12 and a half months to go!!!!

Can't hardly believe it, but I am more than halfway through my service! And I just celebrated my SECOND birthday in Africa!! That is just plain crazy... Thank you to everyone who sent me b-day wishes!!! It was great to come to Bobo and feel the love. As for the rest of you... consider yourself B-listed!!! ;)
On Monday (for my birthday) I had a nice dinner with some friends. We cooked up a chicken, a guinea fowl and some wild animal someone killed at some point that day. I don't know what animal it was really, but it had claws and a large, rodent like body, and it sure was tasty in the soup we made. That gourmet meal was topped off by warm wine in a box. I had told my students to bring me gifts for my birthday, too, but only one boy brought me a little box of cookies after class. They were delicious.

I don't really have anything new and exciting to report, but people complain when I don't post for more than a month.. so I am trying to think of what has been happening....

Well.... school is just about finished. I have one last test to give and then the year is FINITO!! (thank goodness). I am glad to be done with the first year. Feels good to accomplish, but also I want to focus on secondary projects and/or changing my job here. We'll see what happens. During this summer break I should be much more occupied than last year - when I had absolutely NOTHING to do for four months upon arrival. My volunteer neighbor (Megan) and I are planning a couple of projects together. One is to paint maps of the world on the school walls, which we have specifications for. Right now there is nothing at all on the walls, so this should be better, right?

The second project is a girls' camp on the village level. Last year I helped out with one that took place in Bobo, with only two girls chosen from each village of a bunch of different villages. This camp we want to have most of the girls from my school in Padema participate, and the camp will be in Padema. So the idea will be for the girls to reflect on their lives up until now, their expectations for their futures, their families' expectations if their futures, and then hopefully expose them to jobs and possibilities outside of the village. Generally, the idea is to encourage them to stay in school and not be enticed to go get married or have babies or anything. If girls are not in school, they are basically given away to marriage as young as 16 yrs old.

The heat is dying down thankfully, and the rains have started. It is an odd time of year because the weather is bizarre and there is a death or a marriage like every other day. Apparently this time of year is a big time for meningitis and other easily transmitted diseases - thereby explaining all the deaths. Also, it is a time when most people get paid for the cotton they had produced the prior year, so they can afford to marry off their children (generally to increase to workforce for field labor for THIS coming year)- therefby explaining all the marriages. So I am quickly becoming an expert in event protocol and benedictions in local languages ... for instance... May God give you happiness, May God give you a wife like a sheep (seriously people say that) or May God give him/her a peaceful rest

Other than that, I'm pretty much tapped out of news... except that I saw my first scorpion in my house!!! I killed him but good!! Oh yeah and those scorpion-carrying spiders are starting to come out at night again!!!! ugh... with the cool rains come the big bugs. yippee.