Cowbells - Monday, July 21st

Classes started this morning and, as usual, my head was spinning by about 9:30. Dr. Cissa Wa Numbe,
Director of UNA-DRC, was here to talk to us about The Congo Cause (Diane and Jodi and Karen’s project). It was very interesting and heartrending to hear stories about malaria and how it is ravaging the Congo. The Congo Cause has raised quite a bit of money to buy mosquito nets, but they still have to make hard decisions about who gets them. Dr. Wa Numbe said that the type of mosquitos that spread malaria only come out at night, which I’d never heard before. The nets are $10.00 apiece. Some people in the Congo live on about $1.00 a day, so a net would be extremely expensive for them.
Later Aviva, Jeff, Gary, and Sharman talked to us about our research papers and answered questions. I’m pretty nervous about that, as I’m not as far along as I had hoped to be by this point.

Lunch was turkey cordon bleu and spaghetti - not too bad. On the way back to the classroom I heard the cowbells. Seeing the mountains in the distance and hearing the cowbells is what I’ll always remember about Geneva. After some more class discussion we were dismissed at about 3:00. I walked to the Migros (local grocery store about 1/2 mile away) and bought bananas, apples, yogurt, bread, tea, and some cereal to keep in my little fridge. Going to the store always means a hike up the dreaded HHH. On the way back I ran into some members of the class and told them I was going to run up that hill on the last day. We’ll see.

When I got back I worked on my paper for awhile and got a bit done. If nothing else I broke the writer’s block I’d been feeling in the morning.

Later in the evening Shawn, Apryl, Beth and I went down to the park with the giant chess set for dinner. Dinner was tasty but really expensive. We just couldn’t wait for the famous chocolate dessert, but got a sad shock. They changed it! And after I explained in great detail what I wanted, I got the wrong thing. The other 3 girls did get a chocolate cake with a liquid center, but there was no little cup of yummy cream sauce and no little cup of vanilla ice cream. I got some other kind of chocolate covered creation, but I was so disappointed that Shawn traded with me. She said it was pretty good, but not as good as the cake. And the cake just wasn’t the same. AND it was TWELVE dollars just for that tiny dessert. We had planned to go back to our “favorite” restaurant several times, but now we probably won’t. Shawn said it’s like dating an old boyfriend - it seems like a good idea at the time, but it just doesn’t work out. We did have a lot of laughs. Oh, Nancy this is for you. We were sitting by a table with extra baskets of bread. All of a sudden a little bird flew in, landed on a basket and started eating the bread! You would have flipped out.

I got home at almost 11 and was really tired as I hadn’t slept much at all the night before. Something is wrong with my leg. I don’t know if I pulled something on the HHH or what, but it was hurting me all night. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have a cup of coffee at 9:00 that night, either. Anyway, last night I read for awhile and then went to bed around midnight.

Didn’t have time to take pictures, but Amy sent me a really cute one of Brenda riding horses at their place last summer.

Brenda