Distributions

The NGO that I'm working for did some distributions out in an IDP (internally displaced people) camp just outside of town this week.

The kids were so happy to be there. They were very cute!

Some of them were too cool to talk to us but very proud of their bike.

There isn't running water in the camps so the people buy all of their water from these donkey carts. The guy just rides around and taps his stick on the barrel and the people come wave him down and buy it by whatever size container that they have.

These neighbor kids wanted to see what all the excitement was about. They are on top of a wall about 8 ft tall.

This little boy played with us all afternoon even though his mom kept calling him to go home. He is adorable!

We went to play volleyball by the Nile maybe a week ago or so. It was lots of fun and very beautiful.
I would imagine that it's hard to play in a jalabiya (kind of like a long sleeve man-dress with pants, more like pajamas)

No More Volleyball

Last night I was supposed to meet my volleyball friend for a game. She was actually keeping score so I was really going to watch. It was supposed to be a big game, this week there's this big all-Africa tournament with teams from all over.

The game started at 5 so I showed up a little after 5. When I arrived there were riot police all over so my first thought was 'good, this time we have pre-emptive riot police protection'. Then I noticed several ambulences and thought '...or maybe they decided to fight before the game and get it over with'. The riot police weren't letting anyone in but, for some reason, waved me to go in. Maybe b/c I was the only white girl in the middle of all these men outside the gate and I was 'unattended'. I decided that instead of going in I would call my friend who was already inside the compound. She said that the ceiling had collapsed at 4:30 but that she was fine. I just turned around and went home, there wasn't a whole lot I could do to help.

PTL that it happened before the game and the gym wasn't full of people. The weird thing is that it doesn't even seem all that strange to me. Around here buildings aren't exactly built according to any type of safety standard and sometimes they fall down. But what can you do, not go into buildings?

The Dam

My country is doing some major development in the north and today I had the opportunity to go up and check it out with a group of foreign doctors in a sort of VIP entourage. Long story. So we flew on one of these little charter planes. When we arrived there was no runway and, amazingly, it was one of the smoothest landings I've ever experienced.

I've always heard people talk about the Nile River Valley and I do live in it but I've never actually seen the contrast between where the Valley ends and the desert begins until today.

There were camels everywhere. Living in the desert and seeing camels more often than the sporadic zoo visit has kind of caused them to lose their novelty, although I still love the baby ones. (notice the two little ones running to catch up to the group)

We also stopped to look at some pyramids. These aren't the same ones I attempted to see a few months back but apparently they are the 'oldest in the world'. I'm not so sure I believe that although they are older than the ones in Egypt. It's kind of odd b/c you can just go and climb on these, I mean there are no barriers, no entrance fees. To the left of me in the picture (which you can't see, sorry) are these huge sand hills that are actually more pyramids that have just had sand blown over them.

Here are some local girls riding their donkeys bringing back feed for their other animals.

Now here's the dam. It's the biggest project ever attempted in my country. This picture is of the dam and is taken from this huge fancy complex that they built to house all the foreign engineers that they hired to build this thing. So I'm standing in front of this air conditioned movie theater looking out over this tiny village that has no electricity or running water and looking at this dam that will, alone, produce twice as much electricity than the entire country is producing at the moment. Behind the dam they will build a reservoire and displace a couple thousand people. They say that they are giving lots of money towards relocating people but yet they can't hook up the neighbor village less than 20 feet away with electricity. Sorry to share my pessimistic attitude. Maybe when they finally get this thing up and running they will stop cutting our power every other day!

And this last one is a picture of my city. I do live in the capitol city of my country, but it's really more like a very large village than it is like a city. Although it is getting more modern every day it is still definitely third world. Recently there has been a influx of money into the economy here and they are projecting huge growth. I personally am hoping that they will spread the money out and work on development all over the country, not just in the capitol.

Falling Down

Apparently falling down is just a part of life in the Sandbox. I mean falling down like you're walking along and suddenly you find yourself on the ground. You don't necessarily know what happened, all you know is that at one point you were on your way somewhere and now you're not so much.

This may sound a little odd, but last night I had a falling down experience. I was just walking right outside of my front gate and then I wasn't walking anymore. What can I say, I like to keep the neighborhood entertained.

I had two of my American friends over for dinner tonight. One of them has been here for 4 months, the other for 16 months. Sidenote: there's not much entertainment around here so we pretty much take turns making fun of ourselves for everyone else's benefit. As I started to tell them my falling down story my 4 month friend thought it was just the most absurd thing. Then my 16 month friend chimed in with some of her falling down stories (we all have several) and we laughed pretty hard for a long time. I guess my 4 month friend just hasn't been here long enough but just give it time.

