Realization

So I made it up to Boke today, having accomplished not much else, but on the walk up to the Volunteer house with Jarrad, he said "you know...there's a lot of stuff we take for granted now that would have been way too much to handle 6 months ago". Here's a summary of the day and the reasons for this comment:

Tiffany, Jarrad and I left Conakry this morning, I got a bean sandwhich from the girl on the corner, and didn't even bother spitting out the pin bones that were in with the fish, nor did I consider the potential health risk of eating street food (I do it almost daily). We walked a while until we got a taxi to take us to Madina, the big market where we usually catch a Boke-bound taxi. Our driver told us Bambento was closer and better for Boke cars, and not only did I know where he was referring to, I realized he was right and thanked him for letting us know.

At the taxi gare in Bambento, we were delayed while we waited for our car to fill up, so Jarrad and I split a plate of atteke (grated and fermented manioc couscous-type dish) with fish and aloco (fried plantains) when we realized a lady next to us was selling some. After a while a little girl came over to stare at us and we all smiled and waved at her. I asked her her name in Susu and she didn't seem to get it, Jarrad asked her in Pulaar and she didn't respond with her name but she started greeting us in a mixture of Pulaar and French. After a while she came and sat with between us and we chatted with her (mostly "bonjour" and "ca va bien?" as her vocab wasn't huge...she was probably 2). We played with her by taking turns poking her when she covered her eyes and then pointing at each other in a "he/she did it" sorta way. At one point she took her sweater off and put it around her waist then handed me the ends so I could tie it for her, at another point she was hanging off Jarrad's neck...she was very cute.

We got out car out of Conakry and at the final Conakry checkpoint the soldiers who check IDs didn't approve of our Peace Corps IDs, and made us get out of the car and asked to see our passports. This, again, we simply handled by telling him who we were, what we were doing, explaining that we didn't need passports to leave Conakry and that the ID he had in his hand was good enough. When he didn't believe this we called the Safety and Security guy from Peace Corps and he straightened the soldier out and we were on our way.

The trip was uneventful, my leg fell asleep and I was really sweaty by the time I got to Boke, but it was fine. In the market I had Jarrad stand guard as I took more money out of my bag (I had forgotten my wallet in a pair of pants that I had packed). We went into the market on our way back to the volunteer house, we got bissap and while I was paying I noticed 4 or 5 ladies walking with big ceramic pots on their heads*. I flagged one down and bought one from her speaking exclusively Susu to ask the price and so on, I'd been trying to get one of these for months! We then walked the 2k up the hill to the volutneer house, I was carrying my backpack, my duffel bag, and a big ceramic pot.

Near the top of the hill one of the ladies who lives near the Peace Corps compound in Boke complimented my pot in Susu and we had an exchange that went something like this:

-Your pot, it's pretty. (I poti, a tofan.)
-Thank you (I nu wali)
(greeting - this is mostly "how are you, how is your family, etc")
-Where is your home? (I xoni na minden?) (I'm used to being asked "Where are you from?" (I kelife minden) so this question threw me for a second, but then I realized what she had asked and said....)
-My home is in Bintimodia. I'm Bintimodian. (N xoni na Bintimodia. Bintimodia ka na n na)
-Oh, is Bintimodia where you work? (Awa, Bintimodia I walima na?)
-Yes, I'm a teacher there, I work with Peace Corps (Iyo, xaranderaba na n na, n walima na Corps de la paix)
-Oh, ok (awa)
-I'm your neighbor (I doxobore na n na) (I recently learned the work for neighbor and was excited to try it out)
-Yes you are, well, goodbye (Iyo, awa, O'oo)
-Ok, see you tomorrow. (awa, O'oo, won tina)
-ok, see you in the morning (awa, won gesege)

After this Jarrad turned to me and said "wow, that was a long conversation!" and I agreed. He complimented me on my Susu, since he had no idea I spoke so much of it (everyone in Mamou speaks Pulaar, so my Susu was useless there). We then had the conversation about things that would have overwhelmed us 6 months ago. We walked to the woman who is friends with Jarrad and Astrid - the one Astid was visiting when she found my kitten. I met her, and she told us to come back later in the evening and she would give us gingam with piment (sugary ginger drink with chili pepper...I'm excited as I love it). I'm going to head over there with Jarrad now, and continue on into town for dinner.

O'oo.

