One Down, Who Knows How Many To Go?

So remember that time (yesterday) when I said I was expecting Magellan to kill mice and leave them on my shoes? Turns out he (she?) eats them whole.

So I was coming into my house after the sun set and I lit my lantern and all of a sudden I see Magellan shooting across the floor and catching something behind one of my suitcases. I was hoping he was fighting one of the big mice but when I saw how easily he subdued whatever it was I thought it was just another cockroach (which he has also been diligent about catching and eating – dude needs his protein). But then I looked over there, and hanging out of my little kitten’s mouth is a long tail on one side and a little mouse face from the other. It wasn’t one of the really big mice, just a small one, but he caught one!! It was still alive and squirming around so I just decided to let Magellan do his thing and went back to what I was doing. Then I heard the crunch crunch crunch and I’m like “gross” and I look back over and all that’s left is the tail, still whipping around on the ground. Which he promptly ate. The frigging mouse must have still been squirming around in his BELLY, he swallowed that thing so fast!

So. At least I know I’ve got a hunter on my hands.

Also today I wrestled the family dog. My family thought this was CRAZY and I was kind of regretting doing it because that dog is DIRTY and she wanted to play MUCH longer than I did (luckily my bath quickly followed this filthy foray). But it’s rare to see her happy with her tail wagging, so I just kept on wrestling her, sitting in my chair. That’s one thing I’ve always liked doing: wrestling dogs. Especially big ones. She is not particularly big or strong so I beat her soundly without ever getting out of my chair. But she has spirit!

I wonder how big Yogi is now. He was fun to wrestle even when he was small because he was such a squirmer. And such a happy dog. Sniff, tear – I miss that little monster.

Night Time

So at night is when a village really comes alive. Everybody’s done working for the day, everybody’s had their bath and their dinner and it’s time to just hang out.

I usually shut myself up in my house after my dinner, read or write for a little while and fall asleep early, when I can still hear little kids running around outside my house. So as I am doing this very thing, paging through The Kite Runner, I hear a bunch of clapping and singing. So eventually I was like ok, I gotta go see what these people are doing. I wish I had an invisibility cloak or something because whenever I go out there it causes a ruckus, especially at a time I am not usually around (like after dark), and I just wanted to watch. But as I have said before, never think you can just go somewhere and stand in the back as a silent observer. It pretty much never happens.

So some of the older women are pounding millet. Which is, like, an all-day, all-night activity around here. I took a few drives with the pestle but my hands are definitely not pestle-worthy, so the women always laugh and take the pestle away after a few strokes. The men are all gathered around the little TV hooked up to the car battery watching a soccer game. I don’t know who was playing, but soccer players are HOT…has anyone else ever noticed this before? Hmm. All the little boys were playing some sort of game and they all had sticks. I tried to teach them to high five but they weren’t getting it so I gave up quick. And then out by the well were all the young women and girls. Singing, clapping and dancing.

Right when I walked up I think they were just about to disperse but then somebody calls out “Oumou Diarra!” and everybody rushes back to the circle. They want me to dance but I’m not comfortable enough here yet to dance. I would have done it in Santou, but I had already lived there for 8 months. It’s one thing to make a fool out of yourself in front of people you consider your friends, an entirely different thing to do it in front of people who are still strangers. So I succeeded in being able to stand in the circle and just watch. One of Yusuf’s daughters was leading the singing, and then everybody clapped rhythmically based on the song she was singing. The two oldest girls were doing most of the dancing and kicking up such a dust cloud it could be seen even in the moonlight.

I stayed for a couple of songs, then wandered back to my house, where I swear I hear the high pitched chirp(?) of a mouse pretty much nightly. Magellan hears it too and is curious about it but has yet to get into a fistfight with said mouse. One of these days I’m gonna find one of those fat bastards laid out on my shoes in the morning, a proud Magellan standing watch over the carcass.

A girl can dream.

TERMITES!

So when I got back from BKO this last time I noticed that my PACA book (if you are a PCV, you know it well) had been munched on. I blamed this on mice. But just now, I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and went to pick up The Kite Runner, and IT was munched on! Then I saw all the little white bugs crawling on the book. TERMITES!!! So I start picking up all my books and papers, which have been unceremoniously dumped in a corner. Half of them have been munched. Some to the point of actually affecting readability. So I cleared them all out and swept the area and the chickens had a field day with the feast of squirming termite bodies that landed outside my door.

