Month At Site, Christmas, New Years!

This post in clip-art:

Before I start, I need to recap the most important things that have happened recently that you all already know about, but I find these things out after-the-fact. The Cards whooped Florida’s ass in the Sugar Bowl! Teddy Bridgewater is my (second biggest) hero and he’s going to do big things. The Redskins went on a streak-and-a-half and won the NFC East outright! Unfortunately my real hero, RGIII, hurt his knee and we lost in the first round. That is still one hell of a turn-around! Lastly, the Cards are tearing it up right now and whooped up on some Kentucky ass! I’m pretty sure when I post this on Thursday we will be #1! I heard the Cards ended up like 12^th in football, which is garbage as to how badly we dominated UF. I couldn’t be prouder of my teams (excluding the awful Wizards)! Now on to the blog post:

Wow, a month at site as of today. The days are long as hell, but the time does seem to be moving rather quickly. Of course, it helps when you have something to look forward to like… leaving site. Seems awful, but it is unfortunately true. This is definitely challenge. Things that have never been challenging for me, like talking to people for example, are the hardest things in the world. It is actually a struggle to get myself to leave my house everyday. I spend an unruly amount of time in my house reading. The language barrier is awful, especially since my tutor left for Abidjan, Ivory Coast a little less than a month ago. My counterpart could take over, but I would probably shoot him, or me. Besides, he’s illiterate and that would not bode well for a tutor. So until my first tutor returns, hopefully within the next few weeks, I will continue to struggle with communicating with anybody.

I am surprised at just how few people actually speak French in this village or Didyr, the next one over. It is kind of crazy. What I have learned about myself is that I can sit inside all day and do absolutely nothing, and make the time pass by faster. I have now finished The Art of Success 2.0 by Rick Pitino, a motivational book given to me by my buddy Dave Madden before leaving, The Last Hunger Season, An African Farming Community on the Brink of Change given to me by my Uncle Tom, which was surprisingly relevant to where I am and also rather infuriating as it is about the significantly better off nation of Kenya while Burkina seems all but ignored, and today I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which was awesome. I am excited to watch the movie to see how they match up. It is ridiculous that I, a true advocate for watching TV over reading, spend a majority of my time with my nose in a book. I know I made note of this in my last blog post, but I still cannot really get over it.

Anyways, I thought I’d get into what happened over Christmas and New Years and such. I decided to stay in village for Christmas, as it occurred a mere ten days post-moving in. It was anything particularly exciting. I hung out in my house in the evening, and then at around 21:00 I followed my counterpart, Pima, and his friends into Didyr. We went to a bar and sat under a tree on a night with almost a full moon. I was confused as to why on a night when there was actually natural light, we stayed underneath a tree in complete darkness, but that is just the mindset of the people here I guess. We drank a couple beers, in basically awkward silence, and when they spoke I could not understand. After like three beers or something, I went with Pima to go find a chicken to buy, cooked, and ready to eat. After like the fourth place we eventually found a place that had a Pintade, or Guinea Fowl, ready to go. I paid for it, and when we arrived back at the first bar we began to eat. It was gone within four minutes. The Africans attacked that thing like zombies; it was ridiculous. I was not particularly pleased as it was not cheap and I barely got to eat any, but at least I got a beer or two paid for in the evening. At 2:00 my time, I found out the temperature in Didyr was 72°F and I was FREEZING. I had my hood up and my arms folded into my sweatshirt, which thank goodness I brought. Imagine that; 72° on Christmas and you are absolutely freezing. I guess this country really has affected me! We returned at like 3:00, slightly inebriated, and I went to sleep.

Christmas Day Dolo!

Christmas Day was nothing too special either. I went into Didyr again, this time with only my new friend, Basolé Navila, and we drank dolo and beer. I ate a salad, which was actually delicious, though definitely not a good idea... I’ll get to that. On the way home, we stopped at the Mayor’s house, where he was having a gathering with all of the fat cats in the village. He had a feast of salad (again not a good idea, but very tasty) and pork. He gave me free beer, and even some Jack Daniel’s! It was like being in America. I got home, watched a Harold & Kumar Christmas, and went to sleep.

The next few days I was plagued. I am convinced it was from the salad. The water they use to wash salad is not treated, and as I ate three plates of it, I believe I paid the price. I felt like garbage for the next four days and became best friends with my latrine, which just seems to be an overall theme of Peace Corps. Then it was time to go to Ouagadougou for New Years, which was a much-needed break.

