October 29 – I was emailing with my sister when I mentioned something
to her that I thought might be of interest. It has given me something
of a change of perspective. I learned a few weeks ago that an old
friend of mine, his third child had a rare brain disease and died at
10 months of age. This was a few weeks before Dembele and Cita's son
was born. I was very sad for Bill but Loren didn't think much of it
because so many children die here. It's no longer as bad as 1 in 7
live to see age 5 but it's still pretty high rates. I didn't know that
Cita lost a baby between Djamal and Rachid, a little girl, which is
why there are 4 years between them. They don't even name children for
a time because they may not live, sometimes for as long as several
months (to name them).

I also learned that in the 18 months I've been away from here, 2 of my
friends have died - one from AIDS, another in a car crash, both in
their early 30s with young families. Dembele nearly died last year of
a mix of malaria and some kind of stomach parasite.

Here I've met a fair number of people who are in their 50s and 60s but
average life expectancy is still 40. You don't meet a lot of people in
their 70s. (Old women are usually killed as witches – mostly because
they are seen has no longer having value to a family so they get rid
of them). Dembele is 39. Makes life seem very precious and every
encounter with a person very important.

October 31 – More stressful things: we got a new guard of course. Eli
is all of about 19 years old and is of course learning the ropes as
guard. I don't like leaving the house without someone watching it at
all, but he still needs to learn that he has to tell people where he
is going and he can't wander off for hours at a time. So this morning
I came out of the house around 8 and didn't seem him, I went outside
the court because sometimes he is sitting with others across the
street which is fine during the day. No Eli. I had to go do some
errands so I left anyway. I locked up the house and Ben went to his
friends' house to play. When I came back I saw Eli who told me that
last night he fell asleep in the car with the windows rolled down (no
he's not supposed to be sleeping but after this I don't think he'll
sleep ever again). At about 2AM someone came over the wall and grabbed
him by the throat, flashed a knife in his face and said if he ever saw
Eli here again, he'd kill him. Then he jumped back over the wall. Eli
waited 10 minutes before moving then moved to sit in the chair next to
my bedroom window (well away from the courtyard walls). When I asked
if he saw the person's face he said, rightfully that, no, that it was
better to look away because if they know that you've seen them they
will do something to you.

I called Loren to let him know, he was shocked! He said, I'll call you
back. 10 min later he sent me a message saying a friend of ours
(former military) was going to set up a sting and take care of it for
us. I'm looking forward to seeing what that is. Strangely, I'm not
scared, I'm stressed (and like I said to Felicia maybe that's stupid
and I should be scared). Perhaps it's that I don't want Eli to get
hurt and I'm not so worried for myself (the house is locked in the
middle of the night). Perhaps it's that my first worry is that if I'm
awake, I'm fairly confident that I can protect myself and my child
(don't mess with a mother!) but if I'm asleep I worry that I can't
protect Ben from harm or from being frightened by someone trying to
enter the house. I think that also opens my thinking to Ben getting
hurt by someone during the day. That isn't so much a concern since
EVERYONE knows him, and he's always with his friends. I don't want to
speak bad things into existence but I guess I'm trying to figure out
what I'm worried about specifically. Perhaps it's all those things.

October 25 - Happenings

Well it's been 2 months and we're becoming quite domestic here,
getting into a bit of routine. Ben has school so gets me up early
(6AM) to get ready for the bus at 7AM. I go to the gym, have French
class, do some work. Ben comes home for lunch, plays and sometimes
goes back to school at which point I go out again to do more stuff or
work on the computer. We do dinner at 6:30 or 7, shower and bed by
8pm. It's hard because we have less family time to spend because the
day starts and ends so early and most of his play time is in the
middle so is with his friends. He's having a lot of fun though.

New stuff, we got a kitten today. My neighbour's cat had kittens so we
got one. I thought it was a girl but because it's so young, the
testicles hadn't descended (sorry, direct translation from French, not
sure what you call that in English) when I checked, so it's actually a
boy, a calico, all orange and white with blue eyes, probably no more
than about 6 weeks old. I think he'll either get called Squeak since
that's the sound he makes, or Skit because he's so skittish. We have
to make a litter box, by cutting up and old water container. It's
fairly well fed at this point so hopefully we can keep it healthy.
Ben's rabbit from last year's visit got sick and died.