One Hundred Years of Solitude might be the worst affected so I am reading that next to get the book OUT of here. I’m going to put the rest of the books in plastic bags and hope that deters the literary feast they have become.

So I’m already knowing that my two pieces of wooden furniture are not going to make it very long. But hey, if they can just make it another year, I won’t care.

But I do want them to stop eating my books.

RIP Philip

So my neighbor Yusuf, who I hang out with sometimes and drink tea with, came by this morning saying something about my other chicken, Philip, being sick. And that he wanted to buy him. Or something. So he was like how much? And the chicken was a gift from the chef du village so I didn’t feel right about taking money for him so I just said to give me some piment out of his garden and he could have him. And he was like no, you don’t understand, come over to my house, “she” speaks French.

So I go over there. And there’s this rather coiffured lady sitting in the chair there, making herself some coffee. This is what most of Yusuf’s clients look like. Usually educated, from out of town, well-dressed, well-fed, nice coiffure. See, Yusuf is the marabout, or, witch doctor, we would probably call him in America. And he’s like, KNOWN apparently, so people come from all over the place to have him do his thing for them.

So I thought the lady just wanted to buy my chicken for dinner. But after sitting there for awhile, while Yusuf was drawing out a benediction on this tombstone-shaped piece of wood, I was like, dude it isn’t right to sell this chicken when he was a gift from the chef du village and I could give it to my family and they could have some protein, right? I really didn’t want to take money for him and would REALLY rather have the family eat him.

So after Yusuf had caught the chicken and tied his legs (it was clear he was sick, he was dripping liquid out of his mouth and his top waddle was turning black), I told them I didn’t feel right about selling the chicken. And they were arguing with me for a minute and then she said she would replace the chicken. And I’m like well if you can replace him, why don’t you just buy a different one at the market?

So through all this confusion, she’s finally like, but I need a WHITE chicken, NOW. And I’m all like why the heck do you need a white chicken? And she was like, you don’t believe, I don’t want to tell you. And that’s when I realized they needed the white chicken to do whatever marabout ritual Yusuf was going to do for her. It HAD to be white, and mine was the best one around, being fairly large, male, and (unarguably) very pristine white. So then I was like OH. Definitely didn’t want to mess up the poor lady’s sacrifice. So I said, well, if you replace him you can kill him.

So Yusuf hung him upside down on his moto handles and hung his big knife next to him. I wish I had a picture of this. Then he gave me 100 francs and told me to go buy tea. And I was like do I look like a petite to you? I ended up giving it to a petite to go get the tea (and then I gave her a bon bon). Then Yusuf and the client got on his moto and went off into the bush with my chicken.

Sorry Philip. You would have died today anyways.

So when they got back Philip was all dead and she cleaned him and started to make food. I was like oh, so he’s going to get eaten after all. I had like three lunches. The first was the toh Yusuf’s (first) wife made, and she makes a pretty good toh sauce. I wouldn’t have eaten it at all if it wasn’t considered rude, though, because Sita was making BASI for lunch and I friggin love basi so I wanted to save as much room in my tummy as possible. So I ate a few handfuls of the toh. Then a petite brought the basi over and I started to eat that. Yusuf had a few handfuls of that and I was going to enjoy more of it but he took it away and told me I had to eat Philip with them. She (her name was Ami) had made this spaghetti dish with oil, garlic, onions, tomatoes, Maggi and black pepper, and then had cooked Philip up on top of that. So then I had to eat THAT. It was tasty. But I still looked longingly at my unfinished basi, which after all of that I was clearly too full to enjoy any more of. When we were done eating, the rest of the family got to dig into it, including the kids, so everybody got a little protein out of it anyway.

So the bottom line is I ate both of my chickens this week. But both of the families who feed me got some protein out of it, so a good sacrifice in all.

Petite Setu washed all my dirty clothes today, including my Dakar purse, which was FILTHY. So that’s good. Every time she washes my clothes, the girls ask to have certain articles. And I’m like look when I leave I will leave all my clothes for you guys. But for now, I need these clothes! Especially my swimsuit, which is the article they asked to have this time.

