Ordinary Friday!

    After completing 2 weeks of intense language learning, I had a day off (Friday). I was looking forward to relaxing a bit. Well after 7am team devotions I decided to crawl back into bed and take advantage of the cooler temperature and since I have not been assigned a "job" at the clinic I was taking advantage of the break. After my nap ate some breakfast and did some cleaning up around my tukul. 

    Oh and Jodi, Karen, and I did sometime in the morning rescue about 20- 25 piglets who had managed to get inside our camp. They were so tiny they could fit in the holes of the chain-linked fence. However, their much larger Momma pig wasn't able to come into our camp as well. Luckily our guard dogs were sleeping in the shade and were on the opposite side of camp, so that we were able to successfully help all the piglets get back through the fence. They were just so cute!

     Then made a trip to the local market for some bread (1 piece only 1 SSP about 25 cents) and other things. We (Jodi, Katta, and me) walked around a bit to see what was available. There is usually things such as flour, salt, sugar, laundry soap, milk powder, cooking oil, flip flops, onions, garlic, dried okra, candies, beans, rice, coffee beans (not yet roasted-- they are green in color!) and a few other things depending on the season. (20 second time out-- I have heard that in the next few weeks it will be MANGO season- can't wait!!)

    After our trip to the market we are walking back to our camp, passing the clinics and the nutrition clinic as well. There at the nutrition clinic the ladies are just excited and say they have trophies from the day and we must come see. So we walking into the grounds to see that there are about 6 women ages from mid 20s to 50s with giant sticks and brooms. While they were cleaning out the storage room #1 they have in the process discovered an entire extended family of rats-- which are now dead. They were able to work together as a team and with their sticks and brooms get all the rats that were helping themselves to "Plumpy Nut" a nutrition supplement for the children. 

    Back at camp I enjoyed my favorite for lunch-- PB & J on bread from the market (kinda like pita bread, round, thick, and a little sour in taste). I really enjoyed it and hope to make my fave lunch at least once a week-- which is a change from my norm back home of 5-6 times/week. Oh and the small round dough balls are fried bread like donuts- I ate them with a bit of syrup. 

     The ladies at the clinic recruited us to help move the boxes from storage room #2 into room #1 after lunch. So promptly after lunch we marched over to the nearby clinic to clean up the mess from the rats and reorganize the storage rooms. Well, while in the process of moving over 200 boxes of plumpy nut we discovered a snake in storage room #2. This time we decided to call for reinforcements-- Bob and Paul.  After nearly emptying the storage room the men showed up just in time with their panga's (giant knives) and got the snake! Not sure what kind it was-- probably 3 feet long, charcoal grey in color, white belly. But all I know is the best kind of snake is a dead one. Below is a picture of the newly organized storage room- you can see in the boxes of oil where the rats chewed on the cardboard box.  The other is one of me and the snake. 

Just another day here in South Sudan, where every day is a real adventure!