Hot season a coming

I took the picture looking out on the back of my

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. 

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 ...