So I usually give her bon bons (candy) for doing the laundry because her mom won’t let me pay her. But today as we were hanging up the finished wash, she asked for “macaroni” which refers to any kind of pasta, really. And I was like I don’t have any, which is actually not true, because I do have one or two macaroni and cheeses hanging around but if she thinks I’m giving her a box of Trader Joe’s shells and cheese she is MISTAKEN. She says I can get it at the boutique. I ask how much it is and she says 350 CFA, which is like, less than a dollar. And I’m like fine, because I originally wanted to pay her like 500 CFA each time she did my laundry, so it’s still a deal! I tried to just give her the money but she was like no, you have to go with me and buy it, I guess because if I just gave her the money it would be like I paid her and she bought spaghetti with her earnings. This way I could just give her the spaghetti. So after we get the spaghetti she’s like come over to my house, let’s make it! And I’m like crap. I am SO not hungry right now after the mess of food I ate for lunch and I really want to take a nap and I have no desire to cook right now. Because at this point I am thinking she wants me to make an American sauce for it. But it turns out she didn’t, she did the cooking, she just wanted me to sit there with her while she did it and then eat with her.

So here’s how they make spaghetti: they put the “oil” (which I am now suspecting is shea butter) in the pot and let it melt. Then they mash up tomatoes with their fingers. Then they put the tomato skins in the oil, leave it for a minute. Then they put some water in, then the rest of the tomato stuff, then more water. They let that cook awhile and then they add the Maggi cube (MSG) and about a salt shaker’s worth of salt (I’m feeling the heart attack already). Then they break up the spaghetti into little inch and a half long pieces and put that in. It cooks in the sauce until it’s basically just lightly coated and has soaked up lots of salt and water. Then you eat it. It’s not bad tasting at all, but it sure as shit is not healthy. But the kids were all really excited about it.

That’s one thing: they do know how to share here. I mean, Setu earned that spaghetti fair and square, but instead of keeping it all to herself she shared it with like 10 other kids, plus me and her mom. I’ve noticed they do this with candy I give them, too. Like to the point of sharing a lollipop, which is gross, but hey, they’ve got the spirit.

I also taught all the kids sitting around watching us cook how to cover their mouths when they cough, because they kept coughing on me. I was like CUT THAT OUT I’ve got a big month ahead of me and I don’t wanna be sick for it!!

So we’ll see if that sticks.

Also, kind of a non-sequitor, but I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day and I had asked her to send me one of my textbooks from college that I had never read and she was like, “I don’t know how you got all those A’s, you never read shit.” And it’s true. I would be surprised if I even got through three of the at least a hundred books I was assigned in college (she also said it made her feel so good that she had spent all that money on those books – but in my defense, I didn’t KNOW I wasn’t gonna read them at the time of purchase). One I know I finished was for a class on violence vs. non-violence. It was called Remains by William Crapser. It was a firsthand account of the Vietnam War and a great book. But I couldn’t for sure name any others that I definitely got all the way through. Because I probably didn’t. I should have brought more of them to Africa with me, because I read all the time here. And then I could review my education and when I get back maybe put it to better use. Maybe.

Back in the Saddle

So I think many Peace Corps Volunteers could describe the apprehension one has when returning to one’s site. We all know that once we get there, we will be content. Kids will come running down the path to carry our stuff, babbling in a language we don’t particularly understand, huge smiles on their faces (how did they even know I got back??). We will slip right back into it, we will remember what we love about living alone in a small African village. It’s the pulling yourself away from your ExPat life that’s the hard part and that is exemplified by the simple packing your stuff and getting your ass to the taxi gare. Once you are comfortably (question mark?) seated in your taxi on your way home, you sigh a big breath of relief and resign yourself to the ride, where you have nothing but time to think. In fact, my taxi ride is even too short for my thought process now. In Guinea the shortest taxi ride I might feasibly take would be about 2 hours. But for the most part, I was looking at a 4-6 hour ride (if Allah decided to bless the taxi) or if I was truly lucky, a 12-14 hour stint. Which gives you a LOT of time to think. And I really enjoyed it. Guinea is such a beautiful place. To just sit in that taxi, thinking, looking out at some of the most beautiful sights I’ve had the pleasure of routinely experiencing in my life – that’s a blessing, my friends.

