Cats Jesus

I don't know why cats are funny, but this is causing audible laughter.

p.s. Props to my pediatrician friend who is scoring me some antibiotics for my sinus infection, now spreading to my eye socket. In tree weeks babee, I knock de teef outta dis infection.

Pooperama

Hey! So things have been really shitty lately. To top it all off I finally went to the dentist after 3 years, or more like 6 really since I don't count the Malian dentist who checked my teeth in Bamako when I left the Peace Corps. Everything looked pretty good until they got the LASER out. Apparently it measures the density of your tooth to find hidden cavities. Cool! Normal range is like 1-10, over 25 is a cavity, and it goes up to 100 (totally rotting, shell of the tooth's former self, fasttrack to dentures). It makes a little noise in your mouth like a tiny buzzsaw. So Vicky, the totally nice hygienist who looks like Lily Tomlin and told me all about her overbearing mother who never let her travel and made her get married, "not that THAT worked out", runs the LASER around my mouth. Wrrrrrr. So far so good. WrrrrEeeeer. Oops. Small cavity. WrrrrrrrrrrrrrEeerr. Another small cavity. Jeepers. WrrrrrrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEr. 87! Holy crap! There is DECAY IN MY MOUTH. Fucking hell.

Mind you, I have never ever had a cavity before.

Also over the weekend my window was leaking rain onto my head through infintessimate gaps in the woodwork, which may have contributed to the massive sickness that was my weekend and my monday. Monday was a full-on sickday spent lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, making toast with moldy bread because that's what we had, watching 7 hour-long episodes of Friday Night Lights, a TV show about Texas high school football shot with a gritty handheld realism. It's not as good as West Wing but it is damn good. The pilot episode made me cry. Of course, just about everything makes me cry right now (the end of Bobby, on the plane), which just makes me feel bad because I'm being a Debbie Downer for all my friends and family. Vicious cycle, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway, this morning I was actually happy as I woke up, but I think it was just because I had been able to breathe through my nose the entire night, and so my mouth wasn't filled with awful dried saliva and nastiness. Probably just because all that has now settled into my lungs, super!

Edith and I are trying to buy a house. This is awesome. Plus she got into Hopkins Med School because like duh! she kicks ass. We drove around looking at neighborhoods on Sunday, in the rain, near both UMD and JHU, lots of cheap stuff in the ghetto near boarded up blocks, but a lot of cool cute places to be had in the nicer areas. Very exciting. If only I had time at work to look for houses, because my stupid Mac is about to get a thrashing for being so goddamn slow. I know it's 4 years old, which makes it the Methusalah of Macs, but that doesn't make it any easier when the spinning color wheel of frustration comes up everytime I ask it to switch programs or google something.

But hey. We all got problems.

Light Speed in Mali

I got to Mali Monday night. Tuesday afternoon there was a meeting to talk about activities for Malaria Month, which is April. One of the participants was Fanta Coulibaly, an actress in a Malian soap-opera called "D'ou la Famille". We thought hey, maybe we can get malaria messages into the soap, wouldn't that be cool? So we called up the director/writer and he came right over. Thought it was a great idea, except for one thing: filming had finished a year ago! But maybe we could film some skits to air right before the series?

Super, no problem. We agreed on a price and he went home while Djiba and Kouressy went over to the TV station to negotiate broadcast fees. Sidibe (the director) came back the next day for his malaria messages - 4 in total, one for each sketch, to air weekly during April. The first one had to air the following friday. It was Thursday.

Over the weekend Sidibe wrote 4 scripts, presented them to us on Monday, filmed the whole thing (12 minutes total) on Tuesday, edited on Wednesday, screened them for us Thursday, and we aired on Friday, as hoped for. I think we set a world record for fastest production - from concept to airdate - in Africa. When else do you go on a 10-day trip and get to see the beginning AND end of your work?

Plus, the sketches are really funny. L'Hadji, the father, is so incensed by malaria that he comes out of the house with his large-caliber rifle, wanting to shoot all the mosquitos. Sidibe is the Man.

Dance Dance Revolution

I only have fun dancing in Africa, specifically in Bamako. We had drinks on Claudia's roof last night then went out to the Monte Cristo nightclub, which is newly renovated (and next door to PSI's original offices). The Congolese music and the salsa had been playing at Claudia's and continued at the club. I LOVE Congolese music. It reminds me of selling condoms in Ndende and having a good time with my buddies around a table full of empty Regab bottles. Areana and I danced until 3:30 in the morning. That never happens in the States. I don't know why. Ok – so I will admit that here I tend to consume more alcohol since I am never driving home. But that’s not the whole story.

This makes me wonder about that split personality - Bamako/Gabon H vs US H. Here I will go up to random strangers and quiz them about their jobs to see if they're Russian mafia (they were Air France execs). I know it has something to do with my increased sense of my own (comparative) attractiveness here, and my hankering for spy-type activities (and ability to carry them out). My social confidence is greater here than in the States. And because of my Peace Corps experience and Bambara ability I feel I understand my surroundings much better than I often do in the US, where I'm thrust into work situations that fancier than I am used to on an almost daily basis. Here I have things to show and teach people - at home I am still learning. Here I'm a point person and in Baltimore and DC I'm the one asking for directions and advice.

So - the goal: being more like Bamako H in the US (without the hangovers, hopefully).