Welcome Back

After too long a time away from blogging, I’m back at it, this time with internet at my site so there are no excuses!

Unfortunately there are a few things that have passed that I don’t have a good enough memory to describe them. This is going to be an entry of mini entries of the things I was going to blog about, but didn’t get around to.

September 2nd?, 2009

I sat under Andrea’s thatched hanger watching drops hurl themselves against the concrete floor. It was drizzling out, something I’d never really seen before in Burkina. The strong winds and dark clouds that were a hallmark of rain had disappeared, giving way to a light breeze and soft, grey, streaky clouds.

The ride over had been wet, at times the water was so high my feet disappeared into the muddy water as they reached the nadir of the cycle. I remember looking down into the water and shuddering, remembering some of the pictures we saw during the medical sessions in training. I could practically see the parasites swimming around, looking for an opening.

The bike ride to Andrea’s is a short 13km but with most of the road underwater it had taken me the better part of an hour. The road itself could be found in some of the more remote parts of Montana. It’s navigable but the combination of rains and relatively heavy traffic has taken their toll. Put a foot of water on top of that and you’ve got yourself a challenging road.

What is around the road is much more interesting. Every shade of green imaginable painted on plants, trees and bushes. What was hard packed dry dirt broken up by a few trees and shrubs etching out a living has come alive. And everywhere there is water.

I learn a few days later that there was so much rain that week that there were heavy floods in Ouagadougou and elsewhere, sweeping away hundreds of mud-brick homes and leaving thousands homeless.


October 14th, 2009

I’ve never been that afraid of spiders. I remember once when I was a kid we found a black window in our garage and we brought it outside to look at. I’ve always admired the way spiders look – sleek, graceful and deadly. I decided it would be a good idea to pick the black widow up with a leather glove. The spider started to crawl upwards toward the skin of my exposed arm and I flung that glove off so fast I think the impact maimed or killed the spider. I tell you this as a precursor.

A couple days ago I needed some socks. Not the most glamorous start to a story but it is true none the less. I’m quite lucky to be able to use the Frères’ laundry service, a guy named Luke who comes around once a week. Every Tuesday morning he drags out three giant dented metal bowels and fills them with water and the local laundry detergent Omo which is the central theme in many wonderful commercials on RTB (Radio and Television of Burkina) and which I unfortunately have burned into my memory. A few hours and a lot scrubbing later he breaks out the iron and gives everything a professional once over. The next day we have a clean, ironed pile of clothes awaiting us in the common room where we eat our meals.

This pile was now sitting on one of my two giant green trunks. I haven’t quite got a good system for storing my cloths, and on top of the chest they stay off of the dirty floor and high enough to stay out of the mini floods that take over my room in especially strong rainstorms.

I knew that my socks where somewhere in the middle – I could see their white shapelessness sticking out from the middle of neat creases and folds. I lifted up the first couple shirts and stopped. There, sitting calmly on my sock was a spider. A camel spider. A large camel spider.

The first, and really only thing you notice about camel spiders are their two giant wickedly curved fangs. They would seem almost comical if they weren’t attached to a creature inches away from your hand. At this point in my service I was still at peace with the critters living in my apartment and not wanting to break the truce now I picked up the sock and headed to the door. I got about halfway there before the thing moved.

As I vainly hurled the sock toward the door I tried to remember if camel spiders were poisonous. I didn’t think so, but I seem to remember some pictures floating around on the internet that didn’t bode well for those unfortunate enough to be bitten by a camel spider. I didn’t want to find out.

He hit the ground running and was gone. I didn’t realize that camel spiders where so fast.

I adopted a ritual the next couple days. Each night before bed I would take my only sheet and shake it, then thoroughly check my pillow and look over my mosquito net before determining that there was no camel spider present and it was safe to go to sleep. I figured that he must have left the apartment by after a few days went by with no sign of him and my routine slowly began to break down.

One night I was extremely tired and couldn’t be bothered to do more than a precursory check before plopping my iPod speakers in my ears, starting up some soothing music and setting my weary head to rest. Even though I’m close to half a mile from the nearest dog, donkey or dance club, a lovely mélange of the three make their way into my room at night. At my host families house in Ouahigouya I thought I could find nothing worse than the call to prayer at 5am. I was wrong. And thus I fall asleep each night with the sounds of music from America land soothing me to sleep.

Tonight I heard something that I didn’t expect – a faint scratching sound. Oh man, please don’t let that be my ear buds, I need these. Scratch, scratch. My head popped off the pillow like a cork as my ears found the source of the scratching sound. It was coming from in the pillow.

I ran across the room and flipped on the light switch, turning back to the pillow as the sole florescent light in my room blinked into existence. I lifted it up gingerly, hoping that I wouldn’t find what I knew I would find. Two large beady black eyes stared back up at me from behind two fangs which I swear had grown a little bit. Camel spiders are tough, but they go down pretty hard when you hit them with a Chaco.

Edit: Sorry the picture upload isn't working. I'll try and get one up later.