I biked thirty kilometers on the morning of December 30^th. When I arrived in Réo I was greeted by a smiling Kelly, a friend from training. I was not in a particularly wonderful mood. My tire popped halfway through the ride and I walked for about fifteen minutes until I found somebody to help me fix it (it is since popped three more times and I can do it on my own). Of course, I was on top of a mountain, or very large hill, when it popped, and I ended up having to finish the bike ride in the noonday African sun, which sucked. My day was turned right around when Kelly and I went out in Réo.

Réo is a nifty town. It has 60,000 inhabitants and electricity basically everywhere, sans Kelly’s house of course, thanks Peace Corps. We went to a little restaurant and ate pork, and then a bar that had freaking Heineken! We had a couple rounds and continued to another place. There we met with her counterpart Margo, who is awesome, and bought a cooked chicken. Funny story when we were sitting there waiting for Margo to arrive. Kelly and I were discussing how hard Lyélé is and I was telling her the words that I could remember off the top of my head. I thought I remembered dog, but was not positive if I had it right. When the waitress came over to give us a round, I asked her in French if kouli was dog in Gouransi (the overall language, Lyélé is just a local dialect). Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication there and she informed me that they only have chicken there. In other words she was telling me that they didn’t serve dog there. I felt like moron, but I am very confident I asked the question correctly, she is just not a big French speaker as is normal in the area.

Anyways, we ate chicken and chatted with Margo and drank beer. I learned that Pima is almost impossible to understand because things went very smoothly with Margo and her French. By the time Kelly and I left, we were good and drunk and returned back to her abode. The next day we got a ride from somebody at her office (she works with a real organization; they have Wi-Fi!) into Koudougou, where we made our bus to Ouaga by about 47 seconds. The ride was smooth, minus the tire popping, something totally not out of the ordinary. You know it happens a lot when they had that bad boy fixed in less than five minutes. We arrived in Ouaga, went to the bureau to pick up packages and mail, ate schawarma, and continued to the Transit House (house with 35 spots owned by and solely for PCVs). I took a glorious and much needed shower, remember my shower usually involves a bucket and a plastic goblet, and we went out.

We ate dinner at Moulin Rouge and took full advantage of the 1,000-cfa liter beers, and then headed over to Bar-K (remember barka is thank you in Mooré and K is pronounced ka in French, great play on words I think I touched on before). I had a horrible headache and wasn’t alone in feeling like crap. I had a friend bring me Tylenol and powered through to midnight, when we all took a shot of Tequila. My liver just loves me. Then we went to Calypso, the same bar we went to on swear-in/my birthday. The music was nowhere near as good as they stuck to the crappy African techno and we were tired, but it was still quite fun. We returned back to the transit house and conked out. I slept on a couch about half as long as I am. It was really comfortable.

The next day Ouagadougou was like a scene out of I Am Legend. The entire city seemed to be shut down, deserted. A group of us meandered about town for a while doing the most ridiculous things you can think of entertainment. We went into a hotel and sat on their couches and stared at their pool. We hung out in their bar, again sitting on couches and never ordered a drink. We marveled at their elevator, the first any of us had seen in the country. We went into a gas station for a good fifteen minutes and were amazed at how nice it was. A gas station. They must have thought we were nuts. We walked for probably six miles or so in search of a place that was open and had beer. We finally enjoyed a round and then discovered the restaurant we planned our dinner around was also closed. Frustrated, we walked back to the main stretch of restaurants, where we knew a couple were open at this time. We stopped in what turned out to be an awesome place. It was owned by a French guy and was definitely a date place. A Bob Dylan album played, all in French. We drank beer on tap and Screwdrivers with mango juice instead of OJ. It was great, but the food was pricey so we continued on to another restaurant. I was on a fruity drink kick, so I got a Peña Colada, and it was delicious. I ate a pizza and was uncomfortably full. We returned to the Transit House and we were beat.

