Team Text

Hello to all!

You can’t tell because you’re getting a typed copy of this letter, but I’m writing on normal American lined paper instead of the weird graph paper they have around here. It’s so luxurious and spacious.

This has been an eventful month. Back in February, I was needing a break from Bol-ville so I hopped on the mail run and spent a few days in Mondo with Darren. One of D’s students, Abdel Kerim, is a camel herder and he invited us to amuse ourselves with his camels. We got up at sunrise and walked out into the bush until we got to his camels’ campground. The first task was to milk them, which is tougher than you’d think. The 2nd task was to drink some of the milk. It was body temperature and had gunk and chunks in it, but tasted okay. It has a very smoky taste. Then Abdel Kerim brought over the big daddy camel, who kept sticking his enormous tongue out the side of his mouth and making fart noises. This set me at ease, since my own dad does that too. Abdel Kerim yanked its harness to make it sit down. I had just straddled the thing when it stood up! Camels stand their front legs up first, which means I pitched backward at about a 45º angle until he stood up his back legs. I was barely on this thing. I was basically lying on its back, my legs floppin’ free (I lost a flip flop) and clinging desperately to the fur on its hump. It was not comfortable. Darren laughed hysterically and took photos until Abdel Kerim made the camel descend so that I could climb on all the way. It still was way uncomfortable and tiring, even sitting on the hump. I’m making it sound like we rode for miles, but it was really just the 15 minutes back into town.

Hot season has arrived right on time. The cold-hot transition is hard because your body still remembers cold season and does not want to accept 110º. I whinily asked Achta, “Why’s it so hhh-ooo-ttttt?” She said, “It’s hot because it’s March. It’s hot in March.” Oh. Okay. I guess it’s one of those things that are easier to deal with when you just accept them.

Big big news: Bol got cell coverage on Thursday! They started the project back last summer and the activation date kept getting pushed back. In July, they said September; in September, they said November: in November they said January and on and on. Finally on Thursday, word went out that today was the big day, and everyone flocked to the new CelTel boutique to get their phones. The store was, of course, a total mob. There were no lines, only a surging, sweating, yelling mass. I resigned myself to an hour’s wait, but the man behind the counter pulled me up to the front of the mob. He flirted while he did the paper work and programmed his number into my phone. I erased it as soon as I got home, but for once the constant lecherousness of Chadian men served me, because I got out of there in only a half hour. Cell service is different here in that there are no plans; you just buy pre-paid phone cards. I like it better because you only buy what you need. Among the volunteers, actual calling is rare, but text messaging is constant. And, after a year of looking down on vols with cell service (That’s not the real PC experience! What luxuries they have in the South!), I have hypocritically, yet gleefully, joined Team Text.