Thursday, August 26, 2010

Live from Swearing in...

So tomorrow is swear in. I will be moving from a lowly stagiare to a real volunteer in the Corps de le paix. I am very excited about this, however; I have to stay in Ouga for three weeks and work on my french, because I am not at level. I am at inter low and I need to be at inter high. but I am ok with this. I really think I could maybe be at inter mid, so we will have to see. I am going to be living with another host family. This puts me up to three. Ca va allez.

I am going to be enjoying eating some pizza in Ouga though and I can't wait to see Marina market. I hear i can get real soft serve ice cream. SO SWEET! I am also going to be given my moving in allowance and going to be able to buy the stuff for my house. That includes my fridge that I am planning on buying. Nothing big, just a little dorm fridge. But that is a premier luxury item here. I am going to be able to buy real cheese at marina market and take it and have it at my site as long as I can cooler it to Kaya. Two hour bus ride and cheese.. hmmm.

I am all excited and my swear in outfits are amazing. If I can find someone to take a picture of my five shirts and me you guys will think they are uber gaudy, however they are very in fashion over her. Well Swear in will consist of me going to the embassy and saying the same pledge the president takes, which is cool to think that Barack Obama and I have to take the same pledge, then I will smooze with the VIP's at the party. Leave the embassy and then go out and celebrate. We then get one free day in ouga to do whatever we want, then its AFFECTATION!!!

Affectation is where they move 70 some people all to different sites. Its crazy.

Well thats all for now. I need some love and comments, be sure to give me some.

Love all you beautiful readers!!

P.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BROTHER!!!! Your getting old just like me. MWAHAHAH!!! Love you.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Finally an update. I'm a terrible person.. that or busy. You pick.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been busy with work and stuff and have not made it to a cyber.

Quick update. So my roommate and I were coming home from the boite de nuit (The night club) and a guy came out of the bushes(nothing dangerous) but scared him so we went to take off. I took off and he followed and his tire hit my tire and he fell and dislocated his arm. Now, he is doing fine, but I got to see the Burkina Hospital system. I am glad that I have a PCMO. He is fine now, but he got sent to South Africa. He will be returning this week. So par de problem and ca va alley.

I have swear in next week and I am uber excited because I will finally be a volunteer. YAY!!!!! Now the bad news. Because I have hepatitis... I will not be able to drink for the next few months. :(
It is frowned upon at least. SO yes trent will be drying out for the next couple of months sadly. But it is going to make that first gin and tonic that much more enjoyable.

Ok someone said they want the day in the life of the trenton taylor. So here it is.

5 am: *cockadoodle doooooo* trent wakes up... ((@)#%&@#$ rooster and goes back to sleep.

515 *cockadoodle doooooo* trent wakes up... ((@)#%&@#$ rooster and goes back to sleep.

600: braying donkey trent wakes up.... *!%*()!@$%( Donkey and goes back to sleep.

630: trents phone goes off to wake him up. He hits the snooze.

645 trent wakes up but stays in bed.

700: my host sister bangs on the door. I get out of bed and go take a bucket bath. Get dressed.

715: I eat eggs on a miche of bread with alot of oil. An amazing breakfast. I take my malaria pill and my centrum.

730: Leave for school on my bike.

8:00-12:00 Arrive at the school and I either teach a class or work on my lessons for class or maybe talk and play cards. I maybe drink some bissap.

12"30-14:00: Lunch break. I eat at a restaurant or at the centre and play cards. 500 it is similar to euchre and alot of fun. I love having Michigan people to play euchre with, although we both claim we invented the game.


14- I go to sessions, whether this be a lesson on Girls Education, on Relations with Burkinabe, or Language or some other "fun" activity that they decided to come up with.

17:00 Class is over and we go have drinks at the plague. One of our favorite places. I drink cokes or sprites. Most people have beer, either Sobre Bra or Brakina.

19: Ride my bike home

19:15: Arrive home talk with the family for a minute. Then I eat. Some good, some bad. They quit serving me to(toe) but last night i had spaghettie with fish. So hit or miss.

20:00 I get done with my meal and will pull out my labtop and listen to music and play the card games on it. Or I watch on tv "Mots de Maths" or "Trois Femmes une village" Which Is one of my favorite shows here. Think an african Sitcom. It is nice.

2100: I complete whatever homework i have or work i need to do and I go to ssleep by 22-2230.

There you have it. A day in the life of Trenton Taylor. It sounds exciting doesn't it.

OH I FORGOT!!!!

I went to Sabou. It is village near Koudougou and they have kimen which are a type of Crocodile and they are kinda wild, kinda tame. They feed them chickens on a rope to get them to come. lol.

Anyway, I basically all but Sat on a crocodile. It was amazing!!! Also very Dangerous. lol. But yeah, there is a picture somewhere in stage of me doing this. I will let you know if I find it. That has been my adventures. thus far.

Anything else you want to know? Let me know... and thanks for all the love about my health and stuff. I greatly appreciate it!!! Love you all!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Trent Continues down the Rabbit Hole of his health.

Ok, so my last post said that I was now healthy and doing well and this was true... mostly. I was feel so much better and continued to feel better. However, I then woke on Friday and went to teach my classes and then one of my fellow stagiares pointed out something odd. I was yellow. Now, I had not seen a mirror so I was thinking maybe I had like a pale tint to me. This would be incorrect. I was actually yellow. My eyes were yellow and my skin was yellow. So I go, "aw crap, I'm jaundice. This is not good." So I call the PCMO (Peace Coure Medical Officer) and he says well lets see what happens and we may bring you back to Ouga if you continue to be yellow. I am ok with this answer, because I felt amazing.

The afternoon rolls around and I go to go the bathroom and it looks like that I may have been peeing blood. It looked red. I was like, "well damn." I call the PCMO again and he says, "Yeah, lets go ahead and bring you to Ouga". So I hop a car to Ouga. We have done blood work and urine tests and organ scans and chest x-rays.

First off, I am no longer yellow that went away (mostly) by sunday. I just had a little in my eyes. That is gone now and my pee is clearing up. Now on to the results.

It turns out that I had Hepatitis A. Now how you get Hepatitis A is through oral-fecal means. Now, this just means someone did not wash thier hands with my food sometime and I go it. Even with the vaccine it is only 80% effective. I am doing better and we are looking for the virus to be out of my system in the next few weeks.

One side effect is that my liver is shot. Thus why I was turning yellow. My liver was totally shot on Fri, but this is actually not a bad thing. you see the liver actually heals itself. If it was another organ I would have not been so lucky. My liver is actually 70% better in 3 days. We got results today that showed my numbers have made amazing improvements. So there is nothing to worry about. I am actually going to be leaving Ouga and back to training in the next day or two. I thank you all for your thoughts and your prayers.

None of you need to worry about my health anymore (well as much at least). I want you to know I get care over hear that you could only wish you could have. It is the best care in the world with people who have been doing tropical medicine for 15 years. I am safe and looking forward to going back to training and making it through training and getting to site.

I love you all!!

oh p.s I am at around 200lbs here. So that is like 25 off from when everyone last saw me. I am skinny and fabulous. lol. You have to look at the benefits.

Thinking of you all,
Trent