We were child-free this past weekend as Ben went to the grandparents
with Uncle Derek and family so we made the most of it. Friday night
Loren took me to a night club that had a pool table. I haven't played
pool in years but few Africans know how to play so I ran the table for
most of the night. I won 14 games in a row, it's $1.25 a game, loser
pays. Loren plays well but I beat him too. I finally lost to the owner
who told me he would keep 6 bottles of whiskey for me because I played
so well (well that also means I have to keep coming back, it'll take
me a year to drink that much whiskey!). We went to an outdoor concert
Saturday afternoon and then back to the pool place where they had live
music from a group of local whites, Danes. I had a lot to drink
Saturday night, more than I've had in the last seven years put
together probably. I still got up at 6 for some reason and tried to
go to church. I got the time wrong – 8:30 not 7 AM so I went home to
bed and slept til noon.

A couple weeks ago, we were heading to Koubri to see the grandparents,
when I decided to stop back at the house and realized by looking in my
bedroom cupboard that someone had been in the house and the only
person that could have been was the guard. I had accidentally
forgotten to lock the back door so it was closed but not locked. He
had come into the house and had looked in my cupboard where I used to
keep money. I knew he had been in there because he moved something
obvious out of place. So Loren went and scared the crap out of him.
Loren told the guard (Zaki) that he knew Zaki had been in the house
and that Zaki was lucky because if Loren had found him in the house,
he would have shot him, like a regular burglar (thieves are dealt with
rather harshly here). Loren gave him a bullet from his pistol and said
"this one would have been yours – remember that" (Loren carries his
pistol only when he has to carry large amounts of money on him).
Needless to say, ever since then, we've had very few problems with the
guard not doing his job. He's finally getting to the point where I
maybe don't trust him but at least I know he'll do as he's told. The
guard only works at night from 5pm til 6 AM, the house girl comes at 9
but she is only here from Monday to Saturday. Most Sundays there is no
one at the house in the afternoon. And apparently someone in the
neighbourhood knows that.

I came home this afternoon to grab workout clothes to go to the gym.
There was someone in the yard, a young man who told me that he was a
plumber and had been sent to find out if there were any more problems.
I was a little suspicious because we had a plumber come already. So I
said no but there are still problems with the electricity. He said he
could fix that as well and were there any problems in the bedroom. Now
I'm suspicious so I said no. He said he was just going to get his
moped which was parked out front (I didn't see one when I came in, so
he was parked across the street) and park it in the courtyard. I
opened the front door to see my mop and broom tied together lying on
the floor. I looked at the window and saw that 2 of the slats (they
are steel) were broken, so I went running out of the house only to
find that the guy had taken off. He had seen my computer sitting on
the table and was attempting to pull the table close enough to the
window to steal the computer. He had had clearly a lot of time in
order to break 2 slats like that and put all that together. I came
just at the right moment.

Zaki now feels this is his fault – oddly, because he had entered the
house and so he has somehow brought bad luck to his job. He said he "a
peur", was afraid. I thought he was worried about the thief coming
back so I said I doubted that he would come. Zaki said he wasn't
afraid of the thief killing him, if that was what was meant to be. He
couldn't explain it to me, to make me understand so he's waiting to
talk to Loren about it, but feels he has to quit. It's weird.

Loren was worried that I was frightened so he sort of tried to brush
it off saying, c'est l'Afrique. I figure it's worse in Canada.
Personally, if I catch the thief, he's gonna wish Loren had shot him
instead. I'm going to break every bone I can lay a hand on - you can
do that here and not worry about things like law suits. That will
leave him alive to warn off other thieves.

