Happy Birthday!

My birthday was last week but the Internet has been a little weird and I haven't been able to post. I was planning to post a picture but it won't let me do that either...sorry!

Thank you so much to all of you who sent pictures and notes in the scrapbook. It is such a special gift and really means so much to me. Each time I look through it I am so encouraged by all of you who are thinking of me and what I'm doing here.

My New Best Friend

Last week I got a call from a friend. It went something like this:

**'I quit my job at XYZ. Can you call the ambassador and meet with him tomorrow? I want to work at the US embassy and I need to see if he has any positions for me.' (friend)
**'Can you give me directions to the embassy?' (me)
**'Why?' (friend)
**'Well, I don't know where it is. I also don't know the ambassador. I just don't think that, even if I can find the embassy, he will meet with me to see if you can have a job. I also am pretty sure that we don't even have an ambassador or any American staff at the embassy.' (me)
**'oh...well I don't know where it is.' (friend)
**'Then I'm not really sure how I can help you. Sorry.' (me)

I guess since I'm one of the 'lucky ones' in this whole nationality lottery that means that I know anyone and everyone from the US...and I know them well enough to just call them up and get a job for a local friend that I actually really don't know all that well and I don't know how he got my phone number.

This is actually a common thing. People asking me to go talk to the UN to find them a job or to get them refugee status because they want to go to America, even if they're not a refugee. I don't work at the UN and I don't know anyone who does, but because I'm white I must have connections for this sort of thing, right?

What I really like is when people start asking me about foreign policy and why I don't make sure it is changed. They ask things like 'can you please tell George Bush that we really don't think we need sanctions?' or 'can you tell George Bush that he should give people from the Sandbox visas to come to America?' My answer is usually 'next time George calls and asks me what I think I will be sure and tell him. And next time Omar calls to ask you what you think can you please tell him that I want this street to become paved?' They don't usually laugh. I don't think they quite understand the correlation between the fact that I'm asking them to do the exact same thing they just asked me to do and it's really that ridiculous.

It's also fun when people hear that I'm from TX. Always, without a doubt, the very next thing out of their mouths is 'oh yes, George Bush is from TX. You know him? You are neighbors?' I always want to say 'yes, he is my best friend. How did you know?!?'

However, in my birthday scrapbook, the one with pictures of my friends and family from home, there just so happens to be a picture of a friend that also has Laura Bush in it. I will have to be really careful not to let my national friends see. Otherwise they will think that I've been lying to them this entire time and I'm not really sure I could convince them otherwise!!!

The Last Two

Today we handed out the last 2 goats. It took us over 2 months to find 20 healthy goats in a place where there are tons of goats just roaming the street...we had a little bit higher standard than just any roaming goat, but still, it took a long time.

When we paid for the last two the farm owner said 'I have a gift for you' and he went to his car. We didn't really know what to expect but thought that, since he's recently become fairly rich off of the goats we bought from him, it might be something good. Then he brought out a watermelon. Apparently someone had given it to him and he didn't want it so he was re-gifting it to us...only he wasn't ashamed of the fact that it was a re-gift and he totally told us that....thanks buddy!

I also gave 'my' goat to my friend out there. That farm owner was really insistent on giving me this baby goat and I really have no desire to actually keep and be responsible for a goat no matter how cute it is, so I re-gifted it. My friend has a 3 month old baby named Fatima. I asked her if Fatima wanted a friend and she laughed like I was joking but said sure. I told her I was serious several times, although I don't think she actually believed me until I showed up at her front door with it this afternoon. Now baby Fatima has a new friend!

Adopting?

We went out to the goat farm to hopefully find 2 more goats today. We didn't find 2 more but there was a brand new baby that was about 3 days old. He quickly became my favorite and I asked the vet that is helping us if he could find the mom to that one b/c I definitely wanted to give that one to a family so that I could play with the baby when I went to visit them.

Later on when the farm owner showed up the vet relayed to him that I really loved this little baby and that I wanted one. The owner called over one of the workers and sent him in to catch it. Next thing I know I have a baby goat in my arms and, apparently, am taking it home!!! The mom died so it's an orphan and needs a new mom. Since I liked it so much he thought I'd make the perfect new mom...as if I have somewhere to keep it or enough time to spend hours bottle feeding it!!!

