Wednesday, November 3, 2010

burnt fingers and losing cats.

So, I'm in Cotonou. I'm starting to get a little frustrated that I can't get any work started. I had a 10 day evacuation to Parakou because of an incident with a former postmate, and now I'm down in Cotonou because of stomach problems and I burned 2 1/2 of my fingers when the gas oven exploded and my hand was in it. I'm really lucky I didn't hurt myself worse. It hurts, but it's not that bad. Just a little purple.
Questions
Katie wanted to know what kind of house you live in. We saw some people living in the city who lived in apartment buildings and some who lived in grass and mud huts with dirt floors. So we were wondering what your home in Kalale was like.
Peace Corps has a rule that we have to have at least tin on the roofs and cement on the walls and floor, so that's what I have. There are definately (35%?) people with mud huts and dirt floors in my town though. I'm in the "big town" in my area, so if you go outside of Kalale you'd find a much higher percentage.

becca, are there many people there who subsist off the land i.e hunters-fishermen-craftsmen- farmers . i know there are nomadic cattle herding people.just wondering.
I would say that most people here live 50% off of what they grow and do and 50% off of stuff they steal from Nigeria. They consider Nigerians horrible and dangerous, but if the boarders closed for one day, this country would not work. They use everything here, nothing is wasted... but they don't use it to the fullest extent. Like the idea of crop rotation is absolutely unheard of. They grow the same crops every season and then it takes all the nutrients out of the soil. That kind of thing.

i'm on my way to winning the company football pool just 5 more games to go packers lost a squeaker in o.t. they are 3and 3 for the season.and have many injuries al harris- clay mathews- nick barnett-nick collins-jermicheal findley ect but all there losses have been very close and none of these guys are season ending.maybe they will come back fresh.
NICE! :)
Those 2 OT losses hurt me bad. I'm glad we had two wins following.

Do they have "medicine men" in every village.Anyone that acts like the village nurse and helps deliver babaies? What if someone breaks a leg,do they get rushed anywhere like we rush to the hospital?
This is a great question. There ARE "traditional healers" and it's just known that you have to do the traditional healing first for any type of sickness, wait 2-3 weeks, THEN seek professional care. Most plants' leaves are used for a tea for some type of sickness or another.
For babies, as exucation spreads less women are having them at home and more are using the sage-femmes (midwives) at the health centers. Unfortunately most of these women dont have any actual medical training and the health centers are full of disease and dirt.
Same with the hospitals. They're full of disease and people just sitting/dying on the floors. There aren't enough beds. I've seen a broken leg handled with someone snapping it back into what looked like it's place and a homemade brace to keep it straight.
(Peace Corps would go to the capital and med-evac-ed to South Africa is it was something they didn't feel confident fixing here.)



Oh - I forgot to tell you guys. I got rid of Dave (the cat, not the person). He was too much of a bother, I travel a lot and I couldn't go a night without him pooping on my bed. It just didn't work out. Near me is a 25yr old woman with a baby, a husband, and a very old mother she takes care of -- the woman is also starting highschool and working hard to pay for that. She expressed that they have a mouse problem, so a passed little Dave on. They call him "mreow mreow" because he's so loud.