Anyway, I thought Ben was going to feel scared, as he did after he
found out that Zaki had been in the house. Zaki told me (in front of
Ben) that he wasn't intending to steal anything, that he was looking
for food or some small money to buy something to eat (he's only paid
about $50 a month but then, he doesn't do a lot, he's basically paid
to sit and watch). Ben told me that he believes Zaki and he felt very
bad for him. Zaki is kinda like a big brother to Ben, helps him to fix
his bike, and talks to him all the time. Ben said he felt Zaki was
sorry and was telling the truth. Then Ben said that he knew what he
wanted to be when he grows up - he wants to give money to people who
can't afford to eat. Ben said he'd have 2 pockets, one for his own
money, and the other for sharing. What a little sweetie!

So anyway, I'm not too worried about the thief, unless Zaki actually
quits because then I have to start all over again finding someone,
getting them to show up, not go out, not to sleep at night etc. I'm
sure Loren will convince him otherwise but it's a pain.

Oct 26 - Loren on the other hand was worried enough about it to sleep
on the porch (on a mattress with a sheet although knowing him, he
would just as likely have slept on the concrete), as he was concerned
the car and motorcycle would get stolen. I think he was probably more
worried that Zaki would leave in the middle of the night. He found us
a temporary new guard, one of his "boys" that work for him. He calls
them that because they come to Loren whenever they have problems, like
they have a sick parent or child; Loren gives them money and they work
off the debt. This is fine until the construction season gets under
way when the "boy" will be busy during the day on a work site
somewhere meaning he won't be at the house during the day, and will
probably want to be sleeping at night, rather than guarding the house.
We'll see how it goes.

Oct 27 – Work starts next week. I have been working kinda at my own
pace so far. I've been running around my neighbourhood on the back of
the motorcycle (I have Dembele drive – it's hard to look around and
drive), looking at houses that are for rent. It's quite annoying and
tiresome. In Ouaga, most business and purchases can be achieved from a
seat at a bar, so I decided to try that. I managed to get 2 other guys
running around looking for me, and found a couple prospects that way.
Still end up running around since they try showing me everything
they've got, whether or not it fits the description of what I'm
looking for.
I've also been having this wild goose chase trying to get a hold of a
client. I had his phone number and email to which he doesn't respond,
and when I went to the address on the waybill which was all the way
downtown, I learned that they moved and that his new office was
actually around the corner from my house. Sigh.

I'm excited to start work and worried at the same time. I received my
contract and list of roles and responsibilities – feels like a lot!
Although I think once we get rolling it will get easier. I'm sure we
all feel like a fraud at the beginning, that someone is going to catch
us making it all up as we go. In this case, I did tell them in advance
that I was ill equipped and they don't seem to care so that should
make me feel better, but of course it doesn't!

Happy Hallowe'en to all. We won't be celebrating that.

Hysterical side note from this evening. Ben asked me if the Easter
bunny was real, and I told him that it wasn't real. So he asked who
brought all the eggs? I said guess, so his first guess was Santa (I
had to laugh). When he finally guessed that it was me, his face lit up
and he knew that I had bought the Transformers video - instead of
being disappointed, he was happy because he knew he would always get
something he wanted - because I always know. That kid!

October 20 - Answers to Prayers
I had a really exciting day yesterday. I slept in a bit which was nice
(Ben gets the bus to school at 7AM so I do get up at 6 to get him
ready but then I go back to sleep). I got up at 8:30 and received a
phone call from a number I didn't recognize. Sometimes I don't answer
those, but I think I will from now on!

About 6 months ago, I got back in touch with a close friend from
University. Patrick and I used to get into trouble together, failed
first year together, etc. I recall one night after the bar had closed
at the University, we decided to drive to Montreal for the weekend...
except it was only Wed (well, early Thursday). Pat taught me how to
drive standard – or rather had me drive his car home from the bar
because I was drunk but of course with my drinking ability, I would
still blow under the limit, whereas he was well over. Enough said.
There are many more stories over the course of several years, but I'd
rather not repeat them, especially in such a public fora and one where
my family are also reading. In catching up, I mentioned to Pat that I
was going to Burkina Faso. Pat had moved to Germany after university,
then to South Africa about 10 years ago. He told me that he regularly
visits Ghana and Burkina Faso as they are expanding into that area.
Pat is now the Director of Sales for that company (Lincoln - they sell
lubrication systems for machinery). Pat asked me about how well I
speak French and intimated that they might be looking for someone to
open an office in Burkina for them. I figured he wouldn't be
interested in me once he saw my CV since I really don't have any
experience in that area.

