Déchargée

Like my phone, I am without charge. Tired.

I finished writing the survey to ask the school girls and get a sense of their knowledge before we start the program; now I have to track down all their families to conduct the survey.

I spent lunch with Adiza now in her husband's home but it was somewhat awkward--after a few handfuls he got up saying he was full and that we women wanted our time to chat anyway. "Men and women aren't the same you know." He says as he leaves the room. Really? Wow. I had no idea!!

Back at the hospital, I waited. And waited. In fact I would say I could add "waiting" as a honed skill onto my resume. Finally my project guys showed up and we could have our meeting. Usually I use this time to work on language, but the maternity ladies were speaking Bambara on account of our Sage Femme being from the south. As much as I wanted to get incredibly frustrated at the two project coordinators, I swallowed my pride (question: what does pride taste like?) and though one was totally silent AGAIN as the other went off complaining and bragging about his skill set, I too just went for passive acceptance.

At least some women made me feel better as I left the hospital asking me about the many motos parked outside the gate. "Is one of these yours?" An older lady asked. "No, I don't have a moto, only my own two feet." I replied. Much to their amusement. I got a few, "Eh, she speaks Sonrai!"s and then got laughter as I went off on motos saying the drivers have no brains and they'll kill us all with their recklessness.

I was thankful for Bebe's "kangb'izey" (lit "children of the hand" though any gift tends to be "child of the ----, whatever place or thing you are coming from be it a trip, the market, your house). It ended up being my dinner. I am feeling the distance from the harvest and still the lack of good grazing grass despite rains having come: all we have is salty rice now. And tonight if it weren't for these two mangoes and fish from Bebe, all I would have eaten would have been mushy millet porridge. My host-sister and I split the gift from Bebe, and then some of the kids got our leftovers. One even pounded the skin and bones from the fish until he could stomach it. And my mango skins got eaten too. I was ashamed that when I awoke to my windows banging open and shut because of a dust storm approaching, I was hungry. How were they sleeping through the night?