My taxi ride here is an hour to an hour and a half. Not exactly the same thing. I barely get that puppy grinding before I find I’m already home. It’s a relief and a disappointment, but mostly a disappointment.

And it’s a paved road. What’s with that?

Anyway. When I got back, Hawa was bursting to tell me that the three-legged puppy had regained use of his injured fourth leg. Both he and the grown family dog were there to greet me right when I got back and Gimpy just waltzed right into my house as soon as the door was open, like he owns the place. I thought maybe the little guy would have forgotten me, but no, his butt was wagging a million miles a minute when he saw me and the first thing he did after sniffing around for the leftovers bowl was plop down on his blanket and take a nap. I keep telling him, “you are not my dog! This is not your house!” Apparently he doesn’t speak English.

I haven’t gotten my cat back yet, though. That’s kind of weird. I hope Magellan hasn’t kicked the bucket like the last one.

So shortly after I got back, Drissa came by, and then the teenage boy who lives across from me who never speaks and whose name I don’t know came to the door holding my black chicken, Chester. He said that Chester is sick. But I didn’t know what he wanted me to do about it. I saw what he meant when he put Chester down and he sort of drunkenly wandered around, making weak cockadoodledoos constantly. That is not chickenlike behavior. So I told Drissa to tell the family to eat him for dinner. So we did. They originally brought his hacked up carcass to me in a bowl but I was like just put him in the sauce, dude. RIP Chester. I hope we all don’t get Mad Chicken Disease now. That would suck.

My first momma Seli brought me a big bag of peanuts in a 25 kg World Food Programme rice sack. I was like WTF. I think she said some woman sent them over as a gift to me but I will have Drissa and/or Khalifa confirm this story for me the next time they are around. I know I won’t eat the peanuts. I’d rather have them made into sauce. So tomorrow I’m going to give the peanuts to the family and tell them to make me a friggin na tiga dege (peanut butter sauce) with tomatoes. Since it’s tomato season.

So while I was living Life #2 in BKO this last week, Raven pointed out some Moringa trees that were seeding and so I hopped out of the car and proceeded to do seed collection along with a much taller counterpart (I would have collected like a third as many pods without his help). Then we made Ousmane help us sensibilize the locals who were watching me like I was a crazy person about Moringa, it’s uses and benefits. Our (non-Peace Corps) friends looked at us like we were crazy while we were sensibilizing. But that’s my f-ing job and I am sooooo putting that on my quarterly report. DIFFERENCE MADE.

My plan is to create a tree nursery with these seeds and then go around to all the compounds and plant 2-3 in each one and explain why they should protect it and let it grow and then USE it. Gotta find a good spot for a pepiniere. If I get them open-root planted before I leave for the Segou Music Festival they should be a decent size when I get back. And I could start outplanting them in March. Go me.

So Drissa is going to put together a meeting to decide what kind of latrine we want to build at the school and I will get that proposal written while I am in Segou. My pump proposal was accepted by the PC authorities and forwarded to the funding authorities, so here’s crossing my fingers for funding.

Gimpy wants to spend the night in here. But he is farting like nobody’s business so I might have to kick him out. He’s so much bigger than he was a week ago!! Nowhere near as beautiful as Yogi, though. Just saying.

Meeting. Projects.

So today there was a big meeting between the Chef du Village and all the Chefs du Famille at the dugutigi’s house. It was to discuss what projects they want me to undertake in the light of the fish farm being very difficult and facing the problem of water.

So they decided they want to have a pump at the school and also a latrine. I think these are great projects. I think we’ll do the latrine first because it is a lot easier and cheaper. The pump is going to be hard. Expensive. Haoua said she sent me past budgets/proposals for these types of projects so I will have a jumping off point.

They want to get started working on it like right away, like next week, and I had to explain that if I have to find money for it, getting the money is going to take a little bit of time. Especially for the pump, because it will be so expensive I will have to do a PCPP project for it and that usually takes like 4 months to get enough donations. Then another month or two to actually get the money. THEN we can dig the pump. Le sigh.

But the latrine I think we can start pretty quickly. I mean, they can at least dig the hole, even if we have to wait a bit to get the money to buy the concrete and whatnot.

