le 8 decembre

Two more days until we leave language immersion, get half a days respite in Dosso, and then return this Sunday to the training site.

Yesterday
- woke up feeling not good. back pain. I realized this may be from the cow cart ride on Sunday. Perhaps thought of injuring my back in Sept. Hate feeling like I need to hold back because of not feeling in top form. Perhaps, with feeling in pain, feeling sick, felt utterly defeated in my attempt to milk every second of this language immersion for all its worth. Felt too fatigued/ sick to run/ do cals. Got one week solid and will have another week off. That's seems to be the way it is going here. For whatever reason, felt like I wanted to cry in the morning before class. Again, not exactly sure why. Thought about other friends in other countries, for a few months, a year, a few years, and the calamities they have endured and the sense of solidarity was comforting. Reframes the situation from "Will I give up?" to "It will be endured". Made a small joke right before class and got a laugh; felt some better immediately.
- The two other trainees in my class are also not feeling 100%. We all have mild but fairly consistent (at least intermittant) stomach distress of various types. We haven't been able to pinpoint the cause; we're suspicious of our water filter, but there's no way to know. I can't even think about peanut butter. That our whole class isn't feeling well makes me feel some better. It's easier to endure something as a group. I worry I "complain" too much; I worry I should go see the doctor (thereby missing 2 days at least of class, etc.) I have switched into more or less survival mode and am not really maximizing anything. A far cry from last week.
- We got a mini lecture after lunch about needing to all be on the same page because we didn't want to go do one activity because we were all tired and wanted time to process some of the other activities we had done and prepare for the two most difficult activities coming up. I can't speak for others, but I was super miffed. We're working real hard and don't feel that great. I worry the language barrier, even with the teacher with the best English, prevents us from getting across quite right that we don't feel great but we're not that sick, but we're not 100%. It just seems to come across that we're tired...which is not a far cry from lazy.
- Highlight of day: we performed our first real...activity in our Peace Corps careers! We (I didn't do that much) showed a gardener how to make a pepinaire (sp). He seemed to get it and said we would make pepinaires so that when the PCV came (this village is going to be getting a volunteer) he will be able to work with the PCV on the pepinaire. This guy had been buying some trees/ plans from a guy literally on the other side of town who does lots of pepinaires. 
- took a small gamble to help me get better (maybe)
- was kinda miffed at how our after dinner, squeeze in before bed, not given enough time for planning session for the CHA TDA was going. We're supposed to talk to people about diarrya and hygiene. We are going to go to the clinic and just find people waiting around and just give them a presentaion...in Zarma. As one of two CHA's in this group, it became clear pretty quickyl that this was falling almost entirely on my shoulders. I was not very enthusiastic about how this all was going, but then after our teacher did a demo (and I took notes) when I did a mock presentation, I settled in and it felt fun to talk to a group...bonus points since it's in zarma.

Undoubetly, the most trying day thus far.

Today
- woke up feeling some better. Sleeping better. Back pain minimal or gone.
- Started on prepping for the morning presentation. A PCV came to visit and I had to rudely not pay her much attention. Just like old times, I wrote up an outline for the presentaion in a mix of Eng and Zarma in four different colors (thank you bik dumi taaci). I sticky noted to pages I needed in our tech manual. Delegated one part of the presentation to the other CHA and delegated some other tasks to the FARM trainees. I ate an orange. Had plain pasta for breakfast. And the orange. And was feeling ok. Changed into white pants and blue shirt (love that shirt Cass and Kay thanks)....which, as was noted, did not stay unwrinkled sitting rolled up in my bag for 10 days.
- I figure having us to a presentation like this is kinda beyond our level. We can get out the info, but can't absorb all that people will say in response to us. With someone to translate it works, but...yea. I figure if it goes well, I feel real pumped. If I crash and burn, it's kinda a shot to the confidence some. I've been worrying about this since lang immersion started, but we planned so "quickly" (i.e. rushed really) for it, I didn't have too much time to worry about it.
- We go to the clinic, bearing our visual aids. We find some women waiting for the doctor for a prenatal exam and the nurse woman maybe says we're going to talk to them. Maybe our teacher says something. I run through my pres. Pass it off to the other CHA to quickly run through the steps of making homemade ORS (basically Gatorade in this context) while the FARM's demonstrate by making some. We spill some all over the floor. We pass it around in two cups for people to try. Our teacher helps field some more questions, and maybe recaps what we have said. I have to be pretty pumped about it. I get good feedback. It's kinda funny, it went like many presentations do that are not terribly well practiced. I was a little freer last night talking more extemporaneously. Felt this morning I hung to my outline a little too much; reading questions or phrases I could have delivered from memory or by recreating them in the moment. Felt like I didn't quite hit everything as organized or as sharply. Basically all the things I usually note after a presentation...in English. I got a few laughs out of the women (Mate annasara? Annasara go no susubo, wala? or Ni ya lokotoro no, wala? Watikan ay sinda baani, ay ga koy ni kwaara!) so that was fun. All in all, I think we have to be super pumped about this. I'm pretty proud I prepped and pulled it off in not a lot of time, using vocab we only learned last week, while not feeling 100%. The PCV visiting (who also watched. I joked half bitterly that could we bring anyone else to watch...besides a group of Nigeriens, our teachers, a current PCV...to add even MORE pressure?) said she didn't do anything like this in her training...maybe not even yet in her community (she's been here for a year). As I'm typing this up, one of our teachers showed us the pics he took on his cell phone. We laughed. I felt pretty proud.
- Went to market. Dropped 1000 CFA (that is, two dollars) on more multi colored pens. I think I would have learned so much less these two weeks if we hadn't found these sweet pens.
- discarded old batters by throwing them over the wall (i.e. onto the ground with the rest of the garbage). One trainee said she is going to try to ship her batteries home to discard safely. I give her a lot of props for this.
- Super tired in afternoon (again). Feel frustrated about being in defense mode. Last week, I was looking for more things to do, was looking to do more. Now I'm craving the weekend (it will not come fast enough) and I look for opportunities to lay down for a few minutes, though today I studied during lunch fulanzam like last week, and I'm not jumping at getting stuff done (didn't do the dishes like usual the past two days).

Feel like even the blog notes are rambling and disorganized. So much looking forward to Dosso and an orange soda and a bed where I can rest/ sleep without worrying about missing anything. We have or second and maybe last LPI on Monday, and I'm kinda miffed because going through the study manual and redoing my notes, I haven't caught up to where we are in class. I mean, it doesn't really matter, we will absorb but we absorb. But I feel like if I was caught up, and christ even had time to drill some of the vocab or practice some grammar, I'd be actually like formally prepared. My class, three of the top six out of 16 (if that makes any sense), I feel could pass the LPI today, but we all want to get a really high score (i.e. dominate), so I would appreciate the extra time. It's funny to think about being worried about passing the LPI. The standard is not very high. The more pressing matter is being able to function in your village when they drop you off on January 2 or whenevs.