So to make an already long story short, I got a call yesterday from
Pat's business partner, Steve who is located in Ghana. He asked if we
could meet to discuss a potential position. I met him 45 min later, I
brought Loren with me because I figured if I couldn't help him, that
Loren very likely could. So Steve laid out for me something of what
the company does, where their clients were located across Burkina,
mostly mines, and an outline of the position. Having worked for the
government for 7 years, I'm not accustomed to working at the speed of
business. He offered me the position right there and I accepted. The
salary is good, about $2500USD per month, it comes with a car and
computer, and as long or short a contract as I want. I have to travel
occasionally but it's not more than a few days per month where I would
be gone overnight. Steve has young children too so understands my
concerns about working long hours and being away a lot.

Essentially, the job is to open an office here. Steve laid out the
requirements, where they were at in terms of opening their business
and infrastructure – bank accounts, I need a working visa, staff,
technical support being provided from Ghana, travel, they have
accounting and invoicing systems in place, I just have to learn them.
There of course is a huge learning curve here in a number of ways.

Some are probably thinking that I've gone to the dark side working for
manufacturing and mining from my usual environmental framework, but
they also carry environmental products for cleaning up hydrocarbons
like in-situ soil remediation products which have been of interest to
me since I worked in environmental consulting about a decade ago. So
there is an opportunity for me to do technical sales on those products
as I develop product and service knowledge. Pretty cool all around in
my opinion.

I'm dizzy with happiness but this is of course tempered with the
reality that this is going to be REALLY hard – lots of learning, lots
of challenges and it's so totally different from what I'm used to and
yet still has an element of what's important to me. I was very clear
with Steve that I felt there was a large gap between what he was
looking for and the experience I actually have. He didn't seem
concerned. He was largely looking for someone he could trust, who he
could train. Not sure if it's what I came here to do, but I suspect it
will lead me in the right direction – the next stepping stone as it
were.

I have a long history in my life of times where I felt like I was
waiting for something to happen and then just as I was getting
impatient, something would appear miraculously as an answer to what I
really hoped for. This is an example of that. The irony that I have
been (not so) patiently waiting to buy a car so I can go look for a
job, a task I was not really looking forward to anyway, and here a job
lands in my lap that comes with a car and so much more. I was also
recently working out my finances and figured out that if I want to
come home next August without debt that I needed a salary of about
$2500 (Cdn) a month to do that and here I get a salary that is more
than I need. I would say someone is watching out me.

Still, wish me luck!

October 16 - Moving on
I took Ben out of the other school last week on Thursday. Ben came
home crying because he was afraid to make a mistake on his homework.
The teacher had again verbally threatened him with getting hit if he
didn't do his homework, and a different teacher came in and actually
threatened him physically with a long piece of rubber that they use
for switching children here. So I told him he didn't have to go back.
Loren and I went to the school on the Friday and heard the teacher out
(I did tell Ben that if he was lying about it that he would learn what
a real switching was). The teacher basically said that he has a bunch
of bad kids who don't listen so what was he supposed to do. I just
shut my mouth and let Loren talk. I did learn that there are children
here who are very spoiled at home and the parents expect the teachers
to discipline their children for them (not completely unlike Canada as
far as I can tell). So fine, if the parent says to you, yes, please
beat my children for me, who am I? But Ben is a good kid and will do
exactly what you ask more or less immediately. The only reason he
wouldn't is if he hadn't understood. Anyway, that is done.

We started at a new school on Tuesday. There is a bus that takes him
back and forth. The new school is a little smaller – he is in a split
class, basically grades 2 and 3. There are only 7 grade 2 students and
10 grade 3s. There is a teacher and an aide for his class. Most of the
teachers are from Ghana so they all speak fluent English. I asked the
teacher to find something else for Ben to do during his 2 hours of
English a week as they are just learning their colours and numbers.
Ben could teach the class. Ben seems a lot happier here.

