Vive le Dash

I’M COMING BACK! Only temporarily yes, but I will set foot on your precious soil in less than a month!  I come to eat your food, drink your beer, and see how many women swoon when I say “Name’s Dale.  I work at a health clinic in Africa.  Helping kids and stuff.  Look!  Here are some pictures of me with them that I had printed immediately upon landing.”  Prepare yourself! I fly into DC, our beloved capital on the 13 th .  I already feel giddy as a school girl.  Spend the weekend there and then head down to North Carolina afterwards.  Likely with a raging hangover.  In fact, there is a good chance I spend three weeks in either a food coma or drunken haze.  Hopefully both.  I just… I just can’t wait.  Tears of happiness are forming. Until then, I’m doing some silly formation that Caitlin dragged me into.  Training people to be peer educators and spread knowledge about HIV/AIDS.  Work, pfft.  I’ll ...

Right, so it has been a bad month for keeping you informed. Part of that I can happily blame on being ever so slightly busy including a weeklong conference in Yaounde with some lovely people that will be helping guide a new program called SMS for Life to Cameroon.  It could potentially greatly reduce supply chain problems of malaria meds and Peace Corps Cameroon will be helping to roll it out.  The other part of this lack of communication is simply that all technology I touch this week withers and dies in my hands (this laptop, graciously lent to me by Caitlin, is falling apart as I type). It started with Caitlin’s camera (she’s clearly overly trusting and a bit of a gambler).  I smashed that thing up good and have little idea how.  I’m rough on cameras though.  Before going to Italy in ’07, my father bought me one that is water-proof, dust-proof, and shock-proof (the German section of the warranty literally says “dale-proof”).  Then my phone broke, an...

Check the farmer's tan.  Thanks, Africa!

Welp, I've been here for over a year and people keep asking me "what have you done with your time?"   A lot really.   Here, let's go through a little list. Community - 4   I'm known in Peace Corps houses around the country for my laugh because of this show. New Girl - 2   This one reminds me of my life in DC.   Also, I may be in love with Zooey Deschanel.   Sorry, Pete. Happy Endings - 3   Another one that reminds me of life left behind.   Damn, I miss inexplicable shenanigans.   Also my friends. The League - 2   As close as I can get to football.   And I crave a fantasy trophy I can never even see. The Walking Dead - 1   Because I love zombies. The Big Bang Theory - 5   American geek comedy.   I'm a geek, pure and simple.   IT Crowd - 4   British geek comedy.   Continuing with the theme. Elementary - 1   I have a relatively well known obsession with anything Sherlock Holm...

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...