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Back to THE ROCK REPORT Contact 3 Ca
va aller From 01-02-01 to 07-02-01
Hey Mom & Dad! Boy today was long & hot. It's really hot, I know I'll take a bath in the morning & I know I'll get another before dinner, so I don't really care if I sweat - it's nice :--). We were all wiped out today though. The heat still takes your energy. And I can't figure out why I'm so hungry all the time. I'm not doing anything but sit around in class. Speaking of which…I need to take more pictures of Monga, so you can see what my town looks like. I actually live in Paris - we were talking about this today - we feel like we're living in another century. The coolest part about it, though, is that these people are genuinely happy - and there is no better inspiration than that. The people all greet you as you go about your business around the village. The kids may even run up to you & try to shake your hand - or just touch you & run away. It was a little weird at first, but now we're all used to it. They're happy to see us. It's a super cool feeling. Well, tomorrow it's back to Alepe - it's only about 2 or 3 km, if that. I think we're getting more shots too. Well, wish me luck that I'll get a letter tomorrow. Can't wait til Thursday!!! Oh yeah - remind me to tell you how to say hello in Mbatto - there are 4 ways - depending on what time of day it is - & they "sing" it - it's awesome. I gotta go to bed. I love you! Hey!!! We're in Alepe again - I'm going to try to call Eric today if we can still use our calling cards. I forgot to tell you - a guy here named Leonard went to Cornell the same time Cathy did but he doesn't know her. He reminds me of Steve - & this other guy here reminds me of Uncle Dave - tall, blond (well, this guy has hair. :--)) I called Eric today - but we only talked for a few minutes There is a place here that you can use calling cards, but they charge you 1000 francs to do it -FINE WITH ME! I got to talk to Eric! I'm going to try Kurt too. I promise I won't talk long. :--). I've only talked to him for that minute & a half last week. I only heard 4 words out of his mouth too :--) - I talk too much! We got another shot today & 2 more next week. You can't be afraid of needles here, that's for sure. Eric sounded good - I hope I can get online to check out his website soon - especially when you get my pictures. I'm going to try to send them next Thursday - one roll at a time! Well, I'm heading to class - I'll be back soon! I'm back. I tried to call Kurt several times. I really wanted to talk to him. I'm sorry. I know it's expensive to let it ring even. I promise I won't call al lot & I won't talk long, but today I just really wanted to talk to him. I should have just not tried. It's better than thinking I'll get to talk to him & then not. I did get in touch with Eric though. So, that's good. I promise today is the only day I'll try that many times. This is the hard part I guess. I can't talk to anyone & can't talk to the people here either. I was trying to talk to the lady with the phone & she finally said just speak English. Today's kinda crappy. My stomach is bothering me finally too. It's my turn anyway - I think I'm the only one who hasn't hurt yet! I wish I could talk to you guys today. I sure can't wait til Thursday. Now I have a whole day of trying to talk to my family tomorrow. Good luck. Im; really frustrated right now if you couldn't tell :--). Ca va aller! Well, I'm going to study some. - Much better now - I still haven't talked to Kurt, but I have these 2 girls here that I really like & they're making me feel better - it's Mary & Julie - the two who's parents you called. I'm sitting in the hot Africa sun feeling like a big turd with lots of flies on me. Man I love this place! How nuts is that…I'm in Africa! My stomach feels better too, by the way. I'm in for a lot of these kinds of days! I can hardly wait! Mariam, the director, the lady's house where you are calling me, is super nice. In fact, if you ever needed to call in an emergency - that would probably be a good place to start. She speaks English, but not as well as the other. So if you do ever need to call her, speak slowly & clearly………….I need to go back over to her house right now. She has something for us. I'll see you later ------ Happy Birthday, Mom! I meant to tell Dad that when I talked to him but I forgot. I'm in a better mood today. I'm just homesick. I'm trying to practice my French, but I don't know enough verbs/vocabulary to really say much - & I wouldn't really know what to say to my family even if I could speak French. So, I'm just having a frustrating weekend. We went to some big throw down last night. What I could make of everything was it was a funeral/party for some old lady who died last year. I guess it was the anniversary of her death…who knows. And last night, my 2 year old little brother was standing in their "living room" (even though it's not really a room - it's outside) -- & all he had on were his skivies. Usually they are just naked. Anyway, he decided to squat & take them off -- & go ahead & take a crap while he was down there! It was hilarious - his Mom jumped up & grabbed him. That was my highlight of the evening. I was going to go to church with Andou but we didn't get in til 12:30 & I was exhausted, so they let me sleep in. I swept & mopped my room today & washed my clothes. Now I'm just doing nothing for the rest of the day! Well, I need to study. Before I forget, there is a married couple here - Tim & Alex Foxwhite - they are PCVs right now. They gave us their parent's email address & said our parents could email them - they can give you ideas on how to call cheap. So, if you want to email them - they may have the inside scoop :--). Also, that guy from Cornell is named Leonard Ahs - if you happened to want to ask Cathy. Better go study - I miss you so much. ~ OK, this afternoon was 10x better. I went walking with A.P. (Andou Pierre, sorry) & I told him how much I appreciated his patience…& he said "ca va aller"! He rocks! And I just happened to understand most of what he was saying this afternoon. It's all I needed just to get pepped up again. So now I'm pumped again & I'm ready to start talkin'! I had a yummy dinner too - Benbedicte is a really good cook - but I think she thinks I'm just telling her that. I finished up my 3rd roll of film & I'll hopefully send it out on Thursday. It's raining right now. It's just like camping except I have a tin roof. And I think I'd rather pee in the woods than that stupid latrine. There were 4 roaches waiting for me tonight. I'll wet the bed before I see those guys again tonight. They are at least 3 inches long - I think they could cause me bodily harm. Well, I'm off to bed - I can't wait to talk to you. Hope you had a wonderful birthday, Mom. Bonne nuit. Good morning! It's awesome this morning - it's almost cold! My bath was definitely cold this morning! My stomach isn't being very nice to me. At least it waited til daylight. This morning A.P. asked me if I would be sad if he left for about 5 or 6 days. What do you say to that? I told him I would be sad - but it was ok for him to go. Random village comment - what do they do with trash here? What doesn't collect in the street or next to the houses is burned. It's really sad. I've been separating mine into compostable & not. I don't have very much trash. It is so hot today - & it's not even the hot season yet! I'm wearing pants, too, because we're doing water jar construction today. That should be interesting. Well, I'm going to go learn some new verbs so I can talk to these people. I will learn this language! Talk to you soon! ~ Water jar construction was pretty fun. Who knows if it will work. We basically made a giant sand pile & put mortar around it. We'll check it out in a few days. I got a letter from Maw Maw today. Everyone is telling me they're writing but I've yet to get them. Maw Maw's took 15 days - I know the others are writing. One of the bad things here - my butt hurts so bad because we sit in class all day on these hard wooden chairs, then I come home & study on the hard wooden bench. The only "comfortable" place to sit is on my bed & really all that is is a thin mattress that I've already worn down, on top of thin wooden slats that I can feel every one of. I'm glad I brought my therma rest - that saves me! I thought I had enough cushion - apparently it's in the wrong place! I've already lost some weight - but not tons. Not snacking makes an amazing difference! I'm hungry & if I had food I'd eat it - but I don't. Crazy, isn't it?! I'm going to check out the market in Alepe - I think I may be able to get padded envelopes to send film home in. But if you want to send a couple, that's fine - with kool-aid & candy :--)! When you come visit - my wants are more hand sanitizer & American food - pringles, combos, skittles, cereal, crackers, cookies - any good "wholesome" American food. I'm definitely having withdrawals! Well, I'm going to get off this hard bench & go help Benedicte with dinner. Have a wonderful afternoon - it's only 12:45 your time ~ Tonight was really good again. I hung out with Benedicte some & talked about more things than "how was your day…good." And both she and A.P. hung out with me at dinner & we talked a lot. My French isn't spectacular but it's better than it was day 1. Also, I bought a huge can of powdered milk at the market because I needed some protein & calcium - the meat here is a little shady. But I thought they might get offended if I brought my own milk. But they weren't. I thought I did a very good job explaining that since I don't like meat very much, it is a good source of protein - & that I drank a ton of milk in the states. They said "Ahh, bon". Which is 'oh yeah, good' :--) So I was proud of myself - now I get tons of milk! It's a beautiful night, too - the moon is almost full & there are tons of stars. It's nice to sit back & enjoy the little things :--). I'm off to sleep now. Sweet dreams to you both :--). Good morning! I'm going to have heart disease before 3 months are up - this morning I had 2 mugs of whole milk with coffee, 1 beignet, 2 pieces of bread with peanut butter & ½ an omelet! They always tell me I don't eat enough. So I was trying to. NOT anymore! I'm about to bust! I'm going easy at lunch. And tomorrow I have to fix dinner for myself any help! I think I'll just eat a big lunch :--). Time for class. Today was Julie's birthday (she & Mary are my buddies!) so everyone gave her presents - cookies, pack of kool-aid, an apple - very creative. And we played pin the tail on the mouton - French for sheep :--). It was hilarious watching our trainers blind folded pinning a tali. I have the afternoon off today. We're supposed to be doing something constructive so I'm writing letters & studying. I'm going running this evening with some other PCTs. I haven't run in forever! It's going to be hot but everything here is. Only 2 more days til I get to talk to you!! And today is almost over! ~ These are the juiciest, sweetest pineapples I have ever eaten! There is so much good fruit here. I went running today - it feels really good outside -- around 5:30 - 6. I almost forgot I was in Africa. And we went running down this dirt road into the "jungle" - no cars, no fires - fresh air! It felt really good to get my heart pumping. Now I'm studying a bit & heading to bed. Tell everyone hi for me & that I'm thinking about you all. I was thinking today how nice a Welch's grape Popsicle would taste :--) - could you send me a few of those?! Goodnight! Good day to you both! We learned a TON
today in language class. We learned how to do past tense. I'm really
overwhelmed now. We need to know how to use it but there is so much
to know - where do you start?! Sometime soon we're meeting with the
APCD (Associate PC Director) & we're talking with her about our
village placement. We tell her our needs & wants & what type
person we are. Some villages are apparently more aggressive than others
so if you are a more timid person, you may go to a more reserved village.
There are 2 kids sitting her next to me now. They just sit here, practically
on top of me babbling in Mbatto. They speak very little French except
for salutations. So they don't understand go away or shutup. Maybe if
I ignore them they'll go away. It's really nice outside today, and I
even have pants on. It's amazing how refreshing shade can be here. At
home, I'd still be complaining! You take what you can get I guess :--).
Time to study past tense! - Before I forget, will you send these letters
to Grandma, Maw Maw & April? Thanks :--) ! I'm going to send them
letters from here eventually, but it is really expensive to send the
film home & I wanted to hurry up & get that to you. Thanks :--).
Let me tell you just how pathetic we are…today one of the formateurs
brought a tin of those shortbread cookies for us for class - just to
be nice. Well, there were little red ants all over the cookies &
in the tin! If you held the tin for too long, they'd be on your hands
& arms. So, what do you think we did - grabbed fast - brushed off
the ants & scarfed them down! Then someone brought us chocolate
this afternoon. Of course it was melted - so we're all sitting in class
licking every last bit of chocolate off the wrappers! You'd think we
weren't getting fed! I also learned something cool about new babies
here. When a baby is born, they don't get a name until after one week.
If a baby is named before a week is up and the baby dies - that name
becomes a sort of curse. And any baby with that name after that will
probably die --- in their eyes, anyway. And you get a certain name depending
on what day of the week you were born. Depending on the region, there
is one boy's name & one girl's name for each day of the week. So,
naturally, there are a lot of people with the same name. To differentiate,
they take their Dad's name. It's quite bizarre. On another note, meal
time is slowly becoming a stresser for me. They are cooking with more
& more oil every day, & I can't take all this oil. And they
keep trying to feed me all these weird sauces with tons of oil. I feel
like I'm being rude by turning them down, but I can't stand them. I
told them tonight that my stomach isn't used to all this oil - that
I don't cook with oil in the states. Maybe they'll take the hint. Well,
tomorrow is talk to you day!!! I can't wait! Send me some positive energy.
I'm feeling a little overwhelmed & homesick. And I know I said this
already - but if you want to send me something, I can never have too
much sugar free kool-aid - and you could send just a couple packs at
a time. Well, until tomorrow as they say here- Back to THE ROCK REPORT |