I know. I know! It has been awhile since I last posted. I'm sorry. As time goes on, I'm finding it more and more difficult to explain what is going on here.

I am getting really tired. I guess that is part of it. A full night's sleep isn't really doing the trick anymore. Malnutrition is a bit of an issue. I need to be more aware of what I am eating and try to make my diet much more balanced. Tricky though, with the food that is available to me. It is weird because eating has never been questionable for me. When I am hungry, I eat. Sometimes even when I am not hungry, I eat. Apparently not so in Africa. The heat is a real appetite suppressent for me. Sometimes, I find that I have actually forgotten to eat. Or when I do eat, I can't eat much. Beneficial in the, my shorts are starting to fall off of me (no worries, they were a bit big to begin with) way, not so beneficial in the, not eating enough so that I can't get over my cold that I've had for the last three weeks way. I've recently just experienced a serious resurgence of said cold...may it leave me quickly.

My roomate, Hannah, has malaria. My cold is nothing compared to that. I feel really bad for her and she is having a horrible couple of days. She is on the proper meds though and should be feeling better shortly. By shortly I mean a week.

I'm finally hitting the groove with my reading tutoring group. Rachel and I have decided to break the kids into two smaller groups. She is working with the more advanced group and I am working with my two basic students. They are in the fourth grade and I love my girls! My favorite part of the tutoring session is the last 15 minutes, which I have set aside to read a story to them. Being read to was one of the things that made me love reading. These kids get none of that stimulation. None. It is so fun to read to them because they are pretty much enthralled in the book. They will even sit with me a little ways into recess, so that I can finish the story. In the bulk of our session, we are working on the sounds associated with the different letters of the alphabet. They are already improving in this regard, getting more confident in the letter sounds.

Labeling books in the library and emptying garbage bins with Chris remain my mainstays of sanity. These are very tangable tasks that I can start and finish within a short period of time. There are some differing ideas among the IVs about the sustainability of IVs working on projects like Water and Sanitation (WAT/SAN). Emptying bins is something that the community should be doing for itself, is the assertion. While I agree for the most part, I do think that there is a benefit to having a few bins set aside for the IVs to work. Most of the refugees see Westerners coming and stepping into positions of power or authority on the camp. It is an interesting and I think important juxtoposition for a Westerner to be emptying a refugees trash. Chis and I didn't come here with a holier than thou - look down our noses attitude, and we aren't afraid of getting our hands dirty. We are a part of the community, (in virtue of the fact that we live on the camp), while we are here. Why not participate as such. There are approx. 33 CBW bins on camp, IVs are only responsible for 10 or 11 in the zones near our houses.

HIV/AIDS is getting more interesting as well. We are currently preparing a workshop, set to take place at the end of November, geared towards women. Because of the gender inequalities in this culture, (both ghanaian and liberian) women here are more suseptable to the disease than men. When the team goes on outreach, the overwhelming majority of participants are male. So, we are setting aside a specific day to invite women to come to a workshop, enjoy a free meal and get some excellent HIV education.

I am now the official head coach of the CBW Central Office Football team which will play the CBW Teacher team at the end of the month. Practices start next week. I'm excited about playing this role. There is only one other woman on our team, so basically I was just made the boss of a bunch of grown men, who tend to think that women can't even play football. Again, with the gender inequalities, this is an interesting development and I'm interested to see how this will play out. When I told Coach Tomba today, that I will now call him Tomba and he will call me Coach Bree, we laughed and he came back into the room, shook my hand again and called me coach. We'll just have to see.

The new volunteers are great. I'm continually entertained by watching our little mish-mashy family interact. The vibe has changed considerably since last month. A bit more positive energy floating about and a much more calm vibe.

That is all for now, I'm a tired duck.