Vive le Dash

Trying to integrate myself into my community I bought a sheep.  Or, well, a ram.  Her... his name is Bessie.  Like a cow.  Cause I'm still American. Meet Bessie!  Of course, Bessie had to die.  For the Fête de Mouton!  It's a festaval to remember that time God was all like "Abraham, kill you son." and Abraham said, "Sure, sounds fun." and God said, "seriously?  That's weird, let's eat this ram instead."   Meet Al-hadji Awal.  My best friend.  He's happy with his knife. So anyway, Al-hadji sharpens up his knife (no gross pics) and brings out his ram all hog-tied and sacrifice ready. Hi nameless ram! He went quietly which was nice.  Bessie turned out to be a fighter though.  Probably because we dragged her to a pool of blood where her buddy died. Zoom in for fearful eyes. In the end, they were both delicious.

"Close your dog." "Pardon?" "I said, close your dog." I, with the practiced calm of continuous confusion, look around for a dog.  I don't own a dog, but maybe there is one about I could… close.  Alas, can't even find a cat. "I'm sorry, what?" "Your pants." Well, there you have it, my zipper is wide open.  I close it up and thank the nice old man.  Later I will find that he was actually telling me to "close my chain".  That would be the slag here for zipper (chain and dog sound remarkably similar in French).  I'm not sure if that would have really helped, but I looked up the actual French word for zipper and it turns out to be "fermeture à glissière".  That basically means "sliding closure" and would have left me equally baffled.

It has been pointed out to me that I ought not leave you hanging when it involves life and death situations.  You will be happy to know that my friend's wife is currently much better.  She's walking and talking and cooking and cleaning.  Clearly she was suffering from a really bad case of malaria and the medicine made her better.  Or she was possessed by evil spirits and the shaman fixed that problem.  Possibly both.  I'm not qualified in either field. Death is always a bit closer here.  So far no one I've known well has died, but pretty much everyone I know has lost someone.  In America, it is mostly the elderly who go.  Here a canoe turns over and three or more kids drown.  That can happen in the States of course, but it has happened twice since I got to Mbakaou.  People get sick with malaria or typhoid or something else and pass away.  Ask someone how old they are and you'll be surprised how young they are for how old the...

Kids wake me up from a nap.  Someone's sick someplace and I'm supposed to follow them there.  I can never get much information from kids; our French levels rarely come to any agreement.  I follow them because this isn't the first time people have showed up at my place asking for my non-existent healing services.  On the way, I'm a little annoyed at myself for the reoccurring lack of credit on my phone.  Luckily these people know me and are familiar with my "I'm not actually a doctor" routine.  They just want my help finding the doctors.  A task I'm actually suited to: errand boy! It turns out to be my best friend's pregnant wife who lives on my compound.  She was with some family and suddenly became feverish and very obviously sick.  I get my friend the nurse at the clinic who goes to get meds while I get her on a moto and take her home.  He thinks it is malaria.  It probably is malaria, but there is no real way to know aside fro...