Strange Day, yet weirdly typical

So I've been traveling a lot this month. I had a workshop earilier in the month, then followed by a good bye party for a fellow volunteer, followed by our close of service confrence and concluding recently with a wedding. So I've been feeling pretty guilty about being away from my community so much so I made a decision not to do any more traveling for the rest of the month. the past two days i was in alfa kora the neighboring village to mine working with a fellow volunteer and his environment club. i got back to angaradebou yesterday evening. this morning when i got up i headed straight into the health center. for some reason, i don't know why, i decided to bring my wooden penis and some condoms with me. this was i guess just incase i had the chance to talk to someone, or the subject came up I would be ready with props in hand. there's not much i can do, but i like them to know i'm around so i go and hangout, chat with them, help with some of the paperwork if i can. i stayed till around noon, which is break time and also the medicine i'm taking now for my ears really upsets my stomach so I wanted to go back to my house and relax anyway. well i was leaving, walking down the side of the road when I heard someone call my name. It was this guy i generally avoid, but for some reason today I decided to be polite and go over and talk to him. He was sitting outside his shop with a couple other men. The conversation started off simple enough, how are you, you've been gone a long time, what did you bring me. yada yada yada. i don't know how it happend though but during our 2 hours of chatting our conversation hit upon topics such as voting, why did people vote for obama, teen pregnancy, what africa needs to develop, and finally AIDS. one of the questions first asked was whether or not it was true that the cure for aids had been found but that we just weren't sharing it with africa. that's when i had to inform them that there was no cure at all for aids and that americans die from aids just like african's do. they were a little suprised by this but then recovered to say that they(americans) don't die as much as africans do. I wanted to say that's your own fault, but I was more polite about it and said that that is because not enough of you use condoms when you have sex. Which led me getting out the wooden penis and condoms i had brought along. I sat there with these men explaining and demonstrating how to use a condom. i'm glad i did it, they needed to know and it's the only way things will change around here and it was refreshing to see that two of the men at least already knew the proper way to use one. of course questions followed about condoms breaking because there penis was so large and what not. typical guy stuff. one of the men then showed me on his very nice cell phone a porno clip where a man had a very large penis and then asked if a condom would even fit that one. it was so strange i couldn't help but laughing. it wasn't long after that that one of the men had to go off and pray and so our little group broke up. the guy i usually avoid wanted me to stay and keep talking but there was no way i was going to do that with no one else around so i made my excusses and head home...2 hours later.

Chick Killer (Random Story)

So a couple months back I was doing laundry at my house. Now doing laundry entails a large basin (metal bowl) filled part way with water, some powdered soap bought at local market, my pile of dirty clothes and me sitting out on my front porch with them scrubbing them by hand. So I had finished up with my laundry for the day but decided not to toss out my rinse water so that I could use it later that evening to wash my feet off before going to bed. (I wear sandles all day while walking in the dirt and sand, washing feet helps keep sheets cleaner longer) I left the basin outside while I went about the rest of my day. That night when I came back the basin was still there, but I noticed something floating inside. For a moment I thought I had left some clothes in there to soak since I do do that from time to time. I go over to look and inside were baby chick. I empty out the water and count the bodies of 5 babies chicks that I for some reason or another decided to jump into my basine.