The completed world map painting! Thank you to the University of Minnesota-Duluth Econ Club and Department of Economics for their donations!
Friday, February 17, 2012
World Map!
The completed world map painting! Thank you to the University of Minnesota-Duluth Econ Club and Department of Economics for their donations!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
I'm a Survivor...
Thus far 2012 has been a roller coaster ride of a year…and I am only in my second month of it. There have been several ups and downs that I will now try and recap for you all. Here we go…
Starting off getting back to site after being away for the Christmas and New Year holidays I was really excited for my upcoming projects. Work got started pretty quickly on the world map I was painting at the school. And I am happy to report that after 2 weeks of hard work it is complete. That was a highlight! Secondly I was really excited to get started on the girls club that was a break off from the Camp GLOW that I went to in December. So far we have had about 3 meetings and they have all gone pretty well. So that is another highlight.
So in the midst of these projects going on here in my village I was trying to work on getting a visa for my b-friend to come with me to London over Easter. We have already bought the plane tickets and then when my mom said he would need a visa I thought okay we will do it no problem. Well man was I wrong. He has now been denied two times for said visa and we are trying to attempt our third and final try at it. The problem was that the first time when we went online to do that application it had you fill it out to submit and then also provide “any other documentation you feel is necessary for your application.” Well to me I thought his application was pretty straightforward so all I turned in was our flight information. Turn out there is a LONG list of documents they deem necessary including financial statements for the previous three months, tenant information to prove that the person we would be staying with was in fact a British citizen, letter to prove he is a student, etc. So the second time we applied he also submitted about 20 pages of supporting documents. Now we just found out that was denied with the only thing they said was that he wasn’t proving his financial status wasn’t documented well enough. Well excuse me British embassy branch in South Africa if I wont provide you with actual account numbers for bank accounts!! So now we are looking up what America requires of people submitting for a visa and just doing that because if it works for the US than it should work for the UK.
Then the next low point was that after a day of visiting my nearest PC neighbor I was biking home when the rains came…hard. I was wearing my REI rain jacket and had my cell phone in one pocket and my iPod in the other and my camera in the back pack I was wearing. After the 45 minute bike ride I got back with the camera, iPod, and phone all not working. That was now 2 and a half weeks ago so if I haven’t been responding to your emails, or fb related messages or posts like I normally do it is because my internet phone is finished.
And finally, and the lowest point of my 2012 life (if not my service thus far) has been this week. It started on a Saturday night (Feb 4th to be exact) and I was awoken at night by terrible body aches, specifically in my back and neck. It continued the next day and I just thought it was due to the fact that the previous few days I had been doing a lot of biking and I was just sore or something. But then Sunday afternoon the fever started and along with that severe chills and even worse body aches, plus a terrible headache. By Monday morning my aches and pains were only getting worse and my fever had reached 101.3 and I thought to myself this may be malaria. I hadn’t believed it was because when other people have mentioned having it they always said they had diarrhea and vomiting and I, thankfully, had neither. But after talking to Peace Corps I was told that I had breakthrough malaria and that I should take my Coartem. My malaria was considered breakthrough malaria because every week I take prophylaxis medicine so that while it doesn’t totally prevent malaria it offers protection and will lessen the severity if you do get it. So I started taking my Coartem and after a few hours my fever dropped and I started feeling a little better. But the problem with malaria is that it is cyclic so you feel fine for a time but then it like comes back and you feel terrible again. So that has what has been happening to me for the past three days. I wake up feeling pretty fine and then around 1600 my fever spikes, I get cold even in spite of the fact that my body temperature is 103, and the aches are back all over my body. Needless to say it has been an awful week for me and I am just ready to be healthy again. And even though I am 23 years old when I feel that sick and terrible there is nothing I wanted more than to be at home with my mom and dad.
So that has been the re-cap on my year thus far and it looks as though the bad has so far outweighed the good but I am hoping that soon that will be changing.
Starting off getting back to site after being away for the Christmas and New Year holidays I was really excited for my upcoming projects. Work got started pretty quickly on the world map I was painting at the school. And I am happy to report that after 2 weeks of hard work it is complete. That was a highlight! Secondly I was really excited to get started on the girls club that was a break off from the Camp GLOW that I went to in December. So far we have had about 3 meetings and they have all gone pretty well. So that is another highlight.
So in the midst of these projects going on here in my village I was trying to work on getting a visa for my b-friend to come with me to London over Easter. We have already bought the plane tickets and then when my mom said he would need a visa I thought okay we will do it no problem. Well man was I wrong. He has now been denied two times for said visa and we are trying to attempt our third and final try at it. The problem was that the first time when we went online to do that application it had you fill it out to submit and then also provide “any other documentation you feel is necessary for your application.” Well to me I thought his application was pretty straightforward so all I turned in was our flight information. Turn out there is a LONG list of documents they deem necessary including financial statements for the previous three months, tenant information to prove that the person we would be staying with was in fact a British citizen, letter to prove he is a student, etc. So the second time we applied he also submitted about 20 pages of supporting documents. Now we just found out that was denied with the only thing they said was that he wasn’t proving his financial status wasn’t documented well enough. Well excuse me British embassy branch in South Africa if I wont provide you with actual account numbers for bank accounts!! So now we are looking up what America requires of people submitting for a visa and just doing that because if it works for the US than it should work for the UK.
Then the next low point was that after a day of visiting my nearest PC neighbor I was biking home when the rains came…hard. I was wearing my REI rain jacket and had my cell phone in one pocket and my iPod in the other and my camera in the back pack I was wearing. After the 45 minute bike ride I got back with the camera, iPod, and phone all not working. That was now 2 and a half weeks ago so if I haven’t been responding to your emails, or fb related messages or posts like I normally do it is because my internet phone is finished.
And finally, and the lowest point of my 2012 life (if not my service thus far) has been this week. It started on a Saturday night (Feb 4th to be exact) and I was awoken at night by terrible body aches, specifically in my back and neck. It continued the next day and I just thought it was due to the fact that the previous few days I had been doing a lot of biking and I was just sore or something. But then Sunday afternoon the fever started and along with that severe chills and even worse body aches, plus a terrible headache. By Monday morning my aches and pains were only getting worse and my fever had reached 101.3 and I thought to myself this may be malaria. I hadn’t believed it was because when other people have mentioned having it they always said they had diarrhea and vomiting and I, thankfully, had neither. But after talking to Peace Corps I was told that I had breakthrough malaria and that I should take my Coartem. My malaria was considered breakthrough malaria because every week I take prophylaxis medicine so that while it doesn’t totally prevent malaria it offers protection and will lessen the severity if you do get it. So I started taking my Coartem and after a few hours my fever dropped and I started feeling a little better. But the problem with malaria is that it is cyclic so you feel fine for a time but then it like comes back and you feel terrible again. So that has what has been happening to me for the past three days. I wake up feeling pretty fine and then around 1600 my fever spikes, I get cold even in spite of the fact that my body temperature is 103, and the aches are back all over my body. Needless to say it has been an awful week for me and I am just ready to be healthy again. And even though I am 23 years old when I feel that sick and terrible there is nothing I wanted more than to be at home with my mom and dad.
So that has been the re-cap on my year thus far and it looks as though the bad has so far outweighed the good but I am hoping that soon that will be changing.
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