le 11 novembre

Today...

I have...
- run. About 10 min. Put on Saucony's...and they felt mad weird. I've been wearing sandals and flip flops for three weeks. Put on Vibrams. Too minimalist. Wish I brought a road racing shoe or light, neutral trainer. Will run in Triumph's for now and save Vibrams for soccer. My little bro freaked out at my new kicks before I changed them (I had already gotten this drama for my Vibrams).
- done some calesthenics...to the delight of my family. I had entourage as I excecuted a pretty short circuit of pushups, pullups, and hand stand pushups against the house.
- learned the pants I got tailored last week are actually sweet! Received several compliments.
- helped pull off a rendition of Build Me Up Buttercup (yea that may not be the name of the song but you get it) for another birthday and schemed abuot some non-birthday shenanigans
- actually did some legit studying outside of class. Bought chalk and used the chalk board on the side of the house to drill some vocab from today...while 5-10 kids watched and participated. Was actually possibly helpful for both my Zarma and French to have to go from English to French to Zarma.
- been impatient. Feel behind on language after over a week respite from classes. Feel I'm missing out of crucial info when the FARM group learns their stuff. Feel I'm way less qualified in my sector (remember? CHA- community health agent) than others and have less general skills. Felt some things took too long to say.
- eaten more than my fair share of pizza (yes, the kitchen staff made us pizza) for lunch
- got my first piece of mail from home (THANKS MOM!!!)
- re-organized my booca after the long weekend away
- seemed more tired than usual
- planted peanuts (demsi), tomatos (is there an "e" in there?...tomate au francais), and eggplant (uh...) in my garden
- learned that merenga (sp?) is nitrogen fixing. Is there anything this plant does not do?

I have not...
- apparently entirely gotten over my back injury. It's still not 100%. Jam (a swear word in Zarma).
- gotten used to having 5 or 500 kids jumping all around me pretty much whenever I am around or near my concession. Mostly fun, sometimes, I wish I had a few moments (not in the dark, not in a mosquit net, not sweating balls inside my booca like now, etc.) to collect myself.
- been sick really. Got over my GI issues from the past few days (fingers crossed).
- flinched much or at all at the sweet pics of several STD's during todays med session
- missed the slight irritation in my L achilles. Why did I decide to run in the Vibrams? Frustration.
- felt I learned exactly what to do with my garden or how to garden, etc.

P.S. from the demyst weekend, did I mention how impressed/ suprised I was with all the plants I saw growing: millet, sugercane, lemons, oranges, cotton, all sorts of vegetables, the magic merenga (sp?) and probs others. Since I'm still naive and ignorant, I have not wrapped my head around how all these crops don't provide food security (or cash) for the whole year. Though my demyst host said they seem to do so in his area most of/ all the time.