Name That Rash!!

As many people know, Peace Corps Volunteers love to describe in unsolicited detail all the positively revolting things that have gone into (and come out of) their stomachs, burrowed into their feet, or raised nasty welts across their torsos. I, alas, am no exception. 

So, a couple months ago I started getting this rash on my right knee. It wasn't particularly terrible-looking, but it was unbearably itchy, oddly hard, and started to flare up angrily in bright red swaths around both knees and across my lower back. I talked to Med, sent in some photos, applied hydrocortizone cream, and things improved. This was right when the nail of my big toe was threatening to become painfully ingrown, but after a few weeks of no closed-toed shoes (which I only wear for jogging) and soaking my foot every day my toe was fine and I went back to my normal routine, toes intact and rash-free. For a few days, anyway. 

To: Med Re: Recurrent Mild Knee-Rash

And then the rash came back with an irritating vengeance. I happened to be on my way up to the Thiès Training Center where two Peace Corps Medical Officers were kind enough to spend twenty minutes looking at my knees, running their fingers over the rashy parts, and deducing the cause of my discomfort. They immediately decided it was contact allergy, and guessed that it was caused by some sort of fabric that, combined with rainy season, my skin finds intolerable. We talked about my clothes, they asked about this and that and if I have any knee-length synthetic pants, maybe ones with seams around my knee and across my back. 

And then I realized - my running pants. My stretchy, frayed-at-the-synthetic-seams, capri-style running pants. The rash went away when I stopped jogging because of my toe. I am allergic to my pants. Problem solved. They gave me some strong anti-itch cream and, only a few days later, the rash has almost entirely disappeared. 

On a related note, while looking through my photos to find this picture I realized that I have an entire album's-worth of photos of rashes, stings, blisters, infections, and swollen lumps, taken by myself and  my fellow Kédougou PCVs and e-mailed to Med in the hopes that they can diagnose us from afar and spare us the long slog up to the Med Office in Dakar. Of course, I thought "Wouldn't it be funny if we all sent these photos in to the PC/Senegal Volunteer Newsletter? They could have a little matching-game-thing in the next issue, where people guess who was afflicted by what. Name That Rash!! Hilarious!" 

My suggestion went over pretty well with the Newsletter editorial staff; it might actually happen. 

Happy Ramadan everyone!

It's Ramadan again! I wrote about Ramadan last year and about the things that people eat during Ramadan, so I won't go over the basics again. Last year, as a show of solidarity and out of curiosity, I fasted for one day, and I may do that again at some point. My host family understands that I'm not Muslim and wouldn't want me to actually do the day-long food-and-water fast for the entire month, both because it's not my religion and because they are (rightly, I think) convinced that I would probably get really sick if I swore off drinking water and eating during the day for four weeks. So, that means that, once again, I'll be stuck at the little-kid bowl at lunch time, or be given a bowl of ñankatonk (steamed rice mixed with dried okra, ground peanuts, bullion and hot pepper) to eat alone in my hut.

Really what's been on my mind, other than the terrible muddy state of our road, is my left big toe. Last December I injured it while biking in flip-flops (I know, I know) and a piece of the right half of the nail. It was doing a marvelous job of growing back in, right up until about a week ago, when it started to feel like the top right corner of the nail was in a knife fight with the top right corner of my toe. The Peace Corps doctor asked me to send her photos (see below) and then basically told me to soak it in warm water, keep an eye out for infections, be stoic, and just let it finish growing out. If I don't mess with it, it will sort itself out and I won't need to go up to Dakar to have them fix it. That's our hope, anyway.

My 4th of July polish is hanging in there. 

In any case, it's sunny and clear now, so the road is drying out. Tomorrow morning I'm going to head over to the garage and see if there are any cars going back to village. Until then I'll be hanging out on the Regional House porch, soaking my foot and trying to catch up on e-mail.

On the Laterite Road

So, my toe scrape hewaled up quickly and nicely and this morning Little Jess, Tatiana, Jubal and I all biked in from Salémata and now I'm running around, getting my stuff together to head up North to celebrate Thanksgiving (and a couple birthdays) with some other PCVs.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving! 

