Ringing in the New Year

I think I win the award for being in a country the least amount of time before getting sick. I made it two full days (almost exactly) before I woke up sick. I felt queasy when I went to bed Thursday night, but told myself I wasn't sick and just needed to sleep. I woke up at midnight knowing without a doubt that I was definitely going to throw up. By 3:30 the worst of it was over, but it definitely left me wiped out today.

We made a visit today to one of the women's homes who is in the goat program. It was my first time inside one of the huts and I must say they are quite impressive. They are much larger inside than they appear outside, which is good, because the whole family (to have 6-8 kids is not uncommon here) as well as all of the livestock sleep in there together. I'll call the lady Sarah that we were visiting. She was cooking bread in between corn husks on a giant griddle over a fire in the middle of the hut (see pic below). Apparently, the smoke keeps out the mosquitos and flies so it is welcome with the fire. She also fixed and served us tea. Due to my still queasy stomach, I declined both the bread and the tea. Sarah only had 4 children and you could tell that they were all fairly well fed and taken care of, however the youngest, who was one, was sick with malaria and was such a pitiful sight to see. Sarah started out with three goats a little less than two years ago and now has 8 goats, so she is a success story with the program. Once they have a small herd built up, they can use the milk to help feed their families or they can sell the goats for money to support their families.

Before we left, I took a picture of the 20 or so children who had found their way inside the hut to watch us. We seem to be quite the novelty around here. Anytime we drive through a village, little kids run out to the street from every direction and cry out “money, money” “money, money.” Not sure who got that little saying started, but it is both funny and sad to see and hear. Anyways, when I held up the camera at Sarah's house, all of the kids rushed together so that they could be in the picture, but when I stepped back so that I could get them all in, they followed me. They didn't understand what I was doing. After I took it, they all crowded around to see what it looked like and excitedly pointed themselves out in the picture on my screen (see pic below). It's pretty safe to say that kids are kids everywhere!

Well, it is New Year's Eve night and no where close to midnight, but I am going to attempt to sleep so that tomorrow is a little more smooth than today!

I have included a picture of one of the baby goats from our project as well as a picture of one of the young girls (note the baby arms and legs you can see :)