I slept outside one night, it was cold, needed extra clothing

The next day I shopped for food, which was completely necessary and rewarding. That was about it. The next day Kelly and I returned to Koudougou and I sucked it up and spent a lot of my monthly allowance on a solar panel, battery, and a converter. It was well worth the money, though now I am living very uncomfortably for the rest of this month. The solar panel is 50 watts, the battery 12v26ah, and the converter is up to 500 watts. It was a great idea. I now have a means to charge whatever I need to everyday, and a light at night that makes cooking a lot more enjoyable and a ton easier. I plan on buying another light for my bedroom when I have more money. I am also going to look into a solar battery powered cooler I have seen for when I want a cold beer or friends come in town (which will be rare, especially if I don’t have that). They are small, but it seems worth it regardless. Lastly, I may eventually invest in an Internet key. I don’t know how I feel about being fully connected with everything at home. It’d probably make me really homesick, but it’d be really nice to know what is happening in the world, especially in the world of sports!

The solar panel has made me relax considerably. Just knowing I can charge something is a very liberating feeling. If I’m going crazy, I can hole up and watch a movie or TV. I still watch something every night before sleeping (right now I’m on an Arrested Development and Eastbound & Down binge), and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Lastly, I feel completely useless here! I know I’ve only been here a month and I know of a bunch of different things that I plan on doing with or introducing to this community. However, as of now I feel about as useful as tits on a nun. Like I said before, I spend a lot of time in my house. I have not yet learned the language, nor done a project. I will likely wait until February before I start teaching how to and manufacturing soap myself. I need to get some capital in my account before I go spending a bunch. I assume after that things will be a little bit easier, as it will give us something to do together and my credibility will be a little higher. This can also start producing money towards their long-term goal of installing an advanced irrigation system. That doesn’t mean anything for the next half a month though. I’ll still feel useless!
Anyways, I’m going to Ouaga on Thursday to meet up with a bunch of friends from training. It should definitely be a good time. My friend Todd is bringing a bottle of Rum brewed by a hotel in Bobo-Dioulasso. I hate Rum, but I’ll give it a go. We’re also having a Mexican night, so Margarita’s and tacos will be had. I’m really looking forward to it. Then it will be a long stretch at site until I return to Ouagadougou (hopefully) to watch the Superbowl. Some things I can miss… The Superbowl, and the Cards if they make it into the Final Four are not included. I will kill somebody to see the Cards win it all in real-time. 

Little Ellie and my dog, Taco

Taco and I!

Sketchiest dumbbell ever that I constructed

Swearing In & My Birthday!

ATTENTION: YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS! Its hilarious! STOP! Daba Time!

Blog Post #11, Birthday, Moving to Site, Forest of Baobab Trees (no pictures of those yet, but they'll come)

            Remember the Rafiki tree in the Lion King? Remember that massive, almost ridiculous seeming tree? Now imagine walking through basically a forest of them. The Baobab can live to be from 1,000-3,000 years old. That’s right, three thousand years. It’s hard for us to even grasp how long that is. That means that the oldest Baobab started growing before we actually started counting time. That is absolutely insane. I have hundreds of them merely five minutes biking from where I currently reside.

            The village of Bouldie lies just off the old beaten path; or in other words the big-ass road from Koudougou. It has a lot of traffic, and is relatively taken care of for a road in Western Africa… minus the fact that it has never been paved of course. The quaint little town has approximately 600 inhabitants, but based on the size you’d never guess that. For 600 people, they sure decided they liked to walk. The town is spread out over the course of a couple miles, with random clusters of “houses”. My residence is actually pretty sweet. I have three rooms. The first is quite large. I put my stove, water filter, huge trash can full of water, and a couple tables in there. The next consists of my bed, or lit pico, which is just an awful cot I bought in Ouagadougou. I put my Therm-A-Rest on top of it, and it is just barely comfortable enough to bear. The last room I have made my closet. I have clothing hung up, my suitcases on the ground, and a locker that I bought in Ouaga, which is filled with Zip-Loc bags and food, to keep the evil African bugs at bay.

            The people are really nice, and honestly the language is not that complicated. When I say that, you have to take it with a grain of salt. The only reason that it “is not that hard” is because there really are not conjugations for words. For example, “I am” in English would be conjugated to you are, he/she is, we are, you are (formal, does not exist in English but does in French/Spanish), and they are. In Lyélé, they are all just wo. À wo, Ń wo, N wo (different fluctuation in the N sound, so it is difficult), Nè wo, Á wo (another different fluctuation from the I form) and Ò wo. In other words, there are a ton of guttural fluctuations in everything, too many accents, and the words sound absolutely nothing like they do in any other language. If you’ve ever learned Spanish or French, you know that half the time if a word is three syllables or more, you might be able to put an accent on it, and pawn it off as that language. That is not possible here. If you don’t know the word, you’re basically traveling down shit’s creek, and you don’t have a paddle. Also, while the Peace Corps told me everybody here speaks French, that was just a blatant lie. The only two people are my counterparts… one of which left yesterday for Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire yesterday… for between one and two months. He’s the one that is literate and can give me lessons in Lyélé… nice. Oh well, as they say in French, ça-va aller… or in English, it will go… guess that doesn’t really translate does it.