*In villages, people use big unglazed ceramic pots as a refrigerator system. You fill the pot with water and stick a cover on it. Since it's porous it allows evaporation and the evaporation cools the whole thing down like 10-20 degrees so you actually get cold water. It works especially well in the dry season, which we're in now. I'm going to use it to keep my eggs, and maybe some butter cold, also I can drink the cold water when I'm feeling overheated (hot season is coming up...)

IST Summary

Alright, so I'm back in Conakry for a night, and will be continuing on to Boké, and possibly Bintimodia tomorrow. I have so much to say and only so much time and patience to dedicate to this, so here goes a general summary of the past weel.

I left Conakry with a Peace Corps car and mostly just tried to sleep on the way up. A lot of us crammed in, so it was actually about as comfortable as a bush-taxi except it was free, had A/C, and I could speak in English instead of French/Susu.

Upon arriving in Mamou I was quickly reunited with all my friends from pre-service training (PST), some of whom I hadn't seen since we finished training in September. As is usual in these instances, there was some drinking and partying, but for the most part everyone was just happy to see each other again, compare stories, share frustrations, laugh and simply enjoy the fact that we were finally talking to people who really understood what we'd been going through and who are going through some of the same themselves.

The training sessions for this were a bit of a mixed bag. One session on how to raise funds for a project that needs money (like, say, a library...) via a couple of different grant applications that work through Peace Corps. I don't expect I'll need to use this since most of what needs to happen with the library doesn't need money yet, but more on that later. Another session focused on how to deal with finding a secondary project and how to decide if it's worth doing (based on community interest, overall benefits, costs, etc). We had a few technical (chemistry ed) sessions with Mendeya (a Guinean chemistry teacher in Conakry who was our trainer in Forecariah) which were sort of boring in themselves, but getting to chat with Mendeya again was pretty cool. We told him about what we needed to get (a few chemical supplies that we never got like CuSO4, BBT, HCl, pH paper, etc) and he told me where in Conakry they could be found and that he would do his best to get them for us when he returned to Conakry (more on this later....).

We had a few other sessions including a medical one where I got 2 more vaccines (I've lost the total vaccine count at this point) and then had a few language classes on Thursday (I took a Pulaar class....which was sorta helpful except Pulaar is freaking hard and all I really learned was how to say a few phrases mostly of the "good morning"variety).

Outside of the official trainings, I had a long discussion with my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) who is in charge of all Education stuff of Peace Corps Guinea, and I explained what had been going on between my "school official"and myself with regards to my being shot down for secondary projects, and felt pressured to do things his way despite the fact that I disagreed with him. After I got all the recent frustratons off my chest we talked about the purpose of secondary projects (to benefit the community at large, and not just one sub-set), my role in secondary project planning (absolute power...basically. My "school official"has power over me when it comes to my teaching, but he can't tell me to do anything I don't want to regarding secondary projects, though it is my responsibility to listen to the community - my plan is to listen to the entire community (or at least it's figureheads) and not just the leader of the school), and basically I explained all that I had been trying to do against my "school official"'s approval. Added to this was the fact that I eat at his house twice a day (his family is also my host family) and so disagreements in the business end of things makes the whole experience complicated.

Anyway, my supervisor is going to call my "school official"to politely put him in his place and let him know that I have the power to do whatever I want with the library - including making it open to the community, and also including not doing anything and focusing my effors elsewhere if I feel my views aren't being taken into consideration. I'm hoping this will allow me to work on the library project without needing to worry about or seek his approval. I'm going to try to walk around and talk to the figureheads I'm interested in getting involved and see what they think - not promise anything - and perhaps get my own committee together and figure something out for a first meeting of the minds on this project. I feel that if I can get the sous-prefet to approve of my community library (as opposed to a school one), then I'm going to be able to continue with the project with less pressure from the school to make it exclusive.

As far as money goes - I don't think any is necessary for the time being. All this time I've been getting hounded to get more books and get money for more books, but we HAVE books. Granted, we are lacking in certain important areas such as school books, easy french magazines, etc - but the first priority really is to get the library organized and started on cataloguing before I will need to worry about getting additional materials. Plus, I was told by a higher up in the Guinean education district in Mamou (a man involved in Chemistry education using local materials) that I could probably request free school books for the library through the DPE of Boké (the American equivalent of a State Board of Education, kinda). I'm not fully convinced of this, but it's worth a shot before I start looking to buy books.