Thanks for all the concern about the malaria. Still haven't quite
figured out what went on but it's gone and I feel 100% again. It took
a long time for the last fevers, nausea and dizziness to go away. I
figure I was sick for easily 10 full days.

The latest entertainment is the new bug bites. I was bit by a black
ant on the leg, when I was sick and sleeping on the mattress on the
floor. It was like half my leg was burning and it felt like I was
getting bitten over again every hour or so for about a day. Weird. The
other bite is worse. I got 2 bites, one on my wrist and the other
under my arm. The one on my wrist I noticed, it looked like a blister.
I carefully broke it and wiped up the water, then put polysporin on
it. Where the water from the blister went on my skin, another blister
appeared. So I did the same thing and it eventually dried up. But it
looks like I have a burn on my wrist. The one under my arm looked like
a blood blister about 3 mm in diameter. I didn't pop it but I should
have. I put a bandaid on it and it broke during the night while I was
sleeping. All the liquid was contained by the bandaid thankfully but
when I took off the bandaid, I had a huge blister the size of the
gauze inside the bandaid. It being under my arm it was very hard to
contain even with bandaids so I now have about a dozen blisters in my
underarm, all of which were getting infected and kinda sore. Some of
them are from putting Polysporin on and it spreading around. They are
slowly healing but I will have a number of scars from it. Clark had
one on his back that broke and the liquid spread in such a way that he
looks like he was whipped across his side at his ribs.

I found a gym for $30/month. It's small but has a treadmill, fans,
mats and some resistance equipment. It's better than running outside
and I can do some weights as well as practice some karate. It's really
hard to do stuff at home since the floor is concrete with a textured
tile overlay which is really hard on the feet. There isn't much space
at the gym but enough to practice kicks and jumps and drills, if not
katas. I feel SO out of shape. I had to start back at a 1:1 learn to
run pace but am quickly improving. The 2 miles I had to run for my
black belt exam in 16 minutes is currently taking me closer to 30
minutes but at least I can run 2 miles now. It is still quite hot in
the gym (low 30s - cool compared to outside!) but at least it's not in
the blazing sun. My goal is to be back in at least brown belt form by
Christmas. Black belt form would probably be dreaming but I can
probably get there before hot season (March). However it will be hard
to do if I can't find someone to train with (come here a sec, Loren...
hahaha).

Ben's health has been okay. He was complaining of stomach aches so I
had my mom send a parasite cleanse. I think the parasites here are a
little bigger than those found at home so there was no apparent effect
from the cleanse. So unfortunately had to go back to plan B –
antibiotics. Started him on a course and within a couple days there
was marked improvement. I guess we'll use the cleanse to keep things
cleaned up afterwards!

Otherwise everything is same old, same old. Hope everyone is well.

October 5 - Palu or not palu that is the question.
Well it was bound to happen. I think it almost got spoken into
existence – you know when you forget to say: knock on wood? I was out
Saturday afternoon with Loren and some of his friends (or at least
with a bunch of people at the bar he goes to regularly) and one man
asked me if I hadn't gotten sick yet and I said no. I knew I was
having some kind of dehydration/heat exhaustion issue as my skin was
always hot and dry unless I was working out vigorously. However, I
left there to go home and almost immediately started to feel sick. My
bones ached and I had a headache, my temperature was over 38oC and I
didn't feel like eating or drinking. Classic signs of malaria
(paludisme or palu for short) – feels like the flu. But you just don't
know. I mean there are always so many things that have similar
symptoms. So I waited to see, I took Ibuprofen which broke my fever
and the pain so I could sleep. I slept fitfully until nearly noon on
Sunday. I had to move to the other room and sleep on a mattress on the
floor because it gets so hot in my room.