Village Etc

Yesterday I was (painfully) reminded that biking in flip-flops is a terrible idea. My foot slipped and I scraped my big toe, not very badly but I will be wearing shoes for awhile.

Now I'm headed back to Salémata, and will be back to town in a week or so, after my Action Plan community meeting is all done.

UPDATE: My toe is healing up very nicely. Again. 

Birthdayapalooza

On August 1st, 2011 I turned 28, Marielle turned 25, Switzerland turned 720, and a good time was had by all. On July 31st, after the SeneGAD meeting, a bunch of us came in to Dakar and got all cleaned up.

I had a little beer to celebrate...

We all went out for fancy pizza and it was delicious. Ben and I shared one that was half "H&M" (merguez sausage and garlic) and half "Hammam" (caramelized onion and goat cheese, no idea how they chose these names), Nic and Ivy split something similar, Sarah ordered a calzone, and Nathaniel opted to slaughter his own pizza.

Afterwards everyone went out for beers, and Marielle came thisclose to pulling off the opening-a-beer-with-another-beer trick. 

Sharing a birthday (and a delicious birthday cake) with Marielle was great because she is awesome, as you can clearly see. 

On August 1st, our actual birthday, we all went out to Ngor Island. It's a tiny island along the northern part of Dakar, and for about a dollar you can take a 3-minute ride out to it in a pirogue, which is exactly what we all did. 

Even though it was overcast, it was warm and the waves we beautiful. Emma enjoyed the view of the coastline, and Kayla, Ivy and I had a nice time strolling around the cliffs. 

It was a good day for fancy fancy coffees. Ben treated Emma and I to cappuccinos and tiramisu, and then a little while later we treated ourselves to beachside Nescafes.

It rained for a little while, but it was hot, so we swam anyway, doing our best to avoid all the plastic bags and bits if junk floating around in the surf. We looked at a bunch of sea urchins and little fish, and after successfully clambering around on all sorts of slippery rocks, I stubbed my toe walking out of the water and wound up making a little bandage out of a piece of my skirt-towel-fabric. Then it was naptime, and then we hopped in a boat back to the mainland.

After showers at the regional house it was time for N'ice Cream, more espresso, and then out for Thai food at the Jardin Thaïlandais, and it was fantastic. Really just amazing. (When we sat down I was saying they should tell the waiters it's my birthday and maybe they would give us a free dessert, and then was so wrapped up in how lovely the food was that I actually completely forgot about it and so was genuinely surprised when there was a candle and singing with my caramelized bananas.)

AND THEN the next day Marielle and I went into town with Kayla and her visiting friends, to check out a giant fabric market, eat more ice cream (I was not such an ice cream person in the US, but lately my love for cold things knows no bounds), and go on the trampolines. 

Kayla and her friend Sabrina decided to reenact the Scar/Mufasa (Mufasa!!) fight scene from The Lion King. 

Obviously, it was a pretty epic few days, and I'm extremely lucky to have such wonderful, fun, photogenic people in my life. And not just in Senegal - when we stopped for internet and I read all the birthday messages I may or may not have teared up a little bit right there in the CyberCafe. Many, many thanks to everyone for being so great ~ 

I'm sick.

I was just thinking "Oh, I've been here a month and a half and I haven't gotten sick yet! Awesome!"

And then my nose stuffed up, my left pinkie toenail fell off, and I started throwing up.

Luckily, if I were going to pick a day to get sick this probably would have been it. We have the weekend off from language classes, and a Peace Corps Land Cruiser was coming through Darou to bring my LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator, my tutor) back to the Training Center. I would have chosen to postpone getting sick until after my language assessment interview was completely over, but I suppose it could have been worse.

In any case, now I'm lying around in sick bay, sipping ORS and Emergen-C, and catching up on This American Life podcasts. I still have a "running stomach" (as they say in Pullo Fuuta) but I'm feeling better than I was this morning, and might even try to catch up on e-mails in a little bit.

My toe is pretty much fine, too, I stubbed it last week, and it looks weird but doesn't hurt.

UPDATE: ORS is so much less unpleasant with a Raspberry Propel-style drink packet mixed in. Emergen-C is great for normal water, but ORS is kinda gross. Many thanks to Chelsea (one of the other sick PCTs hanging out at the Center) for coming by and giving me some drink mix powder.