It took a while to convince them that, even though I really liked the baby and technically I did say that I wanted him, I totally meant theoretically and do not actually want it. I guess that didn't translate...even though I said it in Arabic...As we were getting into the car to leave they said I could take it next time I come!!

Goat Training

Well, we finally found 18 of 20 goats and figured we could give out the ones we have and get the next 2 asap. So we scheduled the training for 2 yesterday afternoon. We arrived at 2 and there were just a few women there. I asked the lady in charge where everyone was and she said 'well, I told them 1 and thought they would show up at 2 but then everyone was here at 1 and since they're fasting they all went home to sleep until you came at 2.' We called everyone and it was still 3 by the time everyone got there, so we started a little late but that was alright. We thought it was cool that they were so excited that they actually came to something on time!
It was mainly the women that came because the men were fasting. Women can't fast if they're pregnant or nursing and, when it's normal to have 10 kids, they have very little 'opportunity' to observe Ramadan. We had a vet come in and teach them just a few of the most important things about caring for the goats.
Then we handed them out. It was pretty much mass chaos. Since it was just the women they had a hard time carrying around 2 goats and we didn't bring any rope to make leashes because, even after all these months of planning, we just didn't think of that detail. Can you find me in this picture?

Once someone managed to find some rope order was restored. The women were just elated and were doing the ulululul really high pitched celebratory sound that they make at weddings and graduations, etc.

The little kids were so funny to watch. They loved the baby goats and just wanted to hug on them so we had all these 3-5 year olds chasing these terrified babies around. Then they were scared of the bigger ones so they would barely touch them and then turn around and run away laughing.

Overall it was a very successful day. We are so excited to have started our project and look forward to spending time with the participants and seeing how all of this plays out!

Mexican Food!!!

For those of you who saw this picture and assumed that we have a new mexican restaurant in town, well, you haven't lived in Africa. Anyone who read Thai 'minus' Mex would be correct. I can see how the context clues, the man in the sombrero, might have thrown you off. Although I don't know how you could understand our disappointment seeing as how you have probably had some quality mexican food in the past year and a half.

**

That moment when we were seated at the table, commenting about how nice the picnic table surroundings were, how green the yard was...excitement was in the air. The waitress brought out the menus and we flipped through just looking for the mexican pages. Then we got to the end of the menu, a little confused, and turned it over to look a little more slowly, searching for any dish with an English name that might could be construed as Mexican. Finally we asked our non-Thai but some type of East Asian waitress who, in turn, called over the Indian owner who said that there was no Mexican, only delicious Thai.

**

So we had Thai food. It could have been the best Thai food ever but it wasn't Mexican and so it just wasn't that good.

Village Life, Pt 2

30 km (roughly 15 miles) to the nearest town doesn’t sound that far but then again, most of us don’t rely on a donkey or camel as our only means of transportation. They say that some days a lorry (big open truck that carries stuff) comes through town and will pick them up if it has room but it doesn't come back through town so they're stuck in town until they can manage to get back home.

In this village there is no one with any medical background and no where to get any medicine. When you or your child is sick your only option is to hope you can get into town to see a doctor before it’s too late. What do you do with your other 6 children while you take this one to town? How do you get to town? How do you get back from town? How do you find your husband to ask him for permission and an escort into town when you have no idea where he is and haven't seen him for days? All difficulties that the women in this village face on a frighteningly regular basis.

When the women are pregnant, they take turns helping each other deliver. They say that some of the women are better at midwifing than others but none have received any training so if something goes wrong then it goes wrong and no one can really do anything about it.

One of the hardest parts of spending time with these women is seeing how seemingly unaffected they are by death. If you ask them how many children they have they automatically answer with how many they've birthed, followed by how many are living. The numbers are usually very different. For instance, one woman had birthed 8 but only 4 were living. I guess that goes along with the numbers. According to the UN, 8 children under the age of 5 die every minute from diseases for which vaccines are available and 155 of every 1000 children born in Africa die before the age of 5. I guess out here children die, it's just a fact of life. But it's different when you know the children that make up those statistics and it's still a fact that I struggle with.

