finally ... a connection!

i´ve been patiently waiting in this internet cafe for nearly 2 1/2 hours for the connection to work so that i could send an email. FINALLY it comes on! i need to send an email to mondochallenge to ask them for some funds for the nursery project. we´ve spoken to a local masoner who has given us a list of supplies - which come to nearly 150 GBP ($300) - and the village will provide the labor if we can get the supplies.i think i could probably set up a paypal account and ask you, dear readers, to forego a glass of wine or a meal out this weekend and contribute and we´d have it covered ... but thatś not really the point. or at least not yet. i want to show ebrima how to write a proposal and ask for funds to see if we can do this ourselves. but watch this space as i may ask for a bit of money for supplies, if we can get the darn thing up. if i can do that while i here, iĺl feel like i´ve accomplished something. so i think iĺl spend the mornings at hte school and the afternoons working on the nursery.

the women in my compound are amazing in the way that they just get on with things, never complaining, always smiling. yesterday, the three women crushed corn into powder (maize?) for the breakfast porridge. to do this they put popcorn in a huge wooden mortar - and by huge, i´m talking about a 2 1/2 foot mortar - and each took a pestle sticks the size of a small child and - all at once, in turns - ground the corn by pounding it rhythmically. jeneba, even threw her stick in the air with a clap in between to keep the time. amazing. and one of the women had her small baby wrapped around her back with a cloth.

they also spend most afternoons washing clothes. by hand, of course. scrubbing and rinsing and rinsing and scrubbing and then hanging in the afternoon heat to dry. and then thereś the ironing of the husbands outfits. and this is an iron that i´d only expect to see in a museum ... filled with coal to get it hot (imagine!), and the cooking, and the preparing of food, picking out the black bits in the rice (dirt? bad rice? who knows?), and when itś too hot to do anything else, just sitting and sleeping. slowly slowly, things here get done.

and the noise. OH the noise of africa! it is so loud here! everyone knows everyone elseś business, there are no dividing lines between what is acceptable to share and what is not. so they shout, at their children, and each otherś children, at each other. but not in an aggressive way - just in a decibel that my ear is not accustomed to. i´m getting used to it though, and can actually let it float like a melody while i rest under the mango trees with them. (they will not have me sitting on my own, ever.)

i came to brikama on my own today. my first solo adventure. and itś much nicer to feel independent like this. i treated myself to an omelet and a coffee (nescafe with VERY sweet condensed milk) for 15 dalasi (around 35p/70c). and when it cools, iĺl make my way back to the bus taxi garage to find the gellah gellah to take me back again for 7 dalasi.

until next time ... salaa maleekum!