As far as "petty" material expenses that will pop up (for example, the stamp that will read "Bibliotheque Communitaire de la CRD de Bintimodia" or something along those lines). I know for a fact that my "school official" received $100 from someone who said "This is for the library, Federico should decide what it should be spent on" pretty much word for word. This will more than cover the level of expenses I foresee in the organizing and cataloguing of the library. I'm skeptical that this money still exists as its been 4 months since it was donated, but I have a feeling that mentioning this money will quiet future pestering for money. After all, if the money was simply pocketed or used to buy a motorcycle what's the point in me bringing in more before it needs to be used? Ou bien??

Anyway, in short I got confirmation from my APCD and my fellow volunteers that I have every right to demand more independence and more support from the adminstration and that ultimately my decisions to work on projects like the library, the environmental club, or anything else are mine to make and generally I need to stop being a pushover in the name of integration and cultural adaptation. Basically, I'm going to need to be the "my way or the highway" ugly american once in a while if I expect anything to get accomplished. Hope it works...

In other news, I'm also going to help my friend Marg with a Teacher's Conference that she's organizing. This would be a 3 day conference in Mamou where Volunteers would bring teachers from their villages who are interested in getting trained in various teaching techniques such as critical thinking development, alternative techniques, incorporating experiments, gender equality, etc. I'm going to help put together the session for chemistry teachers on how to use locally available materials to do demonstrations in class (example: cut open a D cell battery, use the zinc external case as an easily oxidized metal in redox demonstrations, use the graphite electrode running down the middle in a set up for hydrolysis or for copper plating using CuSO4 (which will be provided to them), get a magnet out of a broken radio speaker and use it to separate iron fillings from sand to explain ferromagnetism, etc).

On a related note, I'd been trying to get CuSO4 and BBT (bromothymol blue - a pH indicator) to use in my class for some time, and finally I got information on where in Conakry it can be found (not surprisingly in Madina, the huge market downtown, specifically at a lab near a bridge there). So on my way in from Mamou, I got out of the Peace Corps car at an intersection and caught a Madina-bound taxi. I got dropped off in the right general region and asked a few people where exactly the building was. I found it and walked in, past a napping guard, and up some stairs. I found an open lab door and knocked as I walked in and greeted the surprised Susu woman who appeared to be on the verge of napping herself (it was mid-day, it's not uncommon). After I explained who I was and why I was there I met a "Doctor" who told me he could get me the materials I was looking for the following morning since the person in charge had gone home already. We exchanged information (I mostly wanted to have a contact within this lab) and I went to the compound.

About an hour later, Mendeya called my phone and told me he was in the office and had something for me, it turns out while I was sneaking into labs he was talking to his buddies at the University of Conakry and had managed to get 4 containers (the kind 35mm film comes in) of CuSO4, one for each of the Chem volunteers, and also about a gram of BBT for each of us. He asked if I would be in Conakry tomorrow and when I said I was leaving in the morning he said "ok, well, I'll be back in a few hours then" and left. He came back in a few hours with a booklet written by some Conakry chemistry teacher which is basically a 30 page book of notes and practice problems to prepare 10th grade students for the chemistry portion of the Brevet exam (high school entrance). He told me to make photocopies of it and send it out to the others on the mail run, then leave it with my APCD. It's amazing how dedicated he is, and how much he went out of his way to get us the materials we semi-casually requested from him a couple of days earlier in Mamou. I'm really looking forward to working with him this summer to train the new Chemistry volunteers.

Alright, time to get going, until next time.

Last Post before IST

So, Conakry has been nice. I haven't been good about leaving the compound, but I've had a good time with people here. We did manage to go downtown and get food at Le Damier (super fancy restaurant where the amazing buffet cost $24 (most meals on the street cost less than a dollar), most meals in a regular restaurant cost about $5)). I ate way too much of everything (highlights included roast capon (fancy chicken), plantain chicken stew, crepe with chocolate sauce, mango/papaya/lime juice, capuccino with chocolate shavings, lots of small meat/vegetable/cheese filled pastries, a mini creme brulé, etc. We showed up early, brought magazines, and sat and chatted between plates for the 4 hours the buffet was open. It was a great experience, even if it cost 2/3 as much as my cell phone...plus it's not like I'll be eating any of that again until maybe the summer when we are thinking of organizing another trip to this place around the 4th of July when we're all together again.

