Monday, I woke in the dark to another earthquake! I’ve only lived here 7 months and have had 3 earthquakes so far. Work was pretty boring again, one of my coworkers from AIDS Relief was here, so I hung out with him and played on the computer. Tuesday I helped with child vaccination and entered some data into the computer, but pretty much just played on my phone. I am getting super excited about starting this club for the kids because then I’ll actually have something to do and look forward to. Wednesday, I weighed and measured moms, took blood pressure and got them and their husbands tested for HIV. We had one girl who was on her second pregnancy at 21 and is not married. The nun was not too happy with her and she got a bit of a lecture. She is the first single mother I have run into the entire time I’ve been here, so that’s not too bad. After lunch on Wednesday, I decided to get some exercise (cold showers are more tolerable if you are hot before hand) and got out my jump rope. The girl who cleans my floors was here helping till the garden and when she saw me jumping she came over and I gave her the rope and she jumped and sang a song and taught me some of the song. We had a fun time playing. Thursday, Emily and I left work early because we were just sitting around doing nothing. We were supposed to have a meeting with out titulaire about getting the club going and other things we have seen at the clinic that we would like to change, but one of her friends had passed and she was going to their funeral, so we left early and went on a walk after lunch and ended up at a primary school where they were playing soccer. It was crazy, but not overwhelmingly. The kids surrounded us and one of the teachers greeted us and then started telling the kids that we were there to look at their hygiene. He told them that we wanted to see if they were wearing clean clothes and wearing shoes, one kid said that he was doing laundry, so that’s why he was in dirty clothes. I asked them where they washed their hands because I didn’t see a hand-washing station outside of the latrines and a boy told me he washed them in the river. I told them they needed to drink clean water, that they need to boil it before hand and I took their picture. So a walk through town ended up being one of the only health lessons I have given! I am planning on making a tippy tap for the school and giving a hand-washing lesson to them when I bring it. The teacher was really helpful and when he was showing us the way home, (he showed us a different way than the way we came, which ended up being an hour hike up the side of a mountain!!!) he would give short hygiene lessons to the people who asked about us.
Friday, I went to work and weighed pregnant women and took their blood pressure and then went into town to go to the bank and buy some more time for the internet. The moto driver took me in a different direction and it was a beautiful drive! We went up a giant hill, possibly the largest in the area, I was looking down on everything! Then we went through a pine forest that looked like Spokane, we passed tea fields and a large house that he said Americans used to live in and arrived on the main road where I took a taxi bus into town. I forgot how much I don’t like public transport here, I got too spoiled with my South African friends who have cars. I didn’t spend too much time in town, the bank went really quickly and then I was back on a bus and back to the dirt path where the moto driver met me. He had to go to the hospital to drop some papers off. On the way back, I saw a little boy holding two guinea pigs! Never seen a guinea pig in Africa before, so I was thoroughly confused! Saturday I slept in, watched a lot of Weeds season 4, read my book, went to the shop and bought eggs, black thread and elastic (I’m making a few dresses and a skirt, really wish I had a sewing machine!) Heard the pig next door screaming and went over to see if they were killing her only to see a little pink piglet! I was standing peeking through the fence slats and saw two men in the stall with her and noticed she had huge nipples and figured they cant be killing a pregnant pig, so I kept watching until one of the guys came out holding a little baby. I went over there and saw three piglets, one of which was too tired and couldn’t walk. He kept getting his ears bitten by one of the other ones and mom was too tired to do anything and lay down so they couldn’t feed. The guy kept whacking her with a stick telling her to get up and she couldn’t. I went over to the nuns to cook dinner because we ran out of gas and was told that the momma pig was sick and needed calcium? I dunno...
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