Mmm, mmm, rat. Bon Appetit!

February has come and gone already taking with it any last remnants of cool weather. Here in Titao, that little month was packed with activities. We began by discovering a new culinary delight: rat. Before you start squirming, I just want to say that I wasn't too excited about eating rat and never thought I would do it but I did (4 times now) and I don't regret it. That stuff is good.

Here's how it came about: we have this big hole by our house that is supposed to collect water but just collects plastic bags and other trash instead. One night we heard a bunch of noise from the hole and found a rat in there that couldn't get out. Aaron was really excited about killing it and eating it so we called our friend – we call him “coach” because he's the P.E. teacher from our school- and he came over really excited to help us kill it. It was late and we'd already eaten dinner so he said he'd prepare it and call us the next day. The next day we went to his house for some homemade rat soup. Two days later, another rat fell in the hole and coach came over to teach Aaron how to prepare it: rat with rice and sauce. Another two days and rat number three took the unfortunate tumble: breaded and fried rat with mashed potatoes. Finally, three days after that, Darwin put the fourth rat on our plates in the form of an Indian-style barbecue. I can't say I'm exactly proud of getting this new dietary notch on my belt but Aaron's pretty proud of preparing an animal all by himself and the meat is good so I'm not complaining. Also, it helped us start a pattern of eating with Coach and his wife a few times a week.

Aside from our culinary exploits we've also been busy with the arrival of the 30 laptop computers to our school. The school administration has found a place for us to set up a computer lab and they went over their proposal with us last week to cover all the expenses so I'm hoping the lab will be set up in the next month. We are going to pay for the shipping costs, the new furniture, the electricity, and all other expenses over the next 6 months by selling ten of the computers to teachers at school on a first come first serve basis. After that 6-month period, the lab should be self-sustained based on the hourly charge for students and locals who use it. This was all supposed to be started last week before the end of February so I'm hoping we can at least announce to the teachers that the computers are for sale before the end of the trimester mid-March. For the moment, I've been busy with 12 hours a week of "informatique" class where I teach any teachers who want to learn how to use Excel and Word for their classes. It's been fun overall but I often feel like I'm dealing with the 6ème students. The other day, I heard myself saying (translated of course): “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! No more space bar! Use 'align right'. No, stop. I said no space bar! I'm going to take the computer away.”

We're getting into holiday season and hot season at the same time. This means no one, students and teachers alike, is motivated anymore to have class. Last week was Moulard (this is a guess at the spelling), the all-night Muslim prayer party. Everyone goes to a village about 3k outside of Titao and there's a lot of praying until about 3 am. Aaron and I spent a few days pumping ourselves up with how this year we weren't going to miss it because it was our last chance to participate... we were in bed by 9. We tried but you'd be surprised how exhausting is it just sitting around being hot all day. Anything after 9 or 10 is not going to happen for us until we get air conditioning back in our lives. Tomorrow is Women's Day. This is a holiday we can handle because they have activities all day. My friend, Mariam, bought us the official 2010 Women's Day pagnes so that we can get outfits made. She brought over a model that I might want to have copied: I swear there were frills sewed on top of other frills. I had to politely decline the cake icing model and opt for something a little simpler. I've been told that I am on the women's soccer team for the big game against the men on Women's Day. If conditions are the same as last year: the men's team is drunk, we have 5 goalies, and all calls are in our favor, I think we'll be able to pull off a W.