Today there was a big manifestation for the coup and everyone had to stay in their houses. That didn’t really affect me all that much, though, since I’m a ways out of town. There were pictures of general azziz (sp?) plastered all over everything and I saw military jeeps carrying material around, which you don’t usually see. I dunno what that was about. I wonder if anything ever came of that. There was also a pretty sweet lunar eclipse tonight. They made it very clear that it was moyyaani (not good) and called it lewru jaggaama, which means ‘moon taken’. People stayed out praying the entire time it was going on. Sometimes it’s hard to judge how far cultural sensitivity ought to go. I think I’m going to see if I can find all the future dates for solar and lunar eclipses in western africa. I dunno.
Language class- Huley, Khalidou, Jeneba, and Haroun
Haroun pointed out that we only have seven more nights here in the village. I hadn’t thought of it like that. That’s not a lot of time at all. Normally the Peace Corps would have a big dinner in every site to thank the families, but since our budget is looking a little (lot) red that’s not going to happen now. Too bad. Everyone else is getting their families gifts, but I already gave away all the things that I brought, so now I have to get some new gifts. I definitely should have brought more pictures with me. They really love pictures here. So I guess I can give them the ones that I have. I want to give the kids the soccer ball pump, but seeing as how quickly they destroyed the soccer ball (1 day), I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Maybe I’ll give it to their dad.

I feel like my body is tired all the time. For a while I thought I might have giardia but now it looks like I don’t, so that’s good. I need to get some of those flintstones vitamins from the pcmo I think. And lotion for my feet. And a net for when my tent bites the dust. There’re already some spots that could use patching.

Speaking of malaria, someone’s host mother wasn’t feeling so hot and the “doctor” came for about a week straight to give her intravenous glucose. Then she ended up in the hospital and it turns out that she has malaria. I don’t know if she’s still getting the glucose but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve seen a lot of interesting theories where medicine is concerned. Sometimes it’s hard to judge how far cultural sensitivity ought to go. The shitty thing is that we all have malaria medicine sitting in our net tents. I’m fairly certain that the medical officers would crucify me if I were to misplace it, though. And even if it was our choice to make, 30 minutes after we gave it to her there would be a line half a mile long outside of our cuudi.
That’s lots of words that can’t erase the fact that I have coartem, I don’t have malaria, and this lady is very sick.

Of course everything in the med kit they gave us says do not store over 30 deg. C. Sooo having is probably just a feel good thing anyway.