I took my curative dose of Malarone Sunday morning (4 pills a day for
3 consecutive days) – I don't ever take preventative because I believe
doing that is kind of like taking antibiotics just in case, just
creates resistance (I do make Ben take it however, it would be brutal
to watch your child go through that.). I drank 3 litres of water and
juice and finally ate. My fever went up to 39.5 deg so I took some
ibuprofen and it broke quickly, leaving me a big sweaty mess, I felt
like I had taken the 3 litres and dumped it over my body. My body
hurts from sleeping too much. So I've gone through 2 cycles of that,
and hopefully it will break tomorrow with the last dose of Malarone

When I was here before, I got sick about 6 weeks in, just before
Christmas. That was different symptoms, I think it was a stomach
parasite but I did take a curative does of Mefloquine just in case.
That in itself is probably worse than the symptoms of malaria as I was
hallucinating and kept passing out. So I took some antibiotics and I
was fine.
Benny is having tummy troubles, I think he is a little dehydrated but
I started him on a 15 day parasite cleanse that my mom sent me. If
that doesn't work, then we'll go to a round of antibiotics as it's
been going on for awhile. I trust Loren's judgement on this as he's
been living in the bush a long time where access to medical care has
been quite limited so he is pretty knowledgeable about symptoms and
treatments.

Loren invited Ben to go to work with him last Saturday. Loren is
building a tourist camp for some Belgian lady so Ben tagged along. I
don't think he was much help, Loren said he followed him around for a
bit, then found a trench with frogs in it and was more interested in
throwing rocks at the frogs. Boys.

Boring post and short. Not much further to report. Loren got a plumber
in to fix all the plumbing so we can shower now (instead of bucket
baths), can flush the toilets instead of having to fill a bucket of
water to run the water down and can brush our teeth in the bathroom
instead of the kitchen. Not a huge change, you get used to that sort
of thing pretty quickly. I'm sure I'll even forget a few times and
bucket bath out of habit. We'll get the place painted shortly and some
of the electrical stuff fixed up too. Again, pretty used to the
status quo so not exciting exactly.

I still haven't figured out what I want to do. I was reading Michael
Crighton's State of Fear (this came from an argument with Derek,
Loren's brother who I argue with all the time – Loren calls it arguing
with a rock – a fairly apt description). Derek thinks he knows
something about climate change from reading this novel, although he
did admit that none of his opinions were based on any facts or
knowledge. I believe climate change is happening and that it is at
least partially created anthropogenic ally however I think Crighton
makes a point that there is so much wrongheadedness in the way we go
about dealing with many issues. Certainly I got to see much of that
firsthand working for the Canadian government. Everyone has an agenda
and people live off fear mongering. Like Agent Smith said in the
Matrix, that they tried to make a life for people that was perfect but
we wouldn't accept it. Somehow we define life by hardship and
problems. It even says it in the Bible, trial by fire to refine and
mature. Odd since we spend much of our time trying to make life
easier. Anyway, this has me thinking that what I want is to do
something real, on the ground and iterative – i.e. evaluates and
learns from its successes and failures over time. My friends are
suggesting that all I have to do is write a proposal and someone would
fund it. Unfortunately, my thinking is no more evolved than what I
said above. I don't even know what area I might want to work in. I
just feel so ill-equipped, making me think I could take the time to do
my masters but really, I don't know that it's more knowledge I'm
looking for. I think I'm looking for a mentor. I just don't have such
an entrepreneurial spirit.

October 6 – definitely malaria
I thought I was going to die last night. My whole body hurt, I could
barely walk, I thought all my bones were going to snap. Loren is away
at a jobsite out of town so poor Benny was kinda left on his own
watching movies. I was alternating Ibuprofen with muscle relaxant that
had acetaminophen in it every 2-3 hours because the medication
wouldn't last any longer than that and it only worked well enough to
let me sleep not to get up and do anything. Loren called me to check
up and said if I didn't feel better in the morning, that he would send
a doctor to the house. My fever would swing up to over 40 and back
down to 37. This morning I took my final dose of Malarone and didn't
take any ibuprofen or relaxant because I was afraid I was going to
throw everything up. I could barely stand, I had use the wall, and
walk with my hands on my knees. I had to lie in my room because I was
afraid I wouldn't be able to get off the mattress on the floor because
I was so weak. Loren called and said his friend said to go to the
clinic and get examined, to call my friend Marie to drive me there
that with a fever that high I probably had an infection.

