Five week challenge is done! The challenge is to stay at site/not spend a night outside of site for your first five weeks at your permanent site. Definitely one of the hardest things I have had to do yet especially because my phone broke a week into the challenge. About two weeks after it stopped working some people tried to help me fix it and I think sometimes they think that because I don’t understand their language I also don’t know how to do other things or I say something but really meant to say something else. I say this because when these people were trying to help me the first thing every single one asked was well where is the charger. I would then proceed to tell them that the battery was fully charged and they would take my battery out and put it in their phone to see if it was actually fully charged. Then a few of them would take their battery and put it in my phone to see if it worked. Lol. They would then tell me that it was my phone that was bad because the battery and sim card work so it must be the actual phone that is bad. In my head I’m saying thank you captain obvious…..I can figure that much out on my own. However, one person finally brought me to my dad who gets things done and he gave me my moms phone to use while they tried to fix my phone but then one of my sisters brought my phone back to me after lunch and said once again that the phone is bad. So I just have to get a new phone. Now you must be thinking oh you didn’t have a phone for a month that can’t be that bad right…..wrong. This meant that I had no one to speak English to except myself for a month. It wasn’t fun. The five week challenge is hard enough without having a broken phone.
On the other side of things, I really like my family and my village. I still don’t know how everyone in my family is related. I think my dad has two wives but then there are other women that also live with us and have kids so I don’t know how everyone is related. It’s also very difficult to figure these things out when you just ask because everyone says they are your sister, aunt, brother, uncle, whatever you can think of. But my dad’s second wife has this adorable little boy whose name is Mabdou. At first he was quite annoying because he cries all the time but after about two and half weeks we became good friends. I now can make him stop crying and sometimes when I leave the group he either tries to follow me or he starts to cry until I come back. He also will come into my room looking for me. I’ve decided I’m going to teach him English because he is around the age of just starting to talk so it is perfect timing. I really enjoy playing with him and my other younger siblings because you can interact with them without needing to know a lot of language and they don’t laugh at you every time you say something. Adults do.
That brings me to the next subject, language. I know that I know a lot of language for being here only three months but I still have so much to learn and it is very frustrating at times because depending on who I am talking with they just laugh at everything I say whether it is right or wrong. That is probably the most frustrating thing I have had to deal with is people laughing or just treating me like I’m stupid. There is one woman who will the same thing to me five times even when I tell her after the second time that I understood what she was saying or she just mumbles to me and makes hand motions which is kind of funny to watch but frustrating to figure out what she is saying. My family has been really good though. They laugh every so often but they are now understanding that I am learning and to talk to me so I can learn. There is also a woman that lives with us that is a teacher at the school here and she has been very helpful because she is very patient with me and makes me repeat things that she says so I remember them. She also corrects me when I’m wrong and praises me when I’m right. Although, She is leaving in July to go home for their summer break for three months. But she will be back. She also gave me a desk from the school which was exactly what I needed. I was going to have one made but now I don’t need it because she said I can keep this desk until I go home. I had papers and books everywhere and now I finally have place for everything. It has made life so much better.
I have decided that my family thinks I am a very strange girl for many reasons. I have started running and working out again and they think running is funny. And every day that I go before I go they tell me today is hot don’t go running but every day is hot here and every day is too hot for them. Lol. Which brings me to another reason I think they think I’m funny because part of the greetings here is asking how the heat is and I’ve acclimated to the heat so it’s not that bad some days so I will say it’s only a little hot and they say only a little? No it’s very hot today and then they ask if the U.S. is hot and I say not as hot as this but my state is actually really cold compared to this and then they say nope it’s really hot I don’t know what you’re talking about. As I am writing this it is 101°F. One day I put my thermometer outside in the sun and it was 140°F. So when I wake up in the mornings now and it is 75°, it feels kinda chilly. I also wear pants/capris. Girls in this culture do not where pants unless you are in a bigger city. One of the funniest things is that I like animals. We have a whole bunch of cats running around our compound most of them I don’t think I would want to pet because they have funny looking spots or bites but there is one really pretty cat that I have adopted as my cat. She has also taken a liking to me now too since she has realized that I am not going to kick her or hit her, so she comes to sleep in my room in the afternoons and sometimes she’ll just wonder in for some attention. When I pick her up to pet her everyone’s reaction is hilarious! Especially the first time, they all freaked out and told me that she was going to bite me or scratch me. None of the adults will touch her but the kids have started to try to pet her but then get scared and hit her which makes me unhappy. She is a cutie though and I’m glad she likes me because I was thinking about getting a dog but then knew that I would want to take him home after two years but since this cat likes to live outside she will be ok to stay here when I leave.