They haven’t entirely given up the idea of the fish farm, though. So…we’ll see what happens with that. Drissa also said there are a bunch of wells that are broken, and we can definitely do something about that so I’m going to push to get started on that maybe while we are waiting for the money to come in for the pump.

Hey, look, I might actually get some projects done!! Fancy that.

I’m headed back to Bamako tomorrow to look over the aforementioned project proposals and also to meet with Chris about a potential Water & Sanitation video he has the idea to shoot. And I’m totally going to make nachos. Or SOMETHING I can put sour cream on. I haven’t had sour cream in ages.

I also cleared my February vacation plans with my homologue and my supervisor, and Haoua, so that’s ready to roll. Have I mentioned these plans before? I’m going to the Segou Music Festival aka “Le Festival Sur le Niger” Feb 3-7 and then hanging out for a day or two before it’s time to head to Senegal for WAIST. Then we are going to stay a few extra days in Senegal and do some touristy stuff before coming back and hitting Amy’s wedding. So I will finally start using some of my accrued vacation days. Haven’t even used one yet and I’m almost 14 months in.

Huzzah!

Baseball Comes to Africa

So we had another crayon party before lunch. I still don’t get why they all feel the need to fight over crayons and paper – there is plenty for everyone. In the course of one of these fights, the first crayon got broken. I’m actually surprised it took this long!

So after the crayon party I was explaining to Drissa that I am going to Senegal next month to play in a softball tournament (WAIST). He had no idea what I was talking about. Then it occurred to me that among the things that were sent to me from Guinea, I had two baseball gloves and two baseballs! So I busted out the gloves and a ball and after spending five minutes trying to teach Drissa how to put the glove on, we played catch! The kids thought this was really weird. I think Drissa might have thought that catch was baseball. He said he has never seen it before, not even on TV. But he was having fun. Every time one of us would drop the ball there was a mad fighting scramble amongst the children to recover the ball and throw it back to us. I would let them play with the ball and gloves when we are not using them, but the ball is hard and somebody would definitely get hurt. And they’d probably find a way to destroy the gloves.

Like they destroyed my cards. Word to the wise: bring at least 2 decks of cards with you to Africa. One you can lend out to the kids, because they will ask you EVERY DAY. The other you keep for yourself to play solitaire or to play with adults – DON’T LEND THIS DECK OUT! You will regret it.

We had to stop playing catch when a ball I threw hit the screen on my door and separated it from the doorframe, leaving a hole that tomorrow I will try to patch with duct tape.

It was really windy today and the dust was coming into my house like WHOA, so I put up the door curtain and one window curtain that I had had made in Guinea (also made it here and I didn’t even ask for them!). I had never gotten around to putting them up in Guinea because what I wanted them for was to keep petites from looking in my door and windows at me all the time but Yogi proved to be way better than any curtain because with Yogi around they never even dared come past the gate. Problem solved.

The puppy is always wanting to come in my house now. Only two things I don’t like about it: he pees on the floor and he is always trying to eat out of the cat box. Just a fact of life: dogs like to eat poo. Also since his leg is messed up I can’t give him a bath. As soon as his leg is healthy or at least not hurting him I am giving him a bath. With the doggie shampoo my grandma sent me. Speaking of his leg, it is getting better. It used to be that if you touched it at all or if he sat on it he would yelp but now it has to be bent in a certain direction for it to hurt. Of course just as I write this I hear him screaming from out in the courtyard. Somebody must have hit him. In the leg. I don’t really want him to make my house his home but at the same time I’d rather let him stay here until he is healed so they can’t hurt him so easy. Poor little guy. He just tried to crawl through the hole I made in my door screen today. Dude really wants to live here.

Yogi's Alive!!

I just talked to Ousmane II! He was in Telimele so we had a good connection this time. The first thing I asked is how is Yogi??? Apparently he was in Telimele getting him his rabies shot. What a champ. Shows you who your real friends are.

Whenever I hear Ousmane’s voice (this is only the 2nd time now), I miss Guinea so much. He is a real friend and it took having to leave before I really realized that. The fact that he is taking such good care of Yogi is testament to that. I think he might have said he might bring Yogi up to me sometime but if not he said I have to come and get him before I go back to America. Not that he wouldn’t keep him if it turned out I couldn’t take him home with me. I wonder if he’s still just as hyper. I wonder if they’ve let him go free in the village and if so how many beatings he has received.