Maybe tomorrow

No Ramadan today...maybe tomorrow. Although today I had a driver that wanted me to give him more money because Ramadan is coming. I was on my way to a language lesson and couldn't think of anything to say but 'No'. I went to class and immediately asked how to say 'stop complaining. If you don't want to fast then don't fast. God sees your heart and if you truly don't want to fast and you're just doing it because everyone else is then, in the end, it doesn't matter if you do it or not. You're not getting any points!'

It had been a frustrating day and this conversation is in no way related to the Mat. conversations I referenced in the last Ramadan post.

Long Day

My goal for today was to vaccinate the goats that we have paid for and will hopefully give to families this week. Something that should have taken 2 hours but, not surprisingly, took the entire day.

10:00 am. Went to pick up the vet from the clinic.

10:10 - vet says 'Oh, I forgot. I meant to bring a technician with me. I told him we would be going at 10. We will need to go back to get him.' How do you forget a person? Especially when you had talked with him that morning about coming, I don't know.

10:20 - Go back, get the guy and head out to the lab for animal research where they produce the vaccines. There is only one place in this country where they produce animal vaccines...they're not exactly a 'high demand' kind of thing...come to think of it, neither are human vaccines.

10:30 - vet asks 'did you bring a letter requesting the vaccines from the lab?' Why would we need that and how would we know to bring it? Again, I don't know.

10:45 - go to office and put something on letterhead and stamp it.

11:05 - stop on the side of the road for ice...?

11:30 - Arrive at the lab. Talk with the director who had previously agreed to donate all of the vaccines but has since changed his mind.

11:45 - Director decides to donate again but, sadly, they only have 3 of the 5 we need...bummer. One they say we 'don't need' and the last doesn't actually exist.

12:00 - Are escorted to the 4th floor where they are researching the vaccine that doesn't exist so they could solicit our help in their research in discovering if the goats here are carrying the goat strain or the cow strain of the disease and if a vaccine is even needed. After assuring them 12 times that we are NOT vets and don't actually know what we're doing we get out of research.

12:30 - Had originally hoped to be finished for the day by now but we're just leaving the lab.

12:45 - stop to pick up breakfast sandwiches...it's the day before Ramadan starts (maybe) so our local friends have to make the most of their opportunities to eat.

1:30 - Arrive at the farm

1:40 - Watch some people put a sheep in the trunk of their car.

2:00 - Have chased goats around a pen and are all sunburned and soaked in sweat. Have successfully vaccinated, dewormed, and ear tagged 9 but need more syringes for testing them for the disease that we can't vaccinate them for. Send someone to the local pharmacy for more syringes.

2:30 - finish tests, choose 6 more goats (That makes 15, woohoo!!! Only 5 more to go!) and head for home

2:45 - Hit stand still traffic about a mile from the bridge. They made the bridge one way to 'help' with traffic.

2:50 - put in the 'American Cowboy Music'...the only cassette tape we happen to have is George Strait from 1980-something. The great thing about George Strait is that there are very few of his songs that you don't know the words to or at least the tune.

3:15 - Amuse our local friends with they way we all know the words and sing along out loud, even in the car and with our curiosity of how they do taxes in this country because you just gotta make conversation.

3:45 - Get across the bridge

4:15 - drop our friends back at the clinic and head for home.

I know this is fairly boring post, but it's a good example of how the days just fly by and yet very little gets accomplished. I used to be a list maker/goal setter and usually had a list of things to accomplish each day. I learned real quick that I couldn't do that here because I never got to cross anything off the list and that's the whole reason for making a list, right? So now I don't make lists or really set goals or, if I do, they're very small and they still, for the most part, don't get done.

Ramadan...Maybe

'Ramadan is coming tomorrow...or maybe the day after tomorrow' mohammed ibrahim

I'm still just amazed by the fact that they don't know when a holiday is coming until the night before when they announce it on the radio. It would be like saying on Dec 24th at 7pm 'Christmas might be tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Let's turn on NPR'. It's just crazy!

However, I'm pretty much dreading it. Let me recap some of my 'favorite' things about Ramadan.

1) People are crazy, literally, crazy. They don't eat or drink anything and it's about 120 outside so you can imagine that everyone is a little on edge.

2) Everyone complains, making sure that you know just how much they're suffering for the sake of their beliefs. Mat 6:16 becomes pretty much a daily conversation.

