After all the deep, heavy stuff of the last few posts I don't want you all to get the wrong idea about my daily life here. Yes, there have been some really tough cases and sadness and I want to honor the lives of those who have passed by telling a little of their story. But there are some really fun experiences here too. Like winning Settlers of Catan fairly regularly :) and walking to work under a canopy of mango and plumeria trees and getting off campus to see the surrounding area.
This weekend I went to a waterfall. It was a half an hour nature walk through fields and jungle to get to a lovely stream of water. Our guide pointed out different plants along the way, and selected some that are used for making paints and dye.
Mondays are market day in the nearby village of Adeta. I got out of clinic early enough to get there this week. As I began walking down the road I heard someone asking if i was going to the market. I turned around to see the two nurses I work with in OB clinic piled on a motorcycle. I jumped on the back with them.
The market is a wonderfully overwhelming cacophony of sight, smell, and sound. There are a few established stalls built from cement but most vendors are set up in baboo stalls or on the ground. There are women weaving in and out with wares carried on their heads, ducking to avoid a low hanging roof or swerving around a group of shoppers. Goats and chickens run around freely and babies are sometimes crawling in the dirt or more often are strapped to their mothers' backs. It smells like spices and sweat and soap and dust and baby powder and chili.
When we got there Virginnie let me follow her around as she did her shopping. You can buy everything from spices, vegetables, soap, hair clips, machetes, twine, and fabric. Things are sold in bundles or piles rather than being weighed out. The spices are twisted up into tiny sections of plastic bag.
She helped me buy some fabric and one triumph of the day was communicating with a tailor about what I wanted done with it, in extremely limited French. We'll see what is actually produced before I get too proud of my language skills!
There is something so satisfying about knowing a place. I haven't been here very long but the small glimpses of familiarity- seeing people on the road I know, knowing what the normal price for a taxi or soda is, figuring out how to get credit put on a phone- make me feel like I'm already connected here.