Anyway, other than this, I've seen "The Dark Knight" (someone brought the DVD back from the states after going home for Christmas...great movie), along with like 4 other movies, and generally enjoyed my time here in Conakry. I went to the leb store and bought tahini so I can make tahini dressing to take over to the Shwarma guy for him to use in place of mayo next time I eat there...that will make a big difference, I also got some spices to take back to Bintimodia since the herbs and spices in Kamsar are terrible and expensive.

I've managed to get a lot of internet stuff accomplished, and even managed to upload a video to Facebook (and another one is in the works right now) along with about 60 new photos. I'll be leaving for Mamou in the morning tomorrow and probably won't use the internet much there since I've gotten so much done here in Conakry. I will hopefully post again next weekend from Conakry before heading back up to Bintimodia.

From Conakry before going to IST

So once again, I write from Conakry, only this time the country isn't in crisis or striking, so I can actually get out and do stuff. So far I've made a quick trip to the market to get dinner, and watched a couple of movies in the house. I'll make another - more thorough - trip to the market later today, and tomorrow I'm going "en ville" (downtown) to get food from the all you can eat fancy brunch place that's super expensive because everything is imported (but where you can get a real espresso, good fruit juices, quiche, etc) assuming they're open. If not, I'll probably get Chinese food from the place run by ex-pat Chinese people mainly for ex-pat Chinese people (the menu is in chinese and nobody there speaks very good French, so we usually need to order via sign language (sizzling beef is "boeuf SSSZZZSSZZZZSZZ" with both hands making a fire motion with the fingers)).

Otherwise, I plan on spending my time hanging out with my friends here at the house, using the internet to upload pictures and gmail-chat with friends, and hopefully cooking something for myself at some point (so far I've just been buying pre-made street food, shwarma's mostly -though, depending on who I buy it from it tastes like I'm eating a carne asada taco, a salad wrap with french fries and a little beef, or a barbeque beef wrap, not one of them tastes like a real shwarma).

I'm here in Conakry as an extended stop-over period before going to Mamou for IST (in-service training). My entire training group (minus the one guy who quit) are going to get together for a week of training at the conference compound there. This means we'll be living dorm-style 3 to a room, getting meals and tea breaks on a schedule from the compound's kitchen (hard boiled eggs, bread and margarine for breakfast, rice and sauce for lunch and usually dinner (though sometimes they make something like chicken with fries....which is great)). It will be nice to see everyone again, and to get a better quality of rice and sauce given to me twice a day, however I think I'll definitely be ready to get back to my house after this week of having my day scheduled out for me.

As far as life in Bintimodia goes, things have been ok. Teaching is a bit frustrating, but nothing too bad. I was told by my vice principal that grades are due on February 2nd (the day I get back from Mamou), he told me this the morning I was leaving for over a week...so that's not going to happen, though I'm sure I won't be the only one to have fallen behind. Our biology teacher got a job with a different school and quit mid-year, so now there's no biology classes. My principal is looking to hire someone buy I'm tempted to offer to teach it at least to 10th grade - since they have a large high-school entrance exam coming up with a biology section - if he doesn't have someone by the time I get back. However, I'm going to talk to my friend Jarrad about this since he's been teaching biology at his school along with chemistry since his school was in the same situaton as me when the school year started.

I left Barté with my principal again since things went well last time, but as soon as I dropped him off, he followed me back to the house, then fought when I was taking him back. He eventually escaped and ran across the street to the Credit Rural (some sort of government bank-like loan institution, I think, there's one in most villages) where his best friend Fodé Moussa works (an older guy who I speak with in Susu (he doesn't speak French) and who my cat loves more than me). I'll probably just ask him to look after him next time I need to leave the village since I don't think he'd mind, I just don't have the communication skills in Susu to get this request across.

Anyway, I think I'll post again before leaving on Sunday, so until then...

Frustrations, Successes, and Exploding Batteries

Alright, so it’s been a while since my last entry, partly due to me not going to Kamsar, and partly due to the internet being down when I do make it in. (At least they brought the price down to 5,000 from 6,000 since gasoline is now cheaper (they run off generators when the power goes out). Because of the inconsistent electricity, my battery charger just made a loud popping noise and started smoking (sounded like a blown transistor if my Analytical Chem electronics lab experience served me well), luckily I have a backup.