3) Things shut down. People just decide if they 'feel like' working or not. Lots of schools are closed and most offices are working on shorter days, meaning that nothing gets done.

4) You can't drive after 2pm because people are literally insane and there are tons of really bad car accidents. And those of us who take public transportation are at the mercy of whatever random driver decided that he could conjure up the energy to work that day...then we have to argue with them when they insist that we pay them more b/c it's ramadan.

5) No restaurants are open until 8pm.

6) We actually can't drink anything in public. Guess I'll have to carry the big purse this month so I can hide water in it and sip in secret.

7) They make this horrible tasting fermented drink that really stands on the bridge of being a little 'hard' (if ya know what I mean) and they force you to drink it, then they drink tons of it. It is seriously the grossest thing I have ever tasted. I'm also not real sure how it all works out since alcohol is expressly forbidden. So they fast to gain points, then they drink this fermented stuff. Seems to me like the drinking would cancel out the fasting points.

8) Any grocery type of store is an absolute madhouse during the day with all these angry women trying to buy everything that they need to make a feast for breakfast at sundown.

9) When you go to 'breakfast' at people's houses they expect you to eat as much as they do and they eat a ton. It's especially difficult when you really just don't like the special Ramadan dishes that they make every night. Interesting fact, despite the month of 'fasting' people who are observing Ramadan actually gain weight.

There are some good things about Ramadan too.
1) When having gatherings of people during the day time, refreshments do NOT need to be provided.

2) We won't have to eat breakfast or lunch with anyone that we visit during the day time.

3) There is absolutely no one out when the the sun goes down because it's time to eat. It's seriously a ghost town. So if you happen to need to go somewhere and you don't rely on public transporation (b/c they're all eating too) you can get there without any traffic...it won't be open, but you can get there.

4) Lots of the aforementioned conversations

It probably sounds like I'm dreading Ramadan and, honestly, I am not real excited about it. Last year it was a novelty sort of thing and I hadn't been here long so I was optimistic and trying to see the good things about it. Now a year has passed and I no longer feel the need to lie to myself and be so optimistic about things that I know I don't like. Plus I think once you've been in this world for a while you start to really understand what is happening and you feel the increase in the inner tensions and warfare (i.e. evil) that is always around but becomes so intense during this time.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe after tomorrow....

Stop Signs

So I just got an email from a friend who was telling me about how she got lost b/c of a 'no left turn' stop sign. Sounds perfectly normal, right? Well maybe to you, but to me this is a totally foreign concept which is weird seeing as how I'm not foreign!!

My first reaction was '..hmm, a stop sign. Now that's a novel concept. Yah, they do have those in the states.' My next reaction was 'Why didn't she just turn left? It's not like signs mean anything. No one follows them anyways' Then I started to get a little worked up and thought 'Who are 'they' to tell her that she can't drive a certain way...it's a road isn't it? It's not like she was wanted to drive on the sidewalk, although there's nothing wrong with driving on the sidewalk. Sometimes there are too many people in the road and you gotta do what you gotta do.' I mean, come on Steph...did you not learn anything when you were living in the Sandbox?!?!?

I'm not gonna lie, I'm going to need some serious guidance when I return to the states. And for those of you who might be spending some time with me when I get there...it might be best if you drive!

Dinner

While out in K-ville this week we weren't able to make our own food so we had to eat out for every meal. When I was actually living in K-ville for 2 months back at the beginning of summer we never ate out. Why? First, there are like 3 restaurants and they all serve the same things. Second, we were two single women and out there men and women don't mix so the men get to eat out in this open air room where the wind might blow and give some relief from the heat...the women eat in these tiny back rooms with all the doors closed so it's about 150 degrees...not worth it!

I was there with my boss and his wife this week so we were able to go out. All this time, I thought you could get 3 things at restaurants here...chicken, fish and 'meat'. One of the places we went actually had a menu...unheard of! On the menu were quite a few things, I'll list just a few: raw or cooked camel tongue, liver, or feet, raw or cooked goat liver, stomach, etc, mised 'meat' (meaning a mix of raw or cooked insides). Chicken and fish weren't even listed on the menu but I knew they had it and opted for the chicken. I guess chicken is a 'special' order.

Here are two yummy dishes. On the left we have raw goat liver in a peanut sauce. On the right, raw camel stomach in a peanut sauce...take your pick!

