house at 12:30 p.m. today. I am trying to
show the dryness and the intensity of the
sun. Put them together and you have
101 F at noon time.
101 F at noon time.
It is a dry heat but the sun has got some
power to it. So what do you do on a 101
degree Sunday ... at the beginning of the
hot season ... sit in your house that's about
99.9 F and blog, naturally.
Like mentioned, it is a dry heat but one can
sweat nonetheless.
I have a strategy to build resistance so as to
be able to do things and not suffer as much.
My plan is to get out there and buck through
it. Yesterday is was biking about 65 km during
the hottest part of the day. Of course I drank
a sufficient amount of water and did a self
monitoring as to how I was feeling. Made
it in a kind of no sweat way.
One of the high points was at about the 55 km
which put me on the paved road, was that of
seeing two vultures doing their thing on the
carcass of what appeared to be a freshly road
killed teenaged goat.
It was one of those animal/nature shows right
there. They were pulling on something that
was long and stringy.
Maybe a little gruesome but that is nature in
it's glory, nonetheless.
And that was at 100 degree Farenheit too.
We are planning to follow up our sex-ed
sensibilization with a discussion panel group
of teenagers. Here in the villages there isn't
much communication between husband and
wives, men and women or boys and girls.
I'm guessing in the Capital, Ouagadougou,
that there is some.
The goal is to encourage the girls to speak
up a bit. Usually they just sit there if there
are boys in the group. The point is to get the
girls a little empowered and the boys to be
listening a bit more. Voila if a girl will have
more courage to ask/demand condom usage.
One teacher and I (or me) are compiling and
going over questions that the panel of 10 boys
and 10 girls will comment on and hopefully
discuss.
It is a first time thing, so not sure if it will pan
out.
Not all questions are on condom use but the
goal in essence is to understand that each
other are individual human beings with thoughts
and opinions.
If it could come to that, it would go far to
empowering the girls.
Update on the sex-ed results ... again ... so far
no girls who participed are pregnant. Also the
number of condoms being sold at our clinic's
pharmacy has gone from 1 box of 150 every 7
months, to 1 box every two months, to as of
the end of January ... 1 box per month.
As a volunteer it sure helps to see something
positive and it keeps ya wanting to play
the game.
So as the temperature seems to have even
risen since I began banging out this post ...
we welcome the beginning of the hot season.
As for you guys in the cold northeast ... pray
for us. Your turn will come in about 4 months.
Yeah, probably some sarcasm there. But you
guys have electricity and running water.
We have heat and no electric or water bills.
Humm ...
