapped around them, some sort of mesh like lacy fabric wrapped around their faces and vines around their necks. Oh and ankle bracelets made with bottle caps so they jingled while they danced around. They chanted and banged drums made of old plastic bottles and used sharp pointed sticks as spears. Sadly I didn’t take my camera on this walk but my dad had his little one. The pictures didn’t turn out that well. Maybe they’ll be dressed up again today and I’ll take my big camera. It was so cute!

We saw the crooked legs. You’re probably wondering what I mean by that. Well every March and November a Dutch orthopedic surgeon and his team comes to straighten the legs of many children who travel from all over the country (possibly even from Nigeria). The crooked legs are like literally bowed out or in and the surgeons cut them up, straighten them out and cast them up. Njinikom Hospital is, for some reason, where they come to do this every year, and supposedly there are just massive amounts of kids and their guardians. Once casted up (both legs from hip to toe, with a bar between the ankles to they literally can’t move their legs in any direction) they have to stay here in Njinikom for up to 3 months sometimes depending on the patient for the legs to heal until the casts come off. Before the casts come off they are taken to another town for removal and physical therapy. I’m excited that we are here for this because it will be really interesting to see all of the little bowed legs. I’ll be sure to take MANY pictures. Last night at mass we saw about 4 or 5 who have arrived early because a photographer is here to “snap” them. The rest should be arriving next weekend probably along with the surgeon and his team. It costs next to nothing for them, if it costs at all. Jim said he thinks they encourage those with some money to pay a little but it’s not much. The surgeon obviously doesn’t do it for the money or get paid at all and supposedly his wife is a very generous donor while here as well.

We aren’t supposed to give out money and things because it just sets a precedent that all white people will give you things and SHOULD give you things. Sister X told us if we want to do anything to do it through her so that when they receive it they don’t recognize it as either coming from us or at all even.

Anyways so hopefully the internet will be okay enough to load a few pictures when the time comes.

March 9th

Today I started out with little to do. I filed the files away from yesterday and helped out with that kind of thing and then tried to organize and edit the document with all the mothers and babies in the HIV monitoring program. A man came in and was talking to Lillian in another language and she finally turned around and said “Do you know power point?” Ha ha so the man was doing a presentation the next morning but needed to put together the presentation. He had never used it so needed some help and had seen me earlier and when he couldn’t find anyone else to help him around the hospital he came back around to where I was and asked. So he gave me his flash drive that he thought he had saved his notes on but turns out he didn’t know how to do that as well. People here just aren’t used to computers; it’s a very uncommon skill so I was excited to get to help.  So we finally found his document on his computer, I put it on the flash drive and took it to the desktop. I then was able to go through and turn it into a powerpoint for him. He was very impressed (all I did was make it very blank and copy and paste his notes that he wanted as slides, oh and I corrected a lot of spelling and punctuation errors).  Then he asked for me to put a photo in on the last slide. The photo was in a PDF article so I couldn’t copy or save the picture from it. So using my tools and tricks from Moses Lake Industries, I found the “snipping tool” on the Windows 7 and was able to cut the photo and save it as a picture for him. Then when I put it into the power point he and Lillian laughed and just thought it was so great. Lillian even asked me to do it again so she could see how I did it. It was highly impressive I assure you all. It was nice to be able to help out with a skill I’m very good at.

This afternoon I just continued to help Lillian, cutting and counting pills.