So, back to my story about my rash. After I returned to Diabugu and finished my second full course of prednisone, my allergic rash was under control, but it had weakened my immune system enough to allow all types of skin bacteria to go crazy. My whole back blew up into some kind of mutant super-acne, and I started to get a pretty righteous case of crotch rot. No, you don’t want to see pictures. It was about this time that some people came to visit me on the second stage of the “Tour de URR” which actually means nothing except that a few people rode their bikes through the bush and visited other people. I think I had six visitors. We all went camping by the river near Diabugu, I fell off my bike while trying to answer the phone and sustained minor contusions, and overall the experience was successful. The pictures have managed to avoid being in any coherent order, but what happened was: we all rode to Sarre Demba Torro to see Jenna, and camped in her backyard. My hammock broke her fence posts (actually my fat ass broke the posts), so I slept on the bantaba out front. Next day we all tried to ride to Sarre Ngai, but Kasey had a flat tire, and she and Adrienne stayed behind. The rest of us met Brendan, Dave, and Julia at Sarre Ngai, went to the luumo (big market), then rode to Brendan’s place. This took pretty much all day. We cooked dinner (delicious curry by Brendan), pre-gamed, then attended the Jaliba concert (locally famous Kora player). Kasey and Adrienne didn’t make it; they went to Basse (problems with horse carts, and no vehicles to ride, etc). So, after returning from the concert at 4 AM, Max and I (Adrienne’s visitor from America) biked to Basse at like 8 AM (the other pansies took a vehicle).
At this point my rash in that certain lower middle sensitive essential area was getting OUT of control. I called the Doc and he told me to come back to Kombo to deal with it. It sounds like I’m always in that place, but I’m really not. I got lots of different drugs (antibiotics, topicals, etc.) and rapidly recovered. There were various other entertaining activities as well.
In the car on the way back to Diabugu, an interesting phenomenon developed. Every time we would approach a police, immigration, military, etc. checkpoint (there are a lot), the people in the car would start talking a lot, and getting really excited. When we got there, one or two of them would usually get out and have some conversation with the police, or military guys, or whatever. Then when we pulled away they would all ask “how much did you pay,” or “you talk next time,” and they would hand money around among themselves. I couldn’t figure out what was going on for a long time; I just knew it would behoove me to keep out of it. Eventually one of the dudes explained to me that the big metal trunk on the roof of the car contained untold numbers of new mobile phones, which one of the passengers was smuggling to Basse under the radar to sell (avoiding heavy taxes). Also, the day before, all the military and police checkpoint staffing had rotated, so all standing bribes were wiped out and people had to start over. So the dude with the mobiles had enlisted the help of the other passengers to keep his butt out of the fire. The best part was the old toothless Fula woman in the back was just as into it as everyone else, getting all stoked when we successfully passed another checkpoint and yelling suggestions for the next time.
If you’re wondering why I haven’t said anything about the school, and computers, and working, it’s because there’s not much to say. At the end of the second term, the Principal and I both wrote letters to the Permanent Secretary of the ministry of education requesting funding for the IT program (primarily to buy fuel). I included a spreadsheet with all relevant data. At the beginning of the third term, we received a visit from the Planning Unit of the Ministry. The people that came were professional, competent, and seemed interested. They were very encouraging, and seemed to suggest that getting the resources we requested wouldn’t be a problem. We haven’t heard from them since.
The Peace Corps training department (and a dude named Josh) arranged a Men’s Retreat, held at Jonjonbureh Camp. It turned out to be a fairly righteous event, with volunteer-led training sessions (I did a session on solar power and one on Tai Chi and Kung Fu). The environment was nice. The monkeys try to steal your food at all times. Here are some pics of the place:
Latest developments: my crotch rash is back, I called the doc, and started taking erythromycin again. I’m leaving on Saturday to go to Basse, then to Farafenni on Sunday, then Dakar on Monday, and Heather will arrive Tuesday night. We have a pretty radical vacation planned for the month that she’s here. I will try to keep this thing more current. Haha, I always say that.
Listen: I’m getting frustrated with the lack of power at the school. I’m about to give up on the generator and focus on solar. They got three new huge solar panels there, bringing their total capacity to around 1.4 KW, which is enough for a few computers. I need funding to siphon power off the water pump solar array and use it for computers (for wire, batteries, a charge controller, and an inverter). I don’t know where that money is going to come from yet, but I’m fairly confident I’m going to make sure it comes from somewhere. This is getting a little ridiculous. Watch this space for updates.