It has been an interesting couple of weeks here at ground-zero.  Rumors fly, politics abound, diagnoses suck or don’t get made.  Really,  who knew there was so much going on?  I thought I’d left some of it behind in third grade – well – maybe high school.  Who’s doing what to whom, who said that?   who’s got what disease – you’ve been sick for how long?  You have a rash wheeeere?  is it moving?  is it alive?

Brady – thanks for your re-cap of the year.  It reminded me of how much we’ve all been through since we arrived and how well – generally – we’ve acclimated.  Some are still slogging through the mud – not to get to training, but to get site.  Many are living without any amenities (no, not without hot water – without any water that’s not hauled in) or somewhere at the edge of a prison system with no locks on the doors.  Others though, are right near Queen Elizabeth Park or the Nile or in beautiful Ft. Portal.  But all sites have their challenges regardless of locale,  utilities or the lack of same.  They range from extreme isolation and lack of basic services (aka food other than cassava and potatoes), to chronic illness and just the vagaries of learning how to live in a third-world country on a long term basis and how to get to medical in under 10 hours.

There’s been no lack of drama either:  two PCVs have been flown to South Africa with broken bones needing surgery; several have had – and still do have – thus far unidentifiable intestinal maladies often originating with undercooked or street food-especially meat-on-a-stick; one has been medically separated under a cloud of controversy that has escalated into a what sounds like a law-suit; another has ET’d (Early Terminated) in disgust;

Another (you know who) has had her foot nearly burned off causing jokes of “Run Forest, RUN!”  and another has spent a week in medical with bilateral conjunctivitis caused by allowing small children in the village to touch her face – joining still another who has had a running battle with staph.

  Those are the few I know about in our group and there are 175 of us in-country. As  I’ve said before, Africa is a veritable Smorgasbord of diseases and maladies, adventures and mis-adventures.

And yet, the majority of us are doing whatever we need to to adjust to conditions many folks don’t know exist.  We are making connections and friendships, choosing to spend Christmas with a gaggle of orphans who weren’t “picked” by any family to go home for Christmas (that’s for you Russ), or spending their first holidays without family (many of the “young ones”).  We’re devising ways to ward off holiday blues (meet-ups for Christmas),  keep ants and snakes out of houses (pour paraffin/ kerosene around the house?) and avoid other calamities met by simply walking down the street.

We are getting packages from home, wonderfully supportive e-mails from friends and family, learning the languages somehow,  baking in odd contraptions so we can have our BROWNIES, and in general we are thriving in spite of the challenges or perhaps because of them.  The thing that has always attracted me to experiences off the beaten path is that it calls into play personal resources one never discovers living in safer confines.  And as with many other life-lessons, what has been gained isn’t always apparent until later….

So here we are and there you are on the run up to the holidays.  That’s all the news from Lake Wobegone.

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