Tuesday, November 29, 2005 Whew, Thanksgiving is finally over. It was a good time, but it's caused me to be more than delinquent in updating. I've been really busy, and am finally pretty well installed in my new office. I found a way to extract a working JRE from a Gallery Remote install I had lying around. That made me happy, because it was proving to be more than a pain in the ass to actually download a Java installer.

Really though, I'd just like to tell a few stories.

First, I'd like to submit to the jury evidence that I can now die and be considered to have been a successful man. Why this sudden conclusing you ask? Well, many have pondered exactly what makes a man what he is, but I would say that there are indeed a few inarguable tasks that, when completed, undoubtedly prove your worth. For example, flatulence so vile it causes someone to vomit would be sufficient proof of merit. Yet not so many cases are clear cut; some would argue the consumption of massive quantities of alcohol might relieve any doubt, but I myself am not convinced. I would like to posit though that my particular experience might indeed aleviate any lingering doubts about my manly worth. How you might ask? Well my friends, I am proud to say that I peed on a mosquito. Yes, it's true. Incredible, but true nevertheless. Being a constant source of standing water, mosquitos have been known to hang out in my toilet bowl from time to time. This particular occasion was one such time, and upon lifting the seat and beginning my purge a malaria ridden mosquito flew up. While our antimalarials are excellent, I knew (from my excellent PC medical training) that avoiding mosquito bites ought to be avoided. How though could I ward off this foul, parasite ridden beast? My hands were, naturally, full at the time so I did as the Peace Corps might want and used the resources available to me. My aim was true and the beast was felled in a warm stream of salts, ammonia and water. That's one point for humans!

More seriously though, for Lisa's birthday I thought it might be fun to go down and see her. Naturally that wouldn't be enough for me, so I thought I'd take my bike. By that I mean ride my bike... for 55K. Whew, that's a long ride! Actually, I was surprised at how it wasn't really as long as I thought it would be. I left before sunrise at about 6am, and got to Lisa's at about 9:15. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. It was totally fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can go. I plan at some point in visiting all my surrounding volunteers, and hope to someday make a 2 day trip as far down south (and en brousse) as Carrie. Actually, there are volunteers here that have in the works an awesome 2 week (?) bike ride in the north where we'll stop in each town and do AIDS education. I'm 100% planning on going, it should be a blast.

So after a day of rest at Lisa's (and blueberry yogurt!) we taxied back up to Parakou to begin the insanity. Oh and insanity it was. We continued our preparations of desserts and things, although truthfully I was a bit more occupied with the prepration for the dinner which occured on Thanksgiving day. Earlier in the week a volunteer received a shipment of hot sauce packets (Which was awesome! Send me some Taco Bell lovin'!), which inspired the conversation that we ought to do another Mexican night. That means cooking refried beans, making tortillas, salsa, meat, and a last minute Spanishy rice (which turned out pretty badly IMO... maybe I should have let wiser heads take charge in that one). It was delicious, and I'm really going to start making tortillas more often. They are actually really easy, and man they are delicious.

Friday started all too early, as we decided that rather than cooking a turkey a day early and storing it... we'd do both birds at the same time. One in the oven, and one in a pit. So, we had to get charcoal, start the charcoal (which is hard here... not so much lighter fluid and we're short on those nifty charcoal starters) prepare the bird and toss it in. Actually, as far as interaction goes it was some of the easier cooking. Katherine did all the research, and it really paid off. The pit turkey turned out amazing, the meat literally was falling off the bone. Actually, everything was amazing. It was an amazing thing to see come together, everyone helped out a ton; if not with cooking with cleaning out an area, setting things up, running errands, fronting 30.000 CFA for beer (Thanks Carrie!). I'm truly amazed at how smoothly things went.

Then of course Marchés Kilombo and Tchaketi-bahm (okay, I have no idea how to spell the last one... I can't even say it right yet... but in my defense there are about 20 different pronunciations for it here). Tchukin' is still pretty much the coolest thing in the world. I even got elected Mayor of Kilombo on Sunday. I really can't say enough about how cool and fun these markets are, so I'll just leave it.

It's now Monday, and I'm 100% broke. Unfortunately true, but we get paid soon. Ironically this won't be posted until after I get paid (as I don't have enough money to go to the cyber), but I'll certainly be eating a lot of rice and things that can be made with flour in the next day or so. Should be fun!