Minutae, Mostly

Mid-May

It seems like i've entered a new trend. When i injure myself i'll injure the corresponding body part on my other side within a few days. At first i cut up my thumb while chopping vegetables, then the next day my right thumb split open, entirely unreasonably. i didnt cut it or anything! ugh. so since band aids suck i had to wrap both thumbs first in band aids then in scotch tape. with the lack of opposable digits i was forced back an evolutionary step, and looked like a retard for a week or so. then a few days ago i fell and scraped the crap out of my knee, and ripped my tights, and today on teh way to work i fell again and scraped my other knee. at least i'm not a catholic, or i'd have a hard time praying in this state.

in other news, i'm now the proud owner of 7 pairs of crotchless panties. a pervert has entered my household and i can't seem to get rid of it. I have a mouse (or rat) the size of a small warthog with very refined tastes in which pieces/parts of my clothing it likes to eat. I've relocated both Vroomba (momma cat) and Parkinsons (or parker, the kitten) into my house at night, and the dumb things don't even wake up when the warthog stomps through the room, knocking stuff over and chewing into my tupperware. totally useless. and i leave for 5 days on friday, and i'm afraid it'll consolidate its ownership of my home even more while i'm gone.

Oh! and i suppose i can tell you all how i'm actually helping around here, sometimes. A week or so ago there was a "children's health day" a couple hours away from wher i live, put on by the unfortunately named ngo of notre dame alums: Touching Tiny Lives. 8 peace corps volunteers were there to help out. it was a bit of a nightmare, but ended up ok. there was a huge turn out, and the nurses from the hospital were 3 hours late, so the bo-me (women) were about to riot. the plan was to screen teh 0-5 yr olds for malnutrition while their mothers were being counseled/tested for HIV. what ended up happening was 3 of us went outside to do the screening there because HIVness was taking forever. so vic, klein, and i were little bubbles with our scales and MUAC strips inside of a crazy mob of pushing yelling, non english speaking women and babies. It looked worse than it was. I just let the bo-me fight it out and took whatever medical record book was closest, and then found the corresponding child. I was the lucky one with the lbs scale, so i had to convert each weight into kg in my head. my measurements were a bit general... 3 other pcvs were on crowd control and i'm really glad i wasn't them. i'll take a screaming baby over masses of incomprehending impatient old ladies any day. About 300 m'e and kids came and i think i screened between 70-100 yound ones, and only had to refer 15-20 of them to ttl for malnutrition. that's a pretty good ratio. i have no idea what teh HIV+ stats were because they went to get tested after they saw me. i'm kind of glad i don't know because i have a feeling it's a depressing statistic. anyone under 5 years old with HIV is incredibly sad. it just seems so doomed.

as requested, here are my plans for the near future:
2 more weeks of school, then 1 1/2 of exams, (i've gotten depressingly little done this quarter) then i'm migrating down to maseru for the winter around 13th June. I'll have regular internet from mid june to mid july, and also will be unable to receive mail sent to my thaba tseka address. the 3rd week of june and 1st of july i will be teaching science workshops for teh teachers college. the week between those i will be gallavanting somewhere. then the 2nd/3rd weeks of july will be NAMIBIA! woo! then i'll be back in the mountains around my birthday (30th july for those of you interested in sending me presents), and school starts up again around 6 august.


ways in which i've Made a Difference this week:
1. i taught one class the word 'farting' (it was necessary, they were calling it 'quinching' which is totally lame) and another class the verb 'to suck' (in the "man that sucks" context, rather than "science doesn't suck" or "i taunted the children by sucking on a lollipop and not sharing")

2. i finally convinced my students (at least to just agree with me) that ALL snakes have backbones, even though you can wrap them around your finger.