Itepela

View of the mountain from the Mushamba in the morning

The road to Itepela

Testing for Malaria

HIV test strip. It's negative.

The kids at the school. They to there three times a week to learn to read Portuguese.

I had a great time in Itepela. So much so that I ended up staying the whole week and coming back today instead of coming back on Monday like I was originally supposed to.  It's a beautiful village and I felt so welcome with the family I was staying with.

It got to do lots of things, mainly just living there.  It was great to see what life is like in the middle of no where.  They do not have internet or phone service. There is a land line, but it's not used very often. And the electricity is solar powered and only used when it's needed.

One thing I did was go to the lab with Ariel (the woman in the picture holding the slide) and learn how to test for Malaria. It's actually a rather simple process and most people with a Western education would be able to do it. First you poke the end of a finger to get a few drops of blood onto a slide. Then you put the slide in the sun to dry. Once it's dye you put it in a dye for 10 minutes, then you let the slide dry again. Once the slide is dry the second time, you put it under the microscope and look for Malaria.  The trick is to know what you're looking for and know how to identify it.  Malaria has a round head with a body. The head is very round. Under the microscope you're looking for something that looks like a period with a body on top of it. I saw a few examples and given a day or two I probably could have diagnosed Malaria rather easily.

I also ate a number of things I've never eaten before. Kasave, which is like potato only more fibrous. Sugar cane. Sardines, bones and scales and all.

I learned a lot about life in a village. You eat lots of rice and beans, rice and peas, rice and mutapa. Sometimes you have bread and in season you have veggies.  For someone from America where we eat a variety of foods it is difficult to get used to a simpler diet. But it's really not that bad. One thing to remember is that food here is not something you do for pleasure, you just do it because you have to.

I also went to church on Sunday, which was good. Africa is so funny. Church is supposed to start at 9, and every great once in a while it does. Generally it's more like 10:30 or 11, even later when church finally starts. And all of life is that way, you just go with the flow and if something goes wrong do something else. Getting stressed because plans change or something breaks is just unheard of.

What else did I do in Itepela? Oh we played "Uno" and "Spoons" a lot with the kids. One night we played "Spoons" for an hour and a half. It was a lot of fun.

Ariel, the other American, and I played a lot of games as well.  It's something to do. When you do not have all the crazy things we have in America you find stuff to do. Actually I'm beginning to like games and enjoy them more. I'm learning lots of things about myself and about life in being here.