Anyway, the past two weeks have been a mixed bag of sorts, I got strep throat, killed two mice, saw an ENORMOUS rat that my cat just sorta followed in a “what’s this?” sort of way as it ambled into my latrine, yelled at and walked out on one of my classes (the English lesson for the day was “you’re all wasting my f**king time!” – it was a chemistry class), had a power struggle with one of my students (he wouldn’t stop talking in class, so I kicked him out, and he just sat there and stared at me defiantly until he realized I wasn’t kidding around when I grabbed his notebook and threw it out the window (I’m pretty sure he was older than me, and was experimenting with the “petit” system where he’s higher on the food chain than me)), had another conversation with “a school official” who keeps trying to wedge me out of any decision making in the library project and insists on calling the shots while having me do all the work (I want it to be a community library so we can extend it to all of Bintimodia and have the community take an interest in it which might help preserve it in the long-term – he insists it should be the school’s library and wouldn’t even hear my thoughts about getting important community figureheads (the head of the Women’s group, etc) involved in the committee, which currently consists of the school admin and one teacher (oh yeah, and me, I guess, though I’m starting to wonder if I’m just the token American whose job it is to find books and money, organize the entire system, and let the big boys call the shots))).

On the upside, I’ve started getting out to the neighboring communities more with one of my better friends, going for walks in the afternoons and stopping by with people to chat, etc (every time I go out I end up coming home with an armful of “cadeaux” oranges (‘tis the season), and on one memorable occasion two of the best grapefruits I’ve ever had). I’ve made more friends in the village, and my cat and I are coming to an understanding about what he should and shouldn’t do (though his new little game is running to Guineans during prayer time - when they’re kneeling and bowing to Mecca - and try to get them to play…it’s not as cute after the first few times. I got some awesome cargo shorts commissioned (I just had to move the button over by an inch or so since they were a bit too large), and I finally got my bamboo closet/wardrobe/shelf thing for my room, though getting it was an adventure.

I commissioned it after my last entry, finding the bamboo guy on my bike home. After some bargaining I got him to lower the price to 200,000 (I wanted it cheaper, say 150,000, but I’m always hesitant to bargain too much with someone who hasn’t made the item yet, so it doesn’t turn out to be crap later). We agreed that it’d be ready the following Saturday, so I showed up Sunday morning fully expecting it to be almost ready but not quite, I wasn’t disappointed. I told him to reinforce one part of it (the bar I intend to use as a “closet”) and that I’d be back in 6 hours to get it. I went about my business as usual, then went back to find it finished. I told the guy I’d be back with a car soon and walked over (about ½ mile) to the taxi area to find a car headed to Bintimodia. I expected to pay about 6,000 tops for this trip (a seat in a Bintimodia bound car is usually 4,000 – I figured tack on 2,000 for the large baggage). The first guy I talked to listened paitently, and say “ok, 100,000”. Now, since “cent-mille” and “cinq-mille” sound so similar, I knew I must have misheard him. “5,000?” I asked, and he said “no, 100,000”. About an hour of bargaining, yelling, pleading, name-calling, laughing and running around to most of the cars in the area later, I agreed to pay someone the last 14,000 left in my wallet (literally the last of the money I had), in exchange he’d meet me over by the road near the bamboo guy whenever the car filled up with people (anywhere from 15 minutes to….???). I walked back paid the bamboo guy, had a guy help me carry the thing (about the size of a smallish entertainment center) to the side of the road. I took out my book and read for about 90 minutes, talked to my mom for a while, and then the car showed up (I was a bit worried since I had no money, a big entertainment center, nowhere in Kamsar I could sleep and the sun was setting, but I just kept my faith that someone would get me eventually). We got it back to my village though, and it’s made a big difference as far as organization goes. Now I just need to buy and/or commission some hangers.

The new training group did their site visit, but since none of them are that close to Boké they didn’t go and do a regional capital visit like I did back in August. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever meet them (maybe 4th of July?). I’m looking forward to going to In-Service Training for a week in Mamou since I’ll get to see all my training group again and spend a week with them catching up on the last 3 months of our lives. I’ll also finally be able to pin down the people I need to ask about getting materials for the library project, and figure out if there’s a more diplomatic way of convincing my “school official” to stop treating me like a child.

Anyway, there’s probably tons more to say, but nothing is coming to mind and I should wrap things up here anyway, until next time.

