Happy Birthday Hannah. Hannah Happy Birthday.

The 9th of March and the first rain is here.

For two days it's been unmercifully teasing. The humidity rises, the clouds gather, flashes of lightning were flickering in the distance. But at 10:20pm, the hot silence finally broke and for the first time since October it rained. Odje. Nagot for rain. I haven't been this excited in a long time. The wind has been wrecking havoc all afternoon, kicking up dust and covering everything in a fine coat of brown, including me. I was reading outside and had to retreat into my house to hide from the small windstorm that made it impossible to see.

I lined up about six buckets beneath my roof so the rainwater could trickle into them. I'll use it to wash dishes and clean the sheen of dirt that has consistently covered everything in my house through the screened windows and doors for months. I'll use it to save Luc and Mouda and myself from carrying heavy buckets of water from the well. I'll use every drop. Water is so precious.Life is so beautiful.

Narcissis and Okounde barged into my house just before it arrived, animated and drunk, to talk about their plans to build a tall wooden fence around our row of houses. Narciss will co-opt students who arrive late to school or who are sent to him by frazzled teachers into building this fence. The labor will be free and we will only need to pay for minimal supplies. They are looking forward to cooking outside and sleeping on mats in front of the house. It is unsafe to do so now. I did not have the heart to tell them that I have a gas stove (They've never seen my house beyond it's elaborately furnished front room) and that I have been sleeping outside when the power is out between my shower and latrine on a cot, my mosquito net hung over the clotheslines.

I had been having an extremely difficult time adjusting back to life in Manigri after IST. It was difficult seeing all of my lovely friends and listening to their stories. My best friend in Peace Corps, my dear Emily MacDonald, is leaving to continue her service in Namibia. I had been depressed that she was leaving. The 107 degree heat and intermittent electricity was of no help either.

However, to bore you with some teaching details, before IST I had broken my classes up into teams. They were allowed to pick their names, and each activity now functions as a competition to earn points. I promised the team with the most points at the end of the year a prize. I think I will do something fantastic for them, but I will not yet say what it is. Anyway, this method has made teaching a lot more exciting for me and the students. They lose points for bad behavior and earn points for answering questions and doing well on exams and interrogations. It also helps that the bulk of my grading for the semester is over- nothing makes me feel more uneasy than staring at a stack of ungraded papers that I know will only make me feel inadequate as a teacher and desperate as a person who hates tedious desk work. I am now in the middle of calculating the averages for the semester, and it's been a pleasure noticing how my grades compare to the rest of the teachers. Either my exams are easier or my students are in fact learning.

Yesterday was International Womens Day. I took ten girls from my GIrls Club to Bassila on Saturday to meet with three other local PCV-run GIrls Clubs in Bassila, Pira and Pennesoulou. The girls had prepared sketches and I was so impressed with everything they had put together. The girls from Pira sang songs and danced, the girls from Bassila did a skit about sexual harassment in schools and unwanted pregnancies, the girls from Pennesoulou did a hilarious sketch featuring the much detested teacher 'Dieudonne'. My girls did a very simple sketch called, "Je suis." Each girl wrote a "Je suis" poem during one of our meetings which we then turned into a larger production where each girl named one thing that she was. Such as, I am a girl, and I am strong. Or, I am a girl, and I am a good example for other girls who want to succeed. I am a girl, and I am intelligent. I am a girl, and I can be the best in every domain. It was cute. We sang a lot of songs, including Rilo Kiley's "The Frug" and a song that proclaimed each volunteer as the mother of a family.

Unfortunately, while at the Maison des Jeunes in Bassila, someone had gained access to my purse and stole my cell phone, about thirty dollars worth of cfa, and about five dollars worth of phone credit. I was pretty upset about it for a short period of time. I just felt so stupid. However, thanks to my wonderful parents I was able to get enough money to make it through the next couple of weeks. When people ask me in village, even those who I haven't told but I suppose found out from others, I just tell them that i'm not upset and that money isn't everything. I suppose it isn't, now that I have some.

My friend Benjamin in Bassila had a visitor this weekend from Hamburg. The three of us spent Saturday night playing poker in a bar in Bassila. It was fun. I took Stephen (the foreinger) to see Manigri. It was kind of nice to have a westerner who hadn't been living here for the past seven months and show them around. He was very impressed by the cows, the flora, and- of course- the poverty. I was talking with our beloved Tanti at Marquis, the buvette I go to with my close-mates, and she told us that she makes 500 cfa, roughly a dollar, a night. Of course, as we discussed in a bit, depending on inquiring male customers, this amount could be raised. He was shocked that even for two dollars, someone could buy a girl. I explained that just about anyone you see in my village makes only 500 cfa on a good day. The women who sell tomatoes at the market, my lovely Petit Mama who sells yams on the road, the zemidjians- 500 cfa a day is barely a wage, but they survive.

I try to stay away from Peace Corps cliches, such as "Ups and Downs" to describe my experience here. However, I find that as it has permeated my perceptions as to my frantic mood swings in this country, that it is the only phrase that will suffice. Despite the fact that I was sad and lonely when I first got back to post, the past few days have been wonderful. Despite the heat. Despite the missing my friends. Despite my cell phone being stolen. I was asked about procuring mosquito nets for a local NGO, and I am going to go see my health center about planting Moringa. There is an orphanage to build in Bassila. There is work to do.