So now I am having a relaxing weekend in Linguere for a girls camp meeting which is great because it helps me feel like I"m finally working! Here is also a plug for the girls camp! Everyone should think about donating to it! It is a week long leadership camp for girls between 12 and 15. It is to show girls that there is life outside of their villages and they are capable of doing the same things that men do. I will get more info out about that when I know it but that is what is going on in the life of Katie/Kine and I will be back in a couple weeks!!!!
On the other side of things, I really like my family and my village. I still don’t know how everyone in my family is related. I think my dad has two wives but then there are other women that also live with us and have kids so I don’t know how everyone is related. It’s also very difficult to figure these things out when you just ask because everyone says they are your sister, aunt, brother, uncle, whatever you can think of. But my dad’s second wife has this adorable little boy whose name is Mabdou. At first he was quite annoying because he cries all the time but after about two and half weeks we became good friends. I now can make him stop crying and sometimes when I leave the group he either tries to follow me or he starts to cry until I come back. He also will come into my room looking for me. I’ve decided I’m going to teach him English because he is around the age of just starting to talk so it is perfect timing. I really enjoy playing with him and my other younger siblings because you can interact with them without needing to know a lot of language and they don’t laugh at you every time you say something. Adults do.
That brings me to the next subject, language. I know that I know a lot of language for being here only three months but I still have so much to learn and it is very frustrating at times because depending on who I am talking with they just laugh at everything I say whether it is right or wrong. That is probably the most frustrating thing I have had to deal with is people laughing or just treating me like I’m stupid. There is one woman who will the same thing to me five times even when I tell her after the second time that I understood what she was saying or she just mumbles to me and makes hand motions which is kind of funny to watch but frustrating to figure out what she is saying. My family has been really good though. They laugh every so often but they are now understanding that I am learning and to talk to me so I can learn. There is also a woman that lives with us that is a teacher at the school here and she has been very helpful because she is very patient with me and makes me repeat things that she says so I remember them. She also corrects me when I’m wrong and praises me when I’m right. Although, She is leaving in July to go home for their summer break for three months. But she will be back. She also gave me a desk from the school which was exactly what I needed. I was going to have one made but now I don’t need it because she said I can keep this desk until I go home. I had papers and books everywhere and now I finally have place for everything. It has made life so much better.
I have decided that my family thinks I am a very strange girl for many reasons. I have started running and working out again and they think running is funny. And every day that I go before I go they tell me today is hot don’t go running but every day is hot here and every day is too hot for them. Lol. Which brings me to another reason I think they think I’m funny because part of the greetings here is asking how the heat is and I’ve acclimated to the heat so it’s not that bad some days so I will say it’s only a little hot and they say only a little? No it’s very hot today and then they ask if the U.S. is hot and I say not as hot as this but my state is actually really cold compared to this and then they say nope it’s really hot I don’t know what you’re talking about. As I am writing this it is 101°F. One day I put my thermometer outside in the sun and it was 140°F. So when I wake up in the mornings now and it is 75°, it feels kinda chilly. I also wear pants/capris. Girls in this culture do not where pants unless you are in a bigger city. One of the funniest things is that I like animals. We have a whole bunch of cats running around our compound most of them I don’t think I would want to pet because they have funny looking spots or bites but there is one really pretty cat that I have adopted as my cat. She has also taken a liking to me now too since she has realized that I am not going to kick her or hit her, so she comes to sleep in my room in the afternoons and sometimes she’ll just wonder in for some attention. When I pick her up to pet her everyone’s reaction is hilarious! Especially the first time, they all freaked out and told me that she was going to bite me or scratch me. None of the adults will touch her but the kids have started to try to pet her but then get scared and hit her which makes me unhappy. She is a cutie though and I’m glad she likes me because I was thinking about getting a dog but then knew that I would want to take him home after two years but since this cat likes to live outside she will be ok to stay here when I leave.
So now I am having a relaxing weekend in Linguere for a girls camp meeting which is great because it helps me feel like I"m finally working! Here is also a plug for the girls camp! Everyone should think about donating to it! It is a week long leadership camp for girls between 12 and 15. It is to show girls that there is life outside of their villages and they are capable of doing the same things that men do. I will get more info out about that when I know it but that is what is going on in the life of Katie/Kine and I will be back in a couple weeks!!!!