They cook your 'meat' or other choices on these rocks. (note the raw liver in the bottom right)It's pretty cool to watch them cook it. Half of the ceiling doesn't have a roof but, for some reason, they put the rocks under the roofed part so that the entire restaurant fills up with smoke and everyone smells like it after they leave.

And then here's the soup. I'm not exactly sure what's in it but I sure don't want to know! When you come in, you just order your meat. Then you get soup, some mashed up lentil stuff with bread, and your meat. I'm definitely glad I opted not to partake of the soup!

More Thoughts on Rain

In K-ville this week they were emptying out sandbags and going back to life as normal, even though the river is still higher than it's ever been in living memory. When I asked why they were taking it down, they replied 'it doesn't rain in September'. That was it...it was Sept 3rd and somehow that means that it is impossible for more rain to come. Seemed kind of stupid to me, I mean, I would at least wait for the river to go down to it's normal level. After all, the level of the river really depends on rains in the neighboring country, not so much rains in K-ville, but who am I to ask questions of people who have been doing it like this their entire lives, right?

Last night it rained...so much for the 'no rain in September' theory. Although, based on my contractor experience in the capitol, they still probably actually continue to think it doesn't rain in September...even though it just did.

Thoughts on Rain

When we moved into the new house a few weeks ago it was raining alot and everytime it rained my apartment would flood. It would come in through the doors and the windows, pretty much any and every hole in the cement walls would leak, along with the ceiling. One day the contractor was around and I asked him if anything could be done about this problem and his response was 'it only rains 1 or 2 times a year in the Sandbox. You can't worry about this'.

Ok, that's fine. It's not my house and, while I'm doing my best to keep it in good condition, I don't really care all that much if the walls are crumbling and the paint is peeling. I mean, I did my job and alerted them to the problem and they don't care.

The next week it rained 3 times and I had to strategically move my bed around the room to find a place so that the ceiling wouldn't leak on me. Yes, the 3 foot thick concrete ceiling is dripping water into my room...probably not a good thing, but again, what exactly am I supposed to do about it?

The next time the contractor was here I asked again if there was anything we could do and I got the same answer. 'It only rains 1 or 2 times. You can't worry'. And I replied 'Sir, it's rained 3 times in the past week.' You'd think I'd made a point, right? No, I just got this look like I was incredibly stupid. I'm not sure what the deal is, but apparently no matter how many times it rains, he's been told that it only rains 1 or 2 times and that's what he believes. Somehow, the fact that he has actually witnessed about 15 rains this year changes nothing.

This guy is a well educated, wealthy, very nice man. He's actually one of my favorite people in the Sandbox...I guess from now on I'll try to avoid the topic of rain.

Another World

All this time I thought I lived in the desert...this week I went back to K-ville to visit with friends and to work on getting a well put into one of the villages. The trip there was a huge shock.

It's been raining a lot this year, like the most it's rained in living memory (take a stab in the dark as to how long that actually means). Rivers are at record highs and there has been a ton of flooding...especially in the East where we went. Flooding means that cholera and malaria spread like wildfire which is a much bigger problem than the flooding itself.
We expected K-ville to be a lot worse than it was. Last week there was a special on Al Jazeera about all the flooding and it looked really bad. We thought that the bridge into town might be washed out and we'd have to turn around and drive 10 hours back to the capitol (there's only one bridge). Surprisingly, though, it was fairly dry. The river that comes during rainy season burst it's banks last week and came within about 100 yards of flooding our house. PTL for the sandbags at the end of the street....I'm not sure who put them there, but they sure saved us.

Who knew that sand could grow grass?!? Y'all have seen previous pictures, there's absolutely nothing out there. This is definitely not a normal thing and, apparently, it doesn't do this during a normal rainy season, just once every 60? years. Remember the desert monkeys? (if not, see June posts) They used to be right here. Now there are just these women hanging out and talking. My guess? The monkeys had to migrate to find some more desert!

It was like traveling in Africa...I know I actually am in Africa but it has never really looked like it. The weather was cooler (i.e.105) and the the scenery was beautiful and colorful instead of just plain brown. I know it's just the weather but it really made a huge difference, not only in the appearance of things but in the way people were. They all just looked so happy, not nearly as oppressed. People were actually smiling. It was great!