Did you know...

that cows never sleep? Or so it seems. Instead of getting woken up by roosters, I hear the low, grumblings of hundreds of cows from 2 am on. Okay, maybe not hundreds. So I finally moved into my site and was there for a week when I was dragged out and sent to Conakry to be placed on medical hold. Last Monday night, right before 7, I looked down at my foot where earlier I had noticed an infected mosquito bite. My left foot was so swollen I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it. So I hobbled, because at this point I realized why it was so painful to walk (I'm not a very observant person apparently), to the field where I get phone service and called my doctor. Unfortunately, my doctor was traveling and did not have service so I called the nurse. I explained to her that my foot and ankle were swollen and my toes were purple. She immediately told me to get to a hospital. I told her I was 10 hours away from the Conakry hospital and that it is almost 7 and I'm not allowed to travel at night (it gets completely dark around 7:15). So she said she was going to have a doctor in Conakry call me. So he calls me and he says come to the hospital. At this point I'm kind of starting to get worried, but it's getting dark out and I need to truck it home. I tell them that I will call the doctor tomorrow. I do and after a day he sends a car for me, because I wasn't responding to the antibiotics (only because I found out recently that I'm anemic). The trip takes two days so we stop in Labe for the night and the doctor calls me to see how I'm doing. I tell him I can't feel my toes, they're numb. He calls the doctor in Labe, who doesn't speak English, and I'm taken to...the local mechanic to see him. So I sit in a back of car while he pokes around on my foot, asks me if my lower stomach hurts, and pulls one of my eyelids down and says something about red blood cells. He says I don't need to be rushed to Conakry and that I can leave the next morning. So I do. The eight hour ride was rough and I think I got even more sick. As soon I got to Conakry, I went to the hospital. I expected to see it crowded, but there was only one other patient. The hospital, I'm told, is the third best in Conakry...and the good news kept coming. In all seriousness, the hospital was an old Red Cross hospital with American fixings. I saw a doctor, he confirmed what I had been thinking...that I was going to live...phew. So now the doctor and nurse have been caring for it, as well as my infected ears (yes, I apparently still get ear infections, but I really think this was a bad one, I mean I can't hear out of one of my ears!). I saw the doctor tonight and he can't really understand why it's not healing faster. I told him I am a "delicate" and "fragile" being and that I will be just fine. So I'm hoping to go back to my site on Wednesday. I will be missing the first two days of school, but everyone tells me that school won't begin until Monday, if then. They always have some sort of strike before it actually begins.
So let me tell you about my first week at site! It was rough. I walked into my house, after searching for my keys for about 20 minutes (my bad!), and the person who dropped me off asked, "Do you want to stay somewhere else tonight? This place looks awful." I was shocked. Of course I wanted to stay in my new house. I was finally there. So a bunch of people got to work and started cleaning. We didn't get much done. For the next three days I bruised both my hips sleeping on a broken down straw mattress, got rained on throughout the night, got eaten alive by bed bugs, got a wall painted when they said they would finish that day, realized my latrine area would never really be clean, paid to have screens made so I wouldn't be bitten and not getting them finished for another four days (after they saw I couldn't walk because of an infected bite), and found the source of beaucoup de mouse droppings (the roof). And really...I can't wait to go back. The people there are amazing, so generous. I found myself a host family that seem very nice. Basically, I would starve without them. (I still am kind of hungry all the time there, but does that really surprise anyone?) I have a gas stove, I just don't have a gas tank right now. My host mother is 24 and has a baby on the way!! I cannot wait. I look forward to meeting my students and finally doing what I came here to do...teach. I'm feeling better (this just in, I'm not anemic anymore!) and I can walk just fine, I'm even starting to hear out of my clogged ear!
I miss all you guys...two months till I come home for Christmas!
Oh and my new number is 001224 63979427. I get texts!