In my defense it is very hard to walk on these dirt roads, they're all uneven and there's holes and big rocks all over. Normally I look at my feet when I'm walking, partly to keep from making 'scandalous' eye contact with any man I don't know and partly to keep from falling down. The roads here are just ridiculous. Even if you're on a paved road or on one of the rare sidewalks you just never know when there's going to be a large hole in the ground that leads to a sewer, you really have to watch out for those. Oddly enough the local women don't seem to have any problems walking. They're wrapped up in a 4 meter long piece of material wearing heels and sometimes balancing things on their heads....and they manage to do it gracefully. Me? I just fall down and laugh about it later. Seriously, we gotta keep the neighbors on their toes....no wonder they think we're crazy!

My house

This is my house. I live on a dirt road, most of the roads here are dirt. We live on the second floor so the yellow wrap around balcony is ours. Notice the goats in the road? They live there. Well, I'm not exactly sure where they sleep or where they come from but they are in the road every day all the time. There are quite a few baby goats and I think that they're really cute when they run. Our neighbors think we're crazy, not because I like to watch the baby goats but just because we're foreigners and we think a little differently than them.

More Graduation

It seems like I can post pictures again so here's some more from the Kindergarten graduation.

Notice the beautiful party tent above us. It is multipurpose, used for both happy parties and funerals. It definitely works to keep the heat and dirt in!

There were tons of people there. These girls couldn't see from underneath the tent so they all piled into this little tiny room and then crowded at the window to see what was going on.

These little kids are just so beautiful and innocent, they have no idea what is going on around them.
And here's some dancing. You pretty much pack a lot of people into a very small space and then do one of three things. 1) lift whatever you are holding in the air and move your hand to the rythem of the music,. 2) raise your hand like before but snap to the music, or 3) just clap. You don't really move much of anything else, I mean, you can move your feet a little but you gotta be careful because you wouldn't want to be as scandalous as to move your hips or anything. Notice that in the background the tent is kind of leaning a little. That's probably because those kids were hanging all over it. I'm not really sure what we would have done if it had fallen down.

118

That was the temperature today...118. People have said that we would know it when summer was here, that all the sudden one day it would just be hot. Well I think that day was yesterday. So much for winter. My local friends are also saying that since we had such a cold winter (in the 80's and 90's every day, real cold huh?) that we will have an extra hot summer. My response is usually 'but I thought that last summer was really hot' and they usually just laugh. I think they laugh partly because I'm a foreigner who just made an attempt at a joke and partly because I probably have no clue what kind of hot we're in for. Oh well. Guess I'll just start drinking 5 liters of water a day again.

Kindergarten Graduation

Yesterday I got to go to a Kindergarten graduation. It was a huge party and so much fun. Traditionally when you throw a party here, you get a big tent and just put it up in the middle of the street (and yes, it is ok if you block the entire street so that no one can even walk down it). When we arrived we were taken to the front row, we were kind of guests of honor. The older kids from the school put on skits and sang songs about the importance of education. There were dance teams and they even had some of the kids get up and do comedy acts, they were really funny. After about 3 hours of that they brought the little kids in and they were all dressed in 'caps & gowns'. It was hilarious because these little kids didn't know what was going on, half of them were crying because they were confused and wanted their moms, the other half were loving it because it was just a big party. They had trumpet players and they played the school song and the national anthem and everyone just got up and danced. It was fun to watch as all these families celebrated the fact that their children had received a Kindergarten education. The school is located in one of the displaced people camps so these people are really the poorest of the poor in the world. Education is such a precious thing and there are so many people who don't have access to schools that it really is a celebration for these kids to have finished a year.

For some reason I can't get many pictures up. Maybe tomorrow.

Our New Pet

This is a picture of our new pet. Actually, it's not, I pretty much hate this thing but it apparently is living in our hoosh now (the little gated in area downstairs that isn't really a yard, it's more like a downstairs balcony without the whole balcony part). Anyways, our neighbors brought him home on Saturday afternoon and said that they were going to kill it Sunday morning, they are celebrating something although I'm not sure what. That's cool. I mean, he's welcome to stay the night. Sunday morning came and went, and then Monday morning came and went. Monday afternoon my roommate (who is an extreme animal lover) went down and took the sheep some vegetables to eat because she was worried that he might be hungry. I told her that his fate had already been decided and that he had sheep food to eat so he probably didn't need real food, but she insisted. This morning (Tuesday) she was talking about going downstairs and cleaning out his water bowl to be sure that he had some clean water to drink. Are they ever going to slaughter this thing? I mean, it's ok if you want to keep him overnight but we're going on 4 days now. The thing smells and I think he's pretty much posessed, if not then he's really really weird. He doesn't say 'baaaa' like a normal sheep. He says 'baeuaauagh', kind of like a game show buzzer only a little more disturbing. When I come in the front gate he gets up and comes towards me and like he's coming after me or something, all the while making that terrible buzzer noise. It's really kind of freaky, especially in the dark. Good thing he's tied up.

Last night the 2 yr old next door (who is terrified of this thing) asked me if I knew the lamp. I wasn't really sure what she meant by 'lamp' so she made this terrible 'baeuaaugh' sound and I knew exactly what she was talking about. She's going to grow up thinking that sheep aren't white and fluffy and that they don't say 'baaa' real cute. She will always remember this terrible thing that stayed in our hoosh forever.