To Mom&Dad 10-28-05

Well, I'm in village now and I'm almost through my first full week. It's kinda flown past due to the busy schedule of vaccinations we've been doing in satellite villages. They're pretty remote and don't have any form of health care except for the monthly vaccinations and/or peddaling 15 miles to TO for professional help. Of course, there's traditional healers, but I've seen enough scared people to know their methods aren't quite as amicable. I'm beginning to see how I'll be spending my time. One of the major obstacles, locally, is getting vaccinations to everyone. Going door to door is unrealistic considering the remoteness of villages and homes scattered throughout the countryside. The obstacle is overcoming ethnic differences amongst the people. There's a melange of about 4 different ethnicities, who live in relative harmony, but don't really talk to each other. Mostly due to language differences, but there are other underlying reasons, too. Each village has a health extension agent, but if he's Poule', he won't talk to the Walla`s or Mossi, and they won't know of ongoing vaccinations and thus the majority of the population won't get vaccinated. Voila! Make sense? No, not really, but that's just how news or nothing travels around here.

All the food people have sent me has been FANTASTIC. I've been biking about 20-30 miles each day over some tough terrain and the protein and power bars have made my days really manageable. Then coming home, knowing I've got some canned meat available, it just makes the adjustment here really easy. I can't say enough about the food people have sent. Really great! The only thing I haven't been able to stomach is the Vienna Sausages. I don't know what it is, but they're hard to eat. All the chocolate goodies I've received have been great. Also, someone sent me chili in a box, Stagg chili. Oh my god, that was good! I burnt my mouth happily as I ate it. I also received some Chunky meat and veggie stew. Awesome! Those were my dinners and I just felt so at ease with those. I'm starting to make a dent in Janet and Steve's awesome package. I'm using all the hotel stuff Mary and Jeff sent. The conditioner is especially nice. Every shower, I'm basking in Joy Jean's Olympic Club towels. All the power, protein and trail mix bars are going to good use as my breakfast and re-supply meals on the road. The flavor drink packs are really nice to have also. They give a little change to water all the time. Everything people have sent is definitely going to good use. I'm holding on to the books for now because I'm still studying French and Moore' as I can.

Anyhoo, I got off on a food tangent, sorry, but my weeks look like they'll probably go in 2 week cycles. Every two weeks I'm planning on visiting every village to teach about preventative health and to remind everyone that there's vaccinations. Hopefully this will help the turnout. The weeks I'm not gone, I'll probably work a day or two at the CSPS and/or in the community of TO, and with the local schools talking about AIDS prevention. That's my tentative idea of a schedule. We'll see how it goes.

If it makes you feel any better, I've already been asked for marriage twice.:) That's a hard one to explain away here.:) No worries.

I hope things are going well on your end. I found out that the cellular reception is farther away than I thought. I need to change the times that I'm available to 4-5 pm due to sunset at 5:45 and me having to get back in time of darkness. Reception is about 15-20 kilometers away, but today I saw a crew of men working on putting in telephone land lines. So, whenever they start working, I'll give you all the number. Other than that, hope you are all well. I'm good right now and will hopefully stay that way.
Take care
Love Laura