And then abruptly, it was over. At 9am I woke up feeling as weak as a
newborn and tired but I don't feel like lying down in bed anymore
(here's where a couch would be handy) and I don't hurt (other than
muscles that feel like I've slept too long). I'm still dizzy but again
it's like the dizzy of having been sleeping too long. Carol called
and said to take it easy because there could be a relapse in 24 hours.
I'll take her word on that. I'm sure she's familiar with it. She said
it was unusual to get malaria so quickly but because it was wet season
and I got so many bites at the beginning that it should be better here
on in. Just seeing all those bites Benny had, I'm grateful to have
bought him enough preventative medication for the whole year. Well I
think I'll shower and go back to bed. I'm tired already and I've been
up only an hour.

October 1
Wow, time flies. It just occurred to me that we have already been here
for a month. I haven't written cause well nothing else has happened
really and I've actually been a little busy.

A little hard to summarize what has been accomplished in concrete
terms. Let's see: we have a house, with water and electricity and fans
and lights; we have a stove and a fridge, table, chairs, beds. I had
Christmas yesterday as Loren's mom showed up with a care package from
my mother, with fresh pillows (Loren's were ones that his grandparents
brought over in the 70s I think), clothes for Harmattan when it gets
cold (seemed strange opening jeans and cords and long sleeve shirts
when it was 42 deg today however will not seem silly come January).
Carol came over today, Clark brought her as he was on his way out of
town with Loren and Derek to go survey a dam. So we talked all
morning, never made it to market, picked up Ben then went to see
Myriam (Derek's wife) and their daughters, Danika and Darel as they
haven't seen Carol in 6 months either. It's good to see her and we had
a fantastic chat.

Yesterday I fired my "bonne" (house girl). She was very tearful asking
if her work wasn't good enough. All I said was "sorry but I want to
try someone else, it's complicated", gave her her pay and she left.
She walked from there to where Loren was and asked him why I fired
her. He said, I'll ask (even though it was his suggestion!!). It was
complicated and had only a little to do with her work. Her cleaning
was okay but not great, her attitude kinda crappy, and her reliability
poor. But the biggest fault? Entitlement. In the first week of work,
she was late twice (even though normally they have to start at 6 or 7
and I told her to come at 9), she didn't show up once, and took off
during working hours once. I explained what I wanted in terms of
reliability and the lateness continued. I was not happy with any of
that but since there isn't a huge amount to do here, the only thing
that really bothered me was when I was trying to go out but she took
off, which meant having to leave Ben alone again. Then she moved in.
She moved a bunch of her stuff into my spare room and used it as her
room. And she tried inviting her friends over to meet me. She then
informed me that she should live here so she can get Ben up in the
morning for school and she would go home on Fridays, and not work
weekends. Now Loren was not happy (I didn't like the idea much
myself). This is not the way it works here. He said, next she'll be
telling me that she'll sleep with him, or would try to be tempting him
all the time. Does that sound strange? Happens all the time here. So I
fired her.

And I found a new girl (well girl, she's at least 30). She does a much
better job and I feel like I can leave her in the house without
locking everything up tight. She is the "little sister" of my
neighbour (little sister can mean anything!) so we're all good there.
My neighbour also took us to look at cars at her cousin's lot and of
course Loren knew half the people who worked there and after a little
conversation realized that he and my neighbour knew each other's
families (can't go anywhere with that guy!)

Now I just need to "encourage" Loren to move a little faster in
securing a new guard. The guard is supposed to be here from 6pm til
6am and he shouldn't be sleeping. He should be sitting in front of the
house. He shows up late all the time, he even left a couple times.
Loren has set him straight a few times and he still doesn't do what
he's told. He does everything else – like tonight he helped Ben fix
and clean his bicycle, he helped with the broken taps, and earlier he
cleaned out a parking spot for Loren. I just wish he would do what I'm
paying him to do!