He said that they are doing his marriage to Lundi next week. In true West African fashion, this is about 2 months late (the original idea was it would happen last November). I’m really sad I can’t be there.

It just reminds me how hard it was to make real friends and that by the time I manage to make any real friends here it will be time to go. And there really aren’t too many options for friends since nobody speaks French and my Bambara sucks. This is a very lonely experience.

Anyway it’s really good to know Yogi is still kicking and that he is happy. I really miss that monster.

Another Guinea-fabulous thing that happened today was Adama (trainer) came to my site for a check-in and brought all my stuff that came from Guinea. FINALLY! My big green trunk, two suitcases and a giant rice sack. My family must think I am the patroniest patron because I have so much stuff. And it IS a lot of stuff, comparatively. I am actually myself shocked at the amount of stuff I have acquired here in Africa. I showed up here with 4 bags (2 checked suitcases, a carry-on and a small backpack) and have since acquired what seems like an excessive amount of stuff. How did this happen? Have I really received so many packages from the States? How did I end up with all these clothes? I have like 4 sets of sheets – how did THAT happen? It just occurred to me that Daffe did NOT send my American pillow. Rats!! That’s ok, Scotty gave me a big fluffy pillow she didn’t want. But you know what he DID send? MY MAGIC 8 BALL!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I’m going to go through the clothes and give a big pile of it to my family. They don’t have a lot of clothes so they will probably appreciate some additions, even if they happen to be a little oil or bleach-stained. At least they’re not ripped! That’s a plus!

Oh and my grandma sent crayons, which came with all the stuff today so after giving everybody Werther’s (also courtesy of grandma), I busted out the crayons and some paper and about 20 kids went CRAZY. They were fighting over crayons and I’m like guys…there are 64 crayons and only 20 of you, there’s plenty to go around! But they don’t speak English so the only thing that worked was holding the crayons over my head and doling them out to each little hand one-by-one. Hawa took over being crayon-tigi aka nazi and by some miracle of the universe all 64 crayons ended up back in the box when everyone was done drawing their trees, huts and cars. AND none of them were broken. How about THAT? One kid even drew something and then wrote OBAMA on it. Everyone wanted me to look at what they drew, even if it was just scribbles and give them a personal “a kanyi!” (that’s good!) at least three times. I wonder if I will ever get them to be creative about what they draw. I think they learn to draw a tree, a hut and a car at school so that’s all they think they can make. We’ll have to work on this. In smaller groups. But anyway, grandma, the crayons were a big hit!!! I’ll send you pictures.

Want to know what’s a good diet? Giardia! Or whatever it is that is currently giving me gastro-intestinal distress. You have no appetite! So that fits in well with my goal of shedding a few pounds before WAIST, where I know I’m just going to put it all back on. This illness reminds me of what I had that week in Guinea when I thought I was over-bleaching my water. The first night, especially. Because I vomited all night and had to curl up into a little ball in order to get just a tiny bit of relief. That’s what it was like all week last time. Now I just have no appetite. And my tummy/intestines are always rumbling. And my burps smell like Cheerios (weird, right?). Whatever it is, it’s not from over-bleaching. And I’d put money on it having come from those raw tomatoes I ate those two days that Setu (the petite who does my laundry) brought over. They were already all sliced up and in some sort of dressing, so I just ate them. Don’t tell Traian. Well, he’s not my doctor anymore, so it doesn’t matter what you tell him. Don’t tell Dr. Dawn. But I’m one of those people that just rides stuff out so I don’t have to take any medicine so if it goes away on its own (which giardia can, but amoebas evidently can’t) I consider it a coup.

Oh yeah, so the family puppy? Somebody (not going to name names but momma Seli said it was one of the younger boys) either kicked him or threw him on the ground and his hind leg is all messed up. He hobbles around on three legs with the injured leg pulled up tight and kind of off-looking. Like maybe it is out of its socket or something. But I don’t have the guts to jerk it straight and see if it pops back in. He whimpers. If he falls or accidentally touches that leg to something he screams. He came to my door this morning and pushed it open and just came inside. Probably because I sometimes feed him what Magellan doesn’t eat. I gave him some food (and water, which he drank like he’d been trekking through a desert all day, then proceeded to pee it onto my floor like 3 times) and put the Peace Corps-issue blanket on the ground (which I’ll never use because THIS is cold season and a sheet suffices) and laid him on it. He spent most of his day sleeping on the blanket or trying to eat the cat poop out of the cat box. He wandered out about 4 or so and hasn’t been back. I haven’t named him, I just call him Puppykins. This probably means the family will kill him when I am out of town if his leg doesn’t get better. It won’t be any use to tell them three-legged dogs do just fine in America. Oh well. The circle of life, right?

Anyway. It’s nice to have my stuff, nice to hear Ousmane II’s voice, and nice to know that Yogi is doing well. It definitely could have been a worse day. Except that I had no appetite to eat the peanut sauce momma Setu made for dinner – RATS!

Cats. Fish

So Seli is making me give Leif Ericksen back. She gave me a black cat and he was immediately exploring everywhere and quite a nice cat, so I named him Magellan. Then he cried all night long. And all of the second night. I had to get out of bed at like 5am because he was clinging to the window screen, screaming. Had to get him down. Turned out there was another cat outside, which is what was driving him crazy. Another cat that looked just like him. His brother (sister?). In the interest of getting another hour of sleep, I opened the door and waited for the second cat to come inside so they would shut up. He (she?) did come inside. And they immediately shut up. I named him Leif Ericksen.

Well apparently Leif was supposed to be Seli’s cat, and when she found out they were both in my house, she asked for one back. I’m like but they’re so happy together! They’ll just scream for weeks, pining after each other! But my Bambara sucks so I couldn’t explain any of that and told her I’d give one back tomorrow. It’s going to be Leif. Because he’s more skittish. Magellan already likes to purr and sit on my lap while I read, so he stays. It makes me realize how freaking feral that last cat was. I’m not really sad he’s gone.

I think our dog might be pregnant. But I could be totally wrong. If she is, I know I am going to want a puppy. Sigh. Freaking animals!!

Not much else has been going on. I biked around with Drissa yesterday looking at potential sites for this fish farm they want to build. I’m shaking my fist at our APCD and trainer for showing this fish farming stuff to our homologues because now they want to do it and it’s a really expensive and complicated project. And they’ve got their hearts all set on it but the one problem they apparently didn’t think about with any of these potential sites is: water. Where are they going to get the water? This basically cistern is going to need to have its water changed regularly. And that’s a lot of water. Adama (trainer) is coming to my site on Monday so I’m going to discuss it with him. Like if we just dug a well next to it and set up a simple pump maybe we could do it. Have it drain into a soak pit. I don’t know. Personally I don’t think this is a good idea, but it’s the one the village came forward with and the cardinal rule of a Peace Corps project is to do whatever project the village wants to do. If you try to force a project on them, it’s probably not going to be successful. So maybe Adama can help me with this on Monday.

I finished the third Twilight book. I seriously hate Bella. What do Edward and Jacob see in her??? She’s freaking obnoxious and needy and weak and indecisive and insecure and I just want to SLAP her. I blame Stephenie Meyer (the author). Bella doesn’t have to be this awful to still have the same dynamic. I mean, I’m not even rooting for her! UGH! Luckily there is only one book left. Which I will HAVE to read since I’m all sucked into it now. Maybe the movies won’t be as bad. I don’t remember hating Bella that much in the first movie. But that could also be because I like Kristen Stewart. Hmm.

Half-way Point

So I have a sixth sense about animals, much in the way I do about babies. My original Malian cat, I think I mentioned, ended up dead when I came back from IST/Christmas. Today, as I returned from my New Years celebration, one of my moms, Seli, presented me with a new kitten. I never named the old cat because I just had a sense he wasn’t going to last. And he didn’t. That’s why he was called kitty. This cat, I have already named. His/her name is Magellan. Because he/she is an explorer and the first thing it did when I put it down in the house was explore everywhere, including finding food, water and the litter box. So I think this cat might stick around awhile.

Today marks 13 months in Africa and is the halfway point of my 26-month commitment to Peace Corps. It both seems like it’s flown by and taken forever. And it seems both like there is so long and not enough time until I get to go home again.