            The first week has been… interesting. Imagine being thrown into a culture you do not know, with everybody speaking a language you don’t know, and the only person you can communicate with speaks a language you are not that good at, and mumbles everything so even when you do communicate you have no idea what the hell is going on. On top of that, add in that this is the first time you will be truly away from anybody American, and it is going to last two years. You want the true Peace Corps experience? Come to Bouldié, it will blow your freaking mind. The first night was a bit numb. I didn’t really know what to feel. I was a little lonely, but really I just didn’t know what to do with myself. When I was in Zoro for the first night, I knew that it was alright because the next day I’d be with a bunch of Americans and we could get together and laugh about the ridiculous things we saw, like enormous spiders being eaten by even bigger spiders (revert to previous blog). This time, I knew when I woke up the next morning I was facing a new world, with new challenges, and it was certainly not going to get easier anytime soon. Honestly, it hasn’t really gotten any easier; I think I’ve just adjusted a little more.

            As a trainee, you hear stories of volunteers running after the Peace Corps car as it drives away once they finish making sure your stove won’t blow up (wait, blew that one, but I’ll get that) and your locks are secure (also a little shaky), but you just think they’re ridiculous stories made up to scare you. When that car drives away, and you begin to feel the true isolation, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous at all. The first night there was a small sliver of the moon out, smaller than a quarter-moon. There was a halo the size of Texas and I could see everything. That is true isolation. Since then the moon has begun to emerge and it is truly incredible how bright it is at night. The stars are amazing, more incredible than anything you could really imagine in the states. You can see the International Space Station with the naked eye, as it is the only thing that constantly moves across the sky (unless they found some new super-star or something, but I’ve only been gone almost three months so that seems unrealistic). The Milky Way is clear as day, and there are thousands, upon thousands of stars. Despite the loneliness, when you see things like that, it makes you happy to be here.

Chez-moi from the outside

The picture doesn't do this justice, it's incredible in person

What will normally be outside of my window at any given time...

View on top of the largest hill near me. The mountain is Reo, about 30km from me

Only in Africa...

            I’ve visited the market a couple of times, and I swear my counterpart is messing with my head because we take a different route almost every time. Again, basically nobody speaks French, so it is a challenge to communicate, but I have started learning the number system in local language, and that is a bit helpful. Interesting thing about this place and the Gouransi culture in general, they get hammered. When I say hammered, I mean red-eyed, stumbling drunk. I’ve explained before what Dolo is, but I will again for new reader sake. It’s fermented red sorghum (or other things) with x amount of sugar that makes it stronger depending on how much you put in and what else you put in. Bottom line, the stuff does the trick. That first Sunday when I went to the market was the tri-week enormo-market, when everybody in the area flocks to Didyr, my nearest big city that actually has like 50,000 inhabitants but you’d never guess that walking through it, and buys random crap and gets drunk. I have never in my life seen so many drunken people. Here, they put extra sugar in some of the Dolo, which makes it a bit stronger, and a bit sweeter. That makes it easier to drink, not like its difficult to start with. It tastes like lukewarm apple cider, and is actually rather enjoyable.

            Anyways, I’m walking around, buying random crap for my house, when I remember I want to buy one of these bracelets that seemingly everybody around here has. Want to fit in? Dress and act the same as everybody else; it’s cool to conform. So I get to this guy, and he tries to charge me 12,500 CFA. That’s equal to $25.00. I just about lost it on the guy. Nothing here costs that much. A freaking live chicken only costs 3,000 CFA for goodness sake. I yelled at him about how ridiculous it was that he would try and rip anybody off like that, and just because I’m the only white person for twenty miles doesn’t give him the right to be a jerk. I whittled and whittled at the price, and worked him all the way down to 2,250 CFA, or $4.50. That is an example of how much people try to get you here, just because you’re a nassara. During the argument, a rather large crowd gathered, as everybody knew what the guy was trying to do, and they laughed as I reamed him. At one point, when he was at 7,000 CFA, he said in French, “You’re here to develop aren’t you?” I replied with, “There is a difference between development and throwing money at people.” Those who understood that got a kick out of it, and the crowd howled. Eventually I got out of there with a decent deal, and he cadeau-ed (gifted) me a little bead bracelet with African colors, which I guess was nice.

