July 13th...

Another day of lazing around reading and resting.

I am now reading On the Road...not a big fan. To much time spent on details which to my opinion don't necessarily add to the story.

Oh, this afternoon i discovered that the palm wine (the actual tree name is ronier) is illegal. It seems that the people producing it and taking it through the jungle got caught today and heavily fined. But I guess it didn't stop them. At sun down, the village still got its daily supply of wine for the pleasure of all...

Around the time of the mass, I got caught in the middle of a very interesting conversation with Xavier who just passed his Baccalaureate last week. I was making the point about the fact that the Bediks spent a lot of time and money every day drinking, rather than a dually farming or opening up businesses like their Muslim neighbors. He didn't seem to like much my observation. Being drunk didn't help at all of course! But I tried to push my point as much as possible. His drunk arguments were interesting, but unfortunately, I guess being drunk didn't help make the conversation all that productive or impactful. In other words, according to him, the Bediks don't necessarily have any problems other than perhaps health. And there still, his argument was so ridiculous. Apparently the villagers have never been tonight about malaria prevention and hence believe that using a mosquito net is the only solution. It kind of upset me when he said that, especially when you see all the villagers wearