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!