Amebas

written Oct. 8, 2010
So school has started up again here, and I feel like I should be walking to class with the teens and little kids of my village, seeing as I feel like a little kid myself. I don't see this as a bad thing, just as something very weird. I was just starting to feel like a grown up as I was finishing up at UF, but now I feel like I have been thrown back into highschool. In Mali I have very little Independence. This is for a good reason because I am a foreigner here, and it would be very hard to make it on my own, but still. I am constantly under the watch of some Malian which at times is very annoying to me because I just came from living on my own for thr past four years. I live with my homologue right now, and this just makes me feel even more like a kid because he's basically a father figure, and I have to live with him, so esentially I've moved back in with my father. He very rarely lets me go places by myself, and when I am away from him for a day or more, he calls me to see how I am doing. I think that this is all very nice and caring of him, but again coming from being on my own for four years, I find it to be a tad bit annoying. Oh well, I guess I'm either going to have to get use to it, or set my boundaries as an adult. I'm not sure which one I wanna do yet, because sometimes being babied and having everything done for you is great!
On a more disgusting note, I have Amebas! Yayyy! Except not. You may not know what Amebas are so lemme just throw you a little blurb on how amebas are transmitted from the amazing book Where There is No Doctor: "The stools of infected people contain millions of these tiny parasites. Because of poor sanitation, they get into the source of drinking water or into food, and other people become infected." So yea, I'm one of those "other people." Oh and to avoid disgusting myself even further, I'm just going to refrain from describing the symptoms of having Amebas, you can look that up on your own. This is all very horrifying to me, but I guess that's just what happens when very few people wash their hands with soap in the country that I'm doing my Peace Corps service in :/. Oh and I now have to take 8 pills everyday for the next week! How exciting! -__-