January 31st Christmas party

I got to help out with a party we had at church for the kids a few weeks ago. It wasn’t until that morning when I was asked to write “Joyeux Noel” on dozens of colored papers that I realized that it was a Christmas party. I found it amusing but not too surprising that the Christmas party was being held on January 31^st. The idea of things being on time is not as important here as in the USA. It was a fun time with singing and treats.

Little luxuries

There are certain things that I have developed a great appreciation for here.

First is toilet paper. A lot of people here don’t use it, they bring a plastic kettle thing with water in it to the bathroom with them. And they eat only with their right hand. I’ll let you use your imagination from there. Toilet paper is kind of expensive, but I don't think I'll be giving it up any time soon.

Next is butter. It is a great joy to me that I am able to buy butter, real butter, here in Koutiala. Most luxuries of this sort are only available 6-7 hours away in the capital of Bamako. The butter is imported from France and can only be found at a few shops in town, and only when they have it in stock. It makes me so happy to put butter on my bread in the morning. But I also kind of feel bad because my friends don’t have butter, its too expensive. (and if I shared with them all I wouldn’t have butter anymore either)

Then there are apples. Apples are imported, too. There are yellow ones for about 60 cents each or better red ones for 75 cents each. This is really expensive, especially if you compare it with something like bananas – you can get a little banana for less than 10 cents, or a whole bunch for the price of one apple.

Neighborhood outreach

My friends have set up this big screen outside the base when there have been important soccer matches on tv lately. The picture is from when they are still setting things up, later there were around 75 people from the neighborhood gathered, but it was too dark for a picture. 

the morning snack

In the morning at school we have a snack break around 10. By 10 I'm pretty hungry because we usually just have a piece of white baguette bread around 7 for breakfast.
The first picture shows a couple of the snack ladies with their tables and wares, there are about 10 of them in the school yard everyday at snack time selling different foods.

My favorite snacks are beignets (donuts, but just fried dough really) like in the photo above (shown also with a sweet-potato fry wedge and sauce) and sandwiches like in the photo below. The sandwiches come with a yummy filling of little fried potatoes, cucumber and onions, and an spicy oily tomato sauce. Delicious!

One thing that is interesting/nasty is that they hand you the snack wrapped in a piece of paper. As you can see from the photos its used paper, maybe an old bill or reciept, or someones old school notebook paper. Makes for a good bit of reading while I eat.

dry feet and $5

I have 2 random stories of things that I think are odd that you might find interesting.

The first is about my poor feet. Because it is so dry here, my feet are getting nasty and starting to crack and peel. Its hard to put lotion or something on them because that will make even more sand/dirt stick to them when I'm walking around in flip-flops. I have some pumice stones and I got some glycerine that was supposed to help, but these dry feet are unlike anything I've delt with before.
So I'm excited because I have finally come up with a good solution: when my feet become unbearable I slather them with this vaseline-like moisturizer that I have, and then put them in plastic bags, then I put socks over that to hold it all together, and I wear this to sleep in. In the morning my feet are excited to get air again, but look remarkably better. Its weird, but it works.

The second is about $5. One day I was walking in our neighborhood with a friend when some people sitting just outside thier gate started talking to us (actually shouting across the road) they wanted to know where I was from - yeah, they can tell just by looking that I'm not from around here - ha! Anyway, when they heard that I'm American they said they had something to show me. A guy ran in the house and came back with a $5 bill. I wasn't expecting that. They asked what it was worth, I said a little more than 2000 cfa, and that was pretty much the end of it. Until about 2 weeks later when a guy showed up at the base with the $5 and asked if I would buy it from him for the 2000 cfa. I said no problem. Well actually, all I had besides small change was a 5000 cfa note, so I had the guy take that to a little neighborhood shop to buy me a few eggs and when he came back with the change I gave him 2000 cfa for the $5.

chicken and cow

There are always chickens running around freely here. I don't quite understand how they know where they live and continue to come back home. That kind of goes for all the animals here, they always seem to be wandering around loose looking for something to eat. There are herds of sheep, goats, and cows that go on our road past the base every day. I think about how if a fence gets broken in the states, it is a big effort to round up the cows or whatever. Here they are calm and stay in the herd and go where they are supposed to. Even though they are calm it still scares me to drive past (or through!) a herd of cows on a moto. These cows have some big horns and could do some real damage if they wanted. Anyway, here is a picture of the ugliest chicken I have ever seen. Poor guy. Baby chicks are so cute, then they go through an ugly adolescent stage before becoming normal adult chickens. But this one has no feathers, I'm not sure why, I guess the other chickens were mean to him or something.

And here is a picture of one of the cows with the big horns. You can see my friends playing soccer (its "football" here) in the background while some cows are making their way across the field, no big deal.

We have big soccer fields right next door to the base. They are busy early morning and around sunset but mostly empty during the middle of the day because its too hot then.

Zap, zap, mosquito killing racket

This is my friend Jean-Patrick playing with the fun new mosquito zapping racket I bought. I keep this thing by my bed at night and then when I hear an annoying insect buzzing in my ear, I can experience the satisfaction of frying it to death. (yes, I do have a mosquito net for my bed, I just don't like to use it.) We figured out that if you kind of lightly spit at the racket it zaps the spit. Really this is one of the funnest toys ever! Don't you wish you had one?

R.O.U.S.'s

Um, yeah, so here is a picture and a video of the "rat" my friend was cooking up when I went outside last Sunday morning. They had caught it in our garden in some kind of trap, some kind of box and string trap, nothing fancy. But its not a rat (right?) I guess it is in the rodent family, but thats way too big to be a rat I think. So it is some kind of R.O.U.S. (rodent of unusual size, like from "Princess Bride") My friend was cooking the critter and scraping its fur off with a knife. After this he chopped it up, cooked it, and ate it. Am I sure I don't want to try just a piece? Yeah, I'm sure.
In the video my friend tells me that wild meat has lots of vitamins, more than regular meat. I say "lots of vitamins, eh?"
My friend's name is Dieudonne, it means "God gave", I think its a cool name.

New Baby!

I got to go visit the new baby! His name is Othineal or something close to that, I'm not sure how to spell it. The first picture shows big brother Ezekiel, he is in my class at school, so he is my buddy. This was the first baby of one of our group's families to be born since I've been here, but there are 3 more on the way! (and they will all be first babies for couples who have all been married very recently, less than a year - thats the African way I guess!)