Some other updates

• My COS date is December 29 , 2009 !!
• Thank you to everyone who has sent packages , letters, etc.   While I would never tell you NOT to send anything, keep my COS date in mind .   The things that I will continue to need are batteries and eating stuff, but everything else (craft items etc)  I will not be requesting more of.    (I do not need any more Crystal Lite!)  However if you see something that would start to make great goodbye gifts for ppl in my village, let me know.  That is mainly what I’m going to be looking for .  In particular,  I was thinking some nice goodbye presents would be photos, so if anyone wants to volunteer to print off photos (that I would have to designate ahead of time) let me know.  I would pay you back, of course.  :-)  In particular, the kids from the Easter play keep on asking for the group photo I took of them ! Whoops   I was also thinking a nice present for Justine and Simone would be making a photo book of all the photos of us together over the two years…    Anyway again, THANK YOU for all the packages and gifts !!!
• Update on Justine :  THANK YOU guys so much for helping me out with money for Justine’s medical visits.  We went to the hospital and got all the tests / analyses done with this money.   The results are that yes, a surgery is necessary to remove the fibromes.  She will never have children if she does not have this surgery.  This past week, she began to suffer from debilitating cramps, that continued even after she was done menstruating, that basically knocked her bedridden .  The only thing that would control the pain was the Vicodin left over from my January surgery that I ended up giving to her.  The cramps are better now.   She went to a clinic in village but they couldn’t help her much since their pain medication is not as strong;  they said that this complication is a result of the fibromes and will never be healed unless she has the surgery.   The surgery will cost about 150,000 CFA, or USA$300.   That is a little under Simon’s annual salary.  I think Simon could find about 50,000 which leaves 100,000 ($200) to find.  Hopefully I will be able to budget well enough that I can contribute something to this need by the time I leave.  :-(
• I thought I was getting replaced, but the person who was supposed to replace me, ET’d.   SO now, all the work I was doing to set up good relationships with directors/teachers in my schools, etc., ever since the beginning of the school year, will have been a waste!   It’s extremely disappointing and somewhat frustrating.   Also, I had been hoping to sell the items in my house to the replacement and give this money to Justine, so now I’ve lost a source of income so to speak.

Introducing

Meet Zidane  and Meninha, my two Mistakes as I’ve christened them.

Meninha and Zidane

Zidane is the black male and Meninha is the beige female.

Zidane was an impulse buy for which I blame Justine entirely ; she saw me playing with him and said “ I had no idea you liked puppies this much, just go ahead and buy him.”  So I did.  But I left him with the owner for a week cause I was going to be in Lome for Take Our Daughters to Work Week.   Lo and behold, on my return, there were TWO puppies at my house.   I was sitting on my porch cradling my head in my hands, whimpering “Two dogs?  Two dogs?  I cannot have two dogs.”   Justine explained that Zidane’s owner had refused to give her the correct amount of change back so she took the second dog as collateral, so to speak, in order to guarantee her money.   “But now,” she said, looking at me hopefully, “we can’t separate them.  They’ll cry too much.  They should stay together.”   “Justine.  We. Cannot. Have. Two. Dogs.  One was a terrible enough mistake as it was.  I’m leaving in three months.”

But, being a sucker, both dogs have stayed and are wreaking havoc on my life….  Justine’s family has been very cooperative, letting me bring them over to Justine’s workshop if I want to hang out … Adjo thinks they are living dolls and carries them around like babies….

A bunch more photos of the pups can be found at the normal site, as well as another album of photos from Take Our Daughters to Work Week (sept 28 – oct 2)