Oh boy.

It’s been an interesting past couple days. 1) I got diarrhea and 2) I fell off a motorcycle.

On Wednesday, I slept in a bit late. I didn’t get up until 8:45 and had to hurry to get breakfast before Bob started his daily devotional with the Fulbe guys at 9. It’s okay though, nothing happens before 9 anyway. After the devotional, I went with Sulemanu to a baby naming ceremony for someone in the church. It is a Fulbe tradition to not name a baby until one week after it has been born. Also, during the ceremony, they shave the baby’s head and snip the tonsils although I didn’t witness that at the ceremony. It probably happened after we left. Before going to their home, Sulemanu and I stopped at a grocery store so I could buy two bars of soap, just as a present to give when someone has a baby. One bar was from me and the other from Bob. They named the baby boy Ali. The father and mother live right in Banyo. I rode on the back of Sulemanu’s motorcycle to get there. Dayyibu and Umaru were also there. I had never met the father or mother before but they were very glad to have me in their home and very welcoming. I got to hold the baby, take a few photos and socialize a little bit. The women all congregated in one room while the men congregated in another. The men were in the same room with the women for a short amount of time to socialize but it was very crowded so we retreated back to our own room right next to the women’s room.

There, the guys mostly talked in Fulfulde and occasionally asked me a few questions in English about Obama and American education/culture. Sulemanu told me that when a baby is born, if the family is wealthy enough, they slaughter a cow. We ate bread and dipped it into a beef broth made from the cow. When the broth ran low, we used forks to eat chunks of beef left over in the bowl. This was the first time since I’ve been here that I had to remember to always eat with my right hand. The man is a Christian church-goer in Wouram but comes from a Muslim background so I didn’t want to do anything impolite. We also ate avocados. There were two avocados that were cut into quarters and we used spoons to scoop the fruit out. We drank hot tea with sugar at first and then cold milk. They said the milk was from a cow so I imagine that it was genuine milk, not the milk we typically have which is water mixed with dried milk powder.

It wasn’t until I was halfway through drinking my milk that I realized it probably wasn’t pasteurized. I felt fine the rest of the day though. I hadn’t gotten sick at all yet which really surprises me. I was expecting to probably be sick for the first few days after I got here. Yay for modern medicine. The milk was very sweet and almost reminded me of egg nog. Like I said, I hadn’t gotten sick at all yet but at 5 this morning I woke up and was not feeling too good. I had diarrhea and took some Pepto Bismol. I woke up again at 6 had to use the bathroom and decided to break out some Cipro that had been packed for me in a medicine kit prepared by Passport Health Services in Lawrenceville, NJ where I received my yellow fever shot. Things like Pepto Bismol and Immodium A.D. only cover up the symptoms up diarrhea but Cipro is actually an antibiotic to kill the bacteria. I woke up again at 7 to use the bathroom and again at 8:40 when Dayyibu knocked on my door to ask if he could use my surge protector outlets to charge his phone battery. I felt okay but not great. I went over to the Lokkers’ home and ate a tiny amount of breakfast. Joan gave me some Gatorade to replenish myself and I went back to bed. I slept until about 12:30 and felt great. I took another Cipro at 6 and I’ll take two more tomorrow and two more the next day as the directions say I should do. I can get Cipro here at the clinic so if I run out, I’ll be okay. Not only will it be cheaper than in the states but I don’t need a prescription. I can just walk into the clinic, request some, pay a little bit, and there we go. It’s like that for all medicine. If you know exactly what you need, you don’t need to see a doctor. Just go for it.

I told Joan about the milk and she said that the Fulbe always heat their milk up before consuming it but it was cold when we drank it. She said then it might’ve started to grow some bad bacteria as it cooled. Since I’m the only one around here who got sick it most likely wasn’t anything from last night’s dinner but who knows. It could’ve been something from days ago that is just now giving me trouble. I think it was the milk though.

After the baby naming ceremony yesterday, Sulemanu took me back home and I had a little more to eat. A friend of Joan’s named Esther had brought over some foufou with jamajama leaves. It’s a fairly bland dish that they say doesn’t really have a whole lot of nutrients but just fills you up. The foufou is made from corn flower that is mashed, boiled in water, dried out, and boiled again. It’s white and has an almost matzaball soup like texture. You eat it with your hands and break the foufou up into smaller pieces and scoop a little bit of the jamajama leaves with it as you eat. Most of the people in this area seem to be fairly healthy although some are definitely malnourished. Bob says that’s not because they don’t have food to eat but rather they choose to eat the cheapest things they can make or find, like foufou. It’s simple and very lacking in nutrients.

