Do Work!

I’ve been feeling really antsy these past few days. It’s hard to sit around and not do anything. Every Thursday a bunch of volunteers in my area meet up for market and it’s always a great time. It lets us escape for a day and have America Time. Its good to see other white faces every now and then. I felt pretty accomplished this past market – I was dashed a lot of things I wasn’t expecting. “Dashing” is when the vendor gives you more than what you asked for – it’s quite great. I got some hot peppers, ginger, salt, and some bell peppers for free. It was pretty great.

Friday morning I woke up and went to the JHS again. The teachers decided to show a movie, and lucky for me it was an American movie, so I actually understood what was going on. I don’t remember the name but it was a movie with Cuba Gooding Jr. and he was a doctor. Who knows if the kids actually grasped the message of the movie…I guess we’ll find out next week.

This morning my sister took me on an unofficial transect walk. Basically that means we walked around the town and looked at the boreholes, wells, ponds/streams, and rubbish sites. Wow, Afere is so much bigger than I thought. It’s huge! We were walking for about 2 hours and we didn’t even cross the main street to the other side of town. We have actual neighborhoods here. It is kind of daunting but I keep telling myself that Peace Corps wouldn’t have put me here unless they need me. Got to stay optimistic!

Afere actually has a lot more water sources than I was expecting. Most of the town has piped water but around the outskirts people go to ponds and streams to fetch water. I’m really hoping they don’t drink the water but I’m sure they do. I can see why Malaria and Schistosomiasis are such problems here. There is a lot of standing and dirty water. There are more mosquitoes in Afere than in the rest of the world combined. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got Malaria during my 2 years here, especially because mosquitoes seem to like me more than anyone else. I guess rice farms are a pretty attractive place for mosquitoes and what do you know, rice farming is pretty prominent in my town.

Towards the end of our walk, we went to visit a family friend – Romeo and his wife. Romeo owns a store in town and he always gives me free candy, so obviously he’s one of my favorite people. Their house was pretty impressive. It has marble floors, leather couches like you would find in America, and get this…a washing machine! I swear I thought I was in Peace Corps! They are even building a second water sachet factory in my town…pretty impressive.

So the walk this morning was good. It’s nice to get out and do something. Then I came home and cooked up a storm! I made some pasta with an onion and garlic cream sauce and a hint of chicken, and some guacamole. I keep forgetting that it’s only me eating this food so I always have too much.  

Tonight is the Champions League Finals between Chelsea and Bayern Munich and my sister and I are going into town to watch it. It should be a good time!