February 22, 2011
TSO is about an hour drive from my village. It’s kind of a cool drive because it goes through Bamako, so there’s always a ton of activities happening and lots of interesting people/animal watching. I don’t think I’ve mentioned much about animals yet! Animals are everywhere. The streets, my house, school. It’s totally normal for donkeys to wander into my family’s courtyard, drink out of one of our buckets, and wander out again. Or for a door to the health center to be accidentally left open and a herd of goats charge in and have to be chased out again. Or for class to stop so my teacher can chase away the chickens. On top of all that, all of these animals also make a lot of noise. The donkeys in particular occasionally emit a sound, usually at night, that I can only describe as what I imagine a donkey sounds like when seizing while being beaten. I was legitimately fear-filled the first time I heard that noise! Anyway, back to the animals. My point was, even in Bamako we had to stop to let a herd of sheep cross the road in front of us.
Coming back to TSO was like a long awaited reunion, both with the other PCTs as well as with the conveniences of TSO! I made a beeline for the showers, barely even stopping to talk to anyone I hadn’t seen in 2 weeks. I had forgotten to take my razor to Homestay, and I was feeling soo gross by this point. Plus, TSO showers have actual shower heads! It certainly isn’t like showers at home, but it’s a giant improvement over bucket baths on slanted floors. Post-shower, I learned that the internet was down (figures) but the kitchen staff had made us crepes with jam for a snack, and that totally made up for the lack of Internet as I shoved 4 down my throat in a matter of seconds. (The Internet came back later on and all was well with the world again!) Other than dinner, we had the rest of the night to ourselves which was awesome of Peace Corps!
The next day I woke up freezing as usual. Before we went to Homestay I was often wearing my fleece hoodie till 11am or later. During breakfast, however, I started getting warm and out of nowhere had to take off my two “cold-weather” layers. We moved to the main hangar for our first class, and somewhere in the middle I got really hot again all of a sudden. Of course my first thoughts were, “Oh no, I’m getting sick! I’m having hot flashes! I’m too young for this…maybe I have malaria. It has to be malaria!” Nope, none of those were true. After a few moments of observation, confirmed by an actual person, I discovered that I wasn’t sick, it’s just getting HOT outside! March is basically the beginning of the hot season, and we haven’t even gotten that far yet! I can’t imagine what April will do to me.
Last story: before dinner on Monday night, I was feeling a little queasy so I was unsure how much I was going to attempt to eat. Earlier in the day I had weighed myself and saw that somehow I managed to lose 4 pounds, which I didn’t understand since I’ve been eating tons of millet, potatoes, rice, and pasta for the past 3 weeks. So when I walked into the refectoire and saw: wait for it…roasted chicken legs, fried plantains, and FRENCH FRIES! waiting for us, there was no holding me back! I ate a good 2 full plates of french fries plus lots of meat and potatoes. It was like heaven. The funny thing is, I probably would’ve rejected that meal back in the states. I never liked leg or thigh meat on poultry, and the fries were a bit soggy. But: I. Was. In. Heaven!!! Also, I found out later that the scale is 5 pounds off, so it turns out I’d actually gained a pound, and after that meal, I should probably just add on another 2 or 3. :D
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