No turkey for me!!! I hope everyone had a good Holiday. Here's what's been going on over the last few days:

07/08/2006
Well today has been an extremely interesting day. We have spent the last few days preparing for our first workshop, which is taking place today and tomorrow. It is a workshop on HIV and family planning for members of the community and from some surrounding rural areas. I actually got to start out the workshop and taught for half the morning, as well as part of the afternoon. I was in charge of teaching about basic HIV/AIDS realted issues, as well as methods of transmission. I also did an activity on gender roles and the relation to HIV and a section on hoe FGM relates to HIV. I actually really enjoyed myself. We had an audience of about 20, half men, and half women. People are extremely intelligent and really want to be educated. Unfortunately the system is just not in place for the average person to become knowledgeable, even though HIV is such a huge issue here. WE had discussions about a lot of myths that are present, some of which I have heard before and others that I haven’t. For example, it is very common to believe that you can get HIV from animals, particularly animal urine; I was expecting to hear that. Then someone told me that they have heard you cannot get HIV past 10pm. I don’t even know how that could have started. There are so many beliefs that we would think are bizarre. I don’t want it to reflect poorly on the people here as they are generally very intelligent and eager to learn. It just highlights the extreme need for programs like this.
My First Aid training actually came in handy today. One of the boys who lives across the street, Sammy, hurt his ankle really badly and one of the other boys was carrying him home at the same time we were headed back. Since we have an abundance of medical supplies here (thanks YCI) I took care of bandaging him up and making sure he was taken care of as he was in shock. Not a severe injury or anything, but I feel really bad for the kid. I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled to be crying in front of girls either.
So tonight is Saturday night and we’ll probably just chill here and play with the kids until it gets dark. I feel like I’m adapting better and better every day. There are certain things that will never be quite right though. If someone asks what personal belongings we would want on a desert island, it would be easy to come up with all sorts of things that seem important. I know feel quite certain that what I would really want is a flushing toilet, a comfortable mattress and drinkable water. That’s it. You can get used to a latrine, but you will never really love it.

08/10/2006:
Today was day 2 of our workshop. We covered family planning issues, which was definitely an experience. I think the hardest part is definitely the translation issues. We had an expert come in from the family guidance centre here. He would present certain topics to the group, and then give us an English translation of what he said. He of course wasn’t translating word for word, so it was hard for us to tell exactly what he was saying. I had thought he left out certain information and just generally got frustrated. The language barrier can be a huge challenge, especially when trying to explain terms people haven’t necessarily heard before.
On our break we were all sitting outside and there is rather long grass. Fleas apparently took that opportunity tog et inside my clothes. I have a bunch of bites on my ankles, as well as about 15 on my tummy, which means they were inside my clothes. I think I will boil them tomorrow. It is a really really creepy feeling that I do not recommend.
We also have a 5th roommate. His name is Marvin and he lives in our walls and ceiling. He only comes out at night and tries to dig through the ceiling/walls and generally scares the crap out of us. He has yet to be seen, but we can here him.

09/10/2006: Today I had my first “real” language class. It’s a little intimidating as most of the students are in my age range. I can’t teach them the same way I would teach young children. They think I have so much knowledge, but really it’s just my English skills are better. I want to make sure not to talk down to them. A lot of the kids are extremely intelligent and have questions that surprise me. We’ll see how things go. It’s definitely unlike anything I’ve taught before.
Things are going well and we’re having fun. A lot of things are just funny to us. For example, we spent half the day laughing about a translation thing. Everyone here has coffee like a million times a day, and you can get it with varrying amounts of milk. Pam and I like Watet Ba Buna, which is milk with coffee. Instead she asked for Watet Bambino which is a milky young boy. Very funny to us all day. Small pleasures!
10/10/2006
My legs have now become know as Debre Flea-na #2. Natalia’s armpit was #1. This could be an interesting few months.
I am feeling kind of sick today. I think I’m getting a sore throat. Just feeling tired and kind of icky.
As much as I think I’m adjusting, there is always something strange. For example the men here hold hands with each other and are very affectionate. There’s nothing wrong with this, however having lived in downtown Montreal for a number of years, this is often perceived differently and continues to be a daily surprise to me.
We do have some free time during the day, so I've been doing some reading and stuff. Nothing too exciting. We play with the kids, but I definitely need downtown too as they can sort of become a mob. I've been working on Nelson Mandela's autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom. That should keep me occupied for at least a few more days.