Its Sunday night, and another week starts tomorrow. As of Tuesday night I will have been here for three weeks, which is kind of amazing. It brings my monthly trip to Kankan rather close, and I’m torn between waiting another two weeks for the mail run or going in some time next week or so. People from Haute are getting together for a St Patrick’s day party, but I’m not really that excited about it, except that its the first time everyone from my region will be back together since being to site. On the other hand, I could probably take the mail run into Kankan and avoid having to travel by taxi, which is a big plus.
Today I burned myself to a crisp at the Niger, forgetting until it was too late that my mefloquine induced translucency does not prevent sunburn. The Guineans were tripped out by the fact that my skin could turn red, and that when you press it it turned white for a moment. I had fun though, and spent a while trying to explain to some petites that in America is pretty looked down on to marry before both people were eighteen, and in fact in some states (or all?) it was illegal. This was prompted by a nine year old girl that asked me if I was married and then proceed to tell me she would find me a wife, who turned out to be her twelve year old friend sitting next to her. After I explained the age issue (its a rather convenient excuse that doesn’t involve rejection) she told me she was actually eighteen. But now she thinks I am looking for a wife who is eighteen, so I can tell that future conversations are going to be in order. People do not understand how I can be 29 and not married.
So much here is subject to misinterpretation. For example, I get pretty annoyed at the way that I don’t really get asked if I want to go somewhere. Instead I get told I am going. Or similarly, someone will just say “Come here!” to me, or “Sit down!”, all in an imperative tone. They don’t mean it rudely, but they are used to people not interpreting it as a command, or at least having no problem rejecting their command if they want or need to do something else. I’m struggling to explain it to myself, so its even harder to write it down, but in general there is lots of arguing and contesting of wills that, in the states, would be cause for hurt feelings, but here is considered normal and no one is really offended afterward.
On a different note, I made tortillas and beans the other night, and whipped up some salsa, and even tried to make some cheese from some fresh cows milk. It was delightful. I think the cheese is probably not worth the effort, but I may try and some mornings substitute fresh milk for the powdered milk I generally put in my tea. Its tasty, but it requires boiling to be sure its safe to drink. And its a little chunky. The beans though were amazing, and the tortillas, though a little bit of work, were also really good. Course now ants are maurading my dried beans, so I will have to create yet another way of subverting the ants. I really might break down and just poison the heck out of them.
I’m trying to work more consciously on my French. I’ve reached a point where I can generally get my meaning across, but if I want to be able to sound good when I talk I will have to consciously practice the more difficult tenses and work to expand my vocabulary. I’m trying to learn five new words a day, one new verb, and a new idiomatic phrase, and then I will spend Saturday reviewing and take a break Sunday. We’ll see how it works out.
Lets see…more generally. Things continue to improve each day, with only a few missteps. I am thinking I am going to have a housewarming party at some point, though I haven’t really worked out the details. I don’t know how I would provide food, and I feel like I would need to invite a whole bunch of people. Each day I feel more comfortable, and that is the important thing that was really contributing to my unhappiness. As the sense of uncomfortableness fades my feeling grows that I will not only be able to last two years, but that I will actually enjoy parts of it.
On the 16th or thereabouts I’ll get my mailrun, and I’m pretty excited about it. I know I have seveal things on the way, so I’m hoping its actually getting through. I’ll be pretty disappointed if it turns out I don’t have much because it all got boffed.
I need to sleep. Its late and I want to get up and go running in the morning.