And last but not least the only other thing going on is Ben's school.
Again, not really up to standard so we're looking for a new one. Every
day (mind you there have only been 4 so far but not a good track
record) when I ask Ben how school was, he says, Bad. The first day, I
met the teacher and told him that sometimes Ben doesn't understand
French and may not tell the teacher he didn't so to check once in
awhile. The teacher ( a man) looked at Ben and said "ca va?" (how are
you?). Ben replied, ca va (I'm fine) and the teacher said, he
understands just fine. Not sure what one can discern from 2 words but
whatever. Ben later told me that they sat around at their desks for 4
hours in the morning doing NOTHING, while the teacher got organized
then did a bit of reading out loud and math.

Apparently, there are only 3 children in Ben's class out of 10 who can
read out loud at all and at least 3 children who cannot even recite
the alphabet. Not sure what they are doing in that level. So Ben was a
little bored. The teacher told me that Ben tries to do addition in his
head instead of in columns on the paper. I figure it's the first week
and they are supposed to be bringing people up to speed. Fine, can
deal with that, I figure they will just take a bit of time to sort
stuff out.

Second day, Ben tells me that if you make a mistake, the teacher tells
you to kneel on the floor. That is a common African practice, which is
embarrassing to the children since they wear uniforms that they are
really proud of. So if your knees are dirty, in all likelihood, your
parents will beat you when you get home. I've heard of this before,
very common. But Ben said if someone makes a mistake, EVERYONE has to
kneel. And from the sound of the level of ability in the class, I
figure they might spend the better part of the day like that.

Wednesday it got worse. Ben came home at lunch telling me that the
teacher whapped him on the head when he got an answer wrong (I guess
he was already on his knees so there was nowhere to go). I knew that
switching used to be a common practice but I was pretty sure that
didn't occur anymore. Ben said he hit a lot of kids that day. So in
the afternoon, I went to the principal and asked what the policy was
on discipline, asking if they had a policy regarding hitting. She said
the written policy was no contact, that a teacher must never hit. I
told her that Ben was afraid to come back to school because the
teacher was hitting (he wasn't afraid actually, he was mad but I
didn't think that would go over so well – if you ever wanted to see a
muley look, that was the look on Ben's face, like screw you if you
think I'm going to do anything you say anymore). Loren's comment was
along the lines of, he hits at the beginning so they are more likely
to listen later (it was sort of in gest – the Africans thought it was
funny, but they did all agree that it wasn't appropriate at least). I
guess the principal said something because the teacher made a comment
in the afternoon that he hadn't hit anyone hard. I was mad!

So this morning to top all this off, I drop Ben off at 7:30, and when
I picked him up, he tells me that the teacher didn't show up until
11AM, that there were 5 classes in the school but only 4 teachers,
that a bunch of the older kids were coming in asking him where the
teachers were (like he's going to know where they are?) and then they
all ran around screaming. No one came in to check or to do anything
about it.

So tomorrow is Friday, I figure they aren't batting too high at this
point. I can't imagine what else could be wrong but I'm already
starting to look into other schools. I know Luik goes to a school that
his parents like a lot so I'm going to ask them about it. We'll see.
I've been trying to do karate but everything feels like I'm wearing
lead shoes since it's been a few months and with the heat I'm sure I'm
losing a lot of muscle mass (although I do walk at least 30 min every
day and do resistance exercises twice a week). I did a jumping front
kick and thought I must have looked like one of the dancing hippos
from Fantasia. My neighbours think I'm insane as I walk about the yard
twirling my bo (a 6' long wood stick), poking imaginary people,
whacking trees and ultimately hitting myself in the back of the head.
Nunchuks aren't much better because they see Ben running around with
them so they think I'm playing with his toys, even if I do almost look
like I know what I'm doing (at least they are the foam ones so hitting
myself in the head hurts much less than the bo). And well there's no
point in explaining katas to them.

I feel very weak. I can't believe that I could do 100 full men's
pushups and 10 chin ups only a year ago. Yesterday I couldn't do 5
nose-to-the-ground push ups and I don't even want to try chin ups. I
was injured this year so nose-to-the-ground was already hard but I
could at least do 30 or so. So I basically felt like a white belt and
figure that's as good a starting point as any. Glad I don't need to
relearn all those katas though!

Hope I have more to report soon.