After lunch, I went to the shop to prepare to teach Tim, John and Bethany on how to put a small engine back together. Dayyibu and I had taken a Briggs and Stratton engine most of the way apart. Now we were just cleaning it/cleaning off the old broken gasket material. I got most of the way put together before I realized that a new spare gasket I thought would fit for the engine, didn’t quite match up. The gasket was made for a similar model Briggs and Stratton engine but it not this one. It’s unlikely I’ll find the gasket for the engine in town so I’ll just have to buy gasket material and make one. Hopefully the engine can be together again soon and it’ll run.

After calling it a day on that small engine, Dayyibu, Abdu and I worked on trying to get a Mitsuba 125cc motorcycle to run. It hadn’t run in a while and doesn’t have a battery. Every motorcycle around here has a kick start in addition to an electric start. We put some gas in the gas tank which Bob thought might have a leak, and Dayyibu tried to start it. It wouldn’t start. He got tired of kick starting it, which is very slow so we tried to run with it. Abdu and I pushed while Dayyibu rode it down a slightly downward sloping section of the grass. I sprayed fuel down the throat of the carburetor and it attempted to start but wasn’t really getting going. Abdu and Dayyibu tried a few more times to get it started going up and down the slope. I told them they were wasting their time and energy doing so but I didn’t mind waiting around for them to get tired out. They eventually gave up and wanted to take a look at the spark plug. We don’t have a spark plug socket, or even a regular deep socket for the size spark plug on the engine so we couldn’t remove it. Most spark plugs are either 13/16 in. or 5/8 in. but this one was 11/16 in. I wasn’t positive the carburetor was getting any fuel to begin with so I disconnected the fuel line to it. Nothing came out. I disconnected the fuel filter and gas started to pour. The fuel filter was clogged. Dayyibu blew through it in both directions to clear it up, I put it back on, and it started up. Voila. We called it a day.

Abdu, John, Tim, Sulamane, another boy and I played a game of soccer afterwards before it was time for dinner. Dayyibu’s wife and mother in-law are leaving on Friday to go to Nigeria where the mother in-law is from. It is customary when someone has a baby (Dayyibu’s son was born 5 weeks ago), either the mother’s mother comes to stay for a little while to help take care of the baby or for the mother to leave to stay with her mom so they can take care of the baby. In this case, the mother’s mother came to Wouram first but now both the mother and mother in-law will return to Nigeria. Dayyibu will be here all alone for 5 months while his wife, baby and mother in-law are gone. We had dinner in the mother in-law’s honor last night. We ate outside and had potatoes, bread and orange fruit juice.

Thursday, after waking up and feeling better we decided to go on a motorcycle ride. Bob has wanted to teach Tim, John and Bethany how to ride in a little area off the main road a few minutes away. We were all set to go with the Mitsuba motorcycle ready and Bob’s bike almost ready. It ran for a bit but as we were leaving it stalled out. Tim and John had already started to walk ahead to get to the area while Bethany would ride on the back of Bob’s motorcycle and I would ride the Mitsuba. The spark plug wire had fallen off of Bob’s spark plug and a new cap had to be installed. It took a few minutes but we were back on the road again. The Mitsuba wasn’t running very well and wouldn’t idle. It was okay as long as you kept your hand on the throttle to prevent it from stalling. I got to the main road at the end of the compound’s driveway and it stalled out. I had difficulty getting it started again but eventually it did. I rode down the road for not more than a minute and I’m not sure what exactly happened. Either the engine hiccupped as I neared idle, I shifted incorrectly (the shifting pattern is different on the bikes here than in America) or I just hit a big patch of soft dust. Whatever happened, the next thing I knew the rear tire fishtailed to the left and the whole bike leaned over to the right and came crashing down. I was COVERED in dust. Luckily I wasn’t really hurt, just a scrape on my right elbow, a scrape on my right ankle and a cut on my left thumb. Not too bad. We decided to call it a day with riding the bikes though. The Mitsuba needed some more work before it was road ready. I rode it back okay, dusted myself off a lot, cleaned my wounds and put some Neosporin and band aids on. I took the carburetor apart, cleaned it out and now it runs just fine.
Today I worked on Sulamane’s motorcycle but it’s electrical problems were just too much for one day. We have to get a battery for it and take it from there. I showed Abdu and Sulamane pictures from America and trips I’ve been on. They were interested in seeing where I live and such. Tonight, Tim, John, Abdu and I are going camping at the bottom of a nearby mountain. It should be fun but I’ve gotta get going to get ready for it.

That’s all for now.