Happy New Year

Alright, so since my last post, I’ve left Conakry along with my fellow northern Basse Côters and went to Boké in hopes of sorting out my furniture business (back in September, I commissioned 2 shelves and a table through a Guinean friend of mine with a wood guy in Boké (I was told there were no good wood workers in my village). Since then it’s been one problem after the other, and to make a long story short, I got my bookshelves in November, and am still waiting for the table, which has been sitting in one storage place or another for a while now). I managed to talk my friend into moving the table up to the regional house so that my regional coordinator can bring it on the next mail run (this next week?) and am crossing my fingers. I also finally purchased a mortar and pestle so I can grind my own pepper, cinnamon, etc (and make pesto, I planted my basil seeds yesterday in an old soup can, but like 30 minutes ago I found local basil in the Kamsar market (I think I both amused and frightened the market lady when I was like “A munse???? Basilic na a ra??? Iyo?! Ehhh allah!”)). I tried to ask if it was always there, but I don’t entirely believe her. On Tuesday when I was passing through Kamsar on my way home I found green beans, bell peppers and parsley with one of the vendors (all of which probably came from Conakry) and I asked if she had it everyday, she said yes but she didn’t have it today when I went back….she says she always has it on Tuesdays…my busiest teaching day, dammit. But anyway, it’s nice to get more and more familiar with all the market ladies in a market as big as Kamsar’s, and to know that at least some of the time I can find good herbs and vegetables if I’m lucky and persistent (I promised the bell pepper lady that if she saves me a couple I will buy them next Thursday).

Another market accomplishment was finally picking a tailor (semi-randomly) and trying him out on some “comme ça” cargo shorts. I bought some local fabric, gave him my favorite pair of khaki shorts and told him to make a copy of them. He charged more than I thought was fair (15,000 GNF = $3), but hopefully that means he will do a good job. If he does a decent job I’ll finally make my leppi (an expensive indigo dyed fabric from the Fouta, which I bought in September while in Mamou) into the cargo pants I planned for them initially (I’ve been hesitant to trust just anybody with the fabric since it’s very hard to find here, and even where it’s common it’s 3 times as expensive as the standard “wax” fabric).

Anyway, so I’ve been in my village since Tuesday, and things have been good. On New Year’s Eve, my host family killed a chicken for dinner (the second time I’ve had chicken at their house in 3 months or so). I got parts of the same chicken for both meals of the next day, and I realized something about my standards that has changed. I was excited and happy to eat chicken that I knew had been dead for like 36 hours, and I knew had been kept at roughly the temperature of an incubator since nobody in my village has a fridge. Yet, I was still happy about it. How will I ever take that whole “thaw chicken in the fridge” business seriously after living here? And I’m pretty sure that’s just the tip of a large iceberg (I’ve also completely stopped caring about bedbugs. To quote from a Steinbeck book I read recently “After they got used to the taste of him, and he grew accustomed to their bites, they got along peacefully”).

Anyway, after dinner on New Years Eve, I went home and read by my kerosene lamp (my headlamp is somewhere in the Conakry house…I hope) until about 11. I then went outside and was shepherded into the nightclub (which on Monday mornings is the market, and the rest of the time is an abandoned shell of a building with no roof) by my best friend (an elementary school teacher) who spotted me immediately and had me accompany him and his girlfriend (one of my 10th grade students) to the bôite. I watched people dance for a while, then some of my students got me up and dancing as well. The music was a mix of reggeaton, bollywood, local African music (I found out that the “yi xili di” song is from Cape Verde), etc. At midnight, nobody seemed to notice or care that it was officially 2009, so I said “Happy New Year” to myself and kept dancing. I took a break to make a phone call, and then stayed until like 2am. It’s not a beach in Sierra Leone, but it’ll do.

Otherwise, it’s been a lot of the same old. My kitten is bigger, and he’s more adventurous with exploring now (he ventures as far as the hospital now, even while unsupervised). I’ve decided he’s probably big enough to maybe not get picked off by an eagle, so I’m less nervous about him wandering out of where I can keep an eye on him. I need to figure out a way to get him fish on a regular basis though, I could walk to the bridge in the morning and buy it from the fishermen like all the village women do, but I’m lazy and rarely awake much less properly dressed to walk outside that early in the day. I’m tempted to ask my host mom to just buy a couple extra fish and I’ll pay her for them, but haven’t yet.

Alright, well, I think that’s good for now, I’m gonna go swim and maybe treat myself to a fancy meal at the restaurant in honor of the New Year, then bike back home.