As may be evident by the plethora of posts all at once this week - a) I have no phone or Internet access in the village, and b) I have plenty of spare time. We actually spend about 10 hours a day dinking around on our computers/worrying about our surveys/etc. And Akok is not a bumping village at the best of times! The days are SO hot here that there is little to do besides hiding out indoors. Our afternoons are spent with little to no minimal physical exertion. We decided that we could rough it without a fan - which may have not been the best decision!

The last couple days have been fairly annoying in terms of flying insects. I don't know why they all of a sudden decided that our house seems to be a great place to hang out. The buzzing and flicking and stinging and biting and smacking….I would be happy if I did not have to see another flying insect for the next 3 weeks. Which is obviously impossible so I'm perfecting my smacking skills. And continuing to wear long pants.

Regarding other flying organisms - I've finally seen the beasts. Each night there are about 20-40+ flying 'things' that cruise directly in front of our door (as in almost smoking us in the heads) and pass across the back in groves as well. Bats! I suspected as much, but they've been so sleuthy that I haven't been able to actually see one up close in the flesh yet. Until tonight! I'll try to get a picture one of these nights, but they are so quick!

We had a great response from the village women, and actually got to help them crush some cassava leaves at lunch the other day. It was fantastic - and they even brought us some for dinner that evening! It was so nice of them. The next morning, they brought by some fresh fruit and vegetables so we've been munching on banana, cassava and avocado ever since. It's been awesome! And a whole bag of peanuts. I'm so pumped for the snacks, being that our jar of peanut butter is half done! L

On a relatively sour note, the survey is not going as planned (surprise surprise). Between the enumerators needing to explain the same parts repeatedly, the long walks, the scheduled respondents missing-in-action and some lack of fundamental cognitive understanding of the survey instruments - we are definitely understanding why someone has written a book on Overseas Research. Its not an easy fix, being that we are in a zero-communication zone and 8 hours ahead of anyone that can help us, but we will make her work. It will definitely not look like the same piece that we left with this fateful January, but hopefully we will get something out of this project that makes sense.

Back to the drawing board (for the 1800th time),

Yvette