            I’ve made a couple “friends” here. Of course those who begin as your friends may be the people that are trying to take advantage of you. Hopefully this is not the case. There is a guy with a restaurant in Didyr, who speaks English surprisingly well, and he asks me to speak only in English when I visit him. He seems like a rather up front guy, but we’ve been warned, the first sign of a faux-type is somebody who speaks some English, so wary I shall remain. The people at the Gendarmerie (Police) also dabble in English, but as they are the law and they take exams and classes in English, I trust them a lot more. The commandant is a cool guy; very friendly and understanding of what I’m going through… He also has a Facebook page he tells me. The head of the CSPS (local “hospital”) seems like a pretty sketchy dude, so I’m really looking forward to being sick in the future. The mayor was a really nice guy, but he might get replaced at New Years when the official election results are in (why they take almost a month to be tallied is beyond me). Other than that, you can really tell who is somebody you don’t want to be around in the first five minutes of talking to them. They dress in hilarious fashion, that here I guess is supposed to look sleek, but to me looks ridiculous, and wear sunglasses at completely unnecessary times. They also have a tendency to ask for Dolo money, an obvious sign to turn your back.

This guy is not a Faux-Type, he's actually pretty cool... and he's wearing one Maryland glove!

            Right, kind of got distracted there; maybe it’s the Dolo I’ve imbibed taking effect. I had a birthday recently. It was actually the day of swearing in, which took place last Friday, December 14^th, in Ouagadougou. If things go according to plan, you can hear a little bit of Lyélé immediately after this sentence, as I had to give a speech in it… in front of the US ambassador (whom I met the other day actually but that will be later in the post) and the entire constituency at the swearing-in.

Much of the crew in an... interesting photo

My buddy Todd and I. He is down South, near Banfora.

            Did you notice I messed up at the beginning a smidgeon? Neither did anybody in the audience because out of the three hundred or so people there, two spoke this language. Either way it went fine, except nobody I knew I was finished, as again, nobody speaks the language. Afterwards was a whirlwind of awesomeness. I packed some crap up, as I was inevitably moving to Bouldié the next day and knew I did not want to pack feeling like crap, and hit the town. We had discovered a restaurant the evening before called Moulin Rouge that was just simply awesome. The food was amazing, and they have a freaking happy hour. The best part of said happy hour was that liter beers were 1,000 CFA. That is $2.00 for a liter of ice-cold, pretty good quality Castel Beer in one huge mug. So after almost punching a guy in the face after he tried to pickpocket my buddy, we went to Moulin Rouge, got a couple large beers, I ate a true double cheeseburger (Big-Mac style but actually about 6-8 inches tall, hopefully there’s a picture), and some fries. We left there and went to another bar called Deniro’s. They have pool tables there, and I won 1,000 CFA in a game of pool that was obviously horribly lost when the other team scratched on the 8-ball… call it birthday luck. We drank, we enjoyed each other’s company, and then we headed to a little nightclub in Ouaga, which was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had. I bought one beer, which was American sized but cost almost double what it usually does here, and actually danced for like two hours. It was a blast. The place is plastered in mirrors and it’s impossible to figure out which way is out from the dance floor, but that made the under-sized area that much more fun. It helped that this was the closest to anything in the US I’ve seen since being here, and you could fit this dance floor in my basement in the US.

            The cab ride home was filled with tears from the girls, as inevitably the next day we would all be separated, and go through a very, very rough next few weeks. That was a fair assessment, as this has certainly been one of the harder weeks of my life. All in all, it was one of, if not the best, birthdays I’ve ever had. I had over a hundred people sing me Happy Birthday, I ate pizza and meat on a stick, we debuted a wonderful film that is hopefully attached to this, drank, ate amazing food, danced, and reviewed the fun, and terrible times (see bus crash) we’d had the previous two months.

            I can’t really explain to you what I’m going through here. You really wouldn’t be able to understand. When you smile, you really smile. The rest of the time thus far, I’ve felt like the slightest thing will push me over the edge to come home (though I won’t do that regardless). The other day was an awful day. I woke up feeling incredibly lonely. I turned on my stove, and the thing actually blew up in my face. There was a gas leak in it and regardless of what I did, one of the burners constantly leaked gas. Randomly, it would blow up in a large one-second explosion. I’m lucky that never reached the gas tank, or I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now (I’ve since bought a new stove, stupid Ouaga street vendors). After that wonderful start to the day, I left to go meet the Financier, the Gendarmerie, and a few other important people. On the way, a moto came up behind us. Instead of doing the rational thing and following my counterpart to the right, I went left. I didn’t see the teenage girl coming down the dirt path, as I was concerned with the moto coming behind me (I didn’t want to be hit again, see previous post).  We collided head-on. We were both alright, though I broke her brake, which apparently nobody here cares about anyways as they never go faster than like two mph. I felt absolutely awful, and was stifling off freaking out when meeting these important figureheads.

            The next day started out the same, but was changed when we went to Didyr for a ceremony that I thought was a small welcome to town for me. Boy was I wrong. It had nothing to do with me, which was nice actually, as I did not need, nor want that kind of attention. Instead, it was a dedication because the Millennium Challenge donated $5,000,000 to help pave the road from Didyr south to Koudougou and then on further south to Sabou. The US Ambassador was there, along with the Prime Minister of Burkina. After the ceremony, I was pulled aside, as they recognized the one white face amongst probably 10,000 and I took a couple pictures with the Ambassador, and formally met him. It was pretty cool, and helped me with a bit of the stress that I’d been facing. After all, it isn’t everyday that you can say you meet an Ambassador right?

            Everyday I wake up with sort of the same feeling. What the heck am I going to do today so I make it to night time and watch some It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia or Freaks & Geeks. That’s a pretty depressing outlook, but every day is truly a struggle. Once I actually get out of the house, it usually isn’t all that bad, though that wonderful lonely feeling does set in quite often, until I distract myself again. I started actually reading, which I didn’t think I’d do much of, but I was wrong. I see myself reading at least one hundred books while I’m here. There is so much time to kill. The days are so long, and there just is not enough stuff to fill the void. Couple that with the fact that I haven’t yet bought a solar panel so I can’t charge anything, hence why I’m squeezing so much into one blog post. Once I’ve bought that, I think I will be able to write a bit more, and shorten these bad boys a bit. I’m also charging my iPhone, which is what I watch stuff on at night, usually with a nice cup of oh so classy Don Garcia boxed red wine. Don’t judge, a glass a day is good for the heart. I’ve also started daily exercise, alongside the constant biking and walking everywhere. I made a bet with three other volunteers. Whoever gets the most muscle mass by the time IST rolls around (3 months) wins 5,000 CFA each from the others. Not only will I get in shape again, I’ll win money while doing it, so it’s a win-win!

            The day goes as such: wake up with a feeling of dread, drink some Folger’s (running out very rapidly) and eat some Oatmeal, say hello to some neighbors to the best of my ability, do the daily tasks, have a beer with lunch if I’m in Didyr buying stuff, return and sit around twiddling my thumbs or read, work-out to work up a good sweat, take a cold shower which sucks right now because it’s actually pretty damn chilly at night until mid to late February, cook my dinner (that’s right, me, cooking) and watch some crap on my iPhone before falling asleep around ten. It gets a bit easier everyday, but is by no means easy. I will continue to work to learn the language, and am fairly excited to actually get to work. The community is smart in terms of they have gardens to eat and sell things after the food is gone (there is actually a 2 month-ish long hunger season here right before harvest time), but there is still room for improvement in terms of things they can do to make money. Hopefully I can fulfill my hopes and introduce soap making, which they are intent on, and tofu into the area.

            Anyways, this is horribly disorganized and long, so I’m going to stop. I need to shower and cook, as it is already almost 20:00 and I’m lagging behind on my daily routine. I hope all is well, and hopefully by the time you read this I will know a bit of the language and be a bit more integrated into the community. As always, Go Cards, Go Skins, and all of you, keep on keepin’ on… I will do my best to do the same. 

I have a couple other great pictures to add on here as well:

Beautiful Picture of the Sunset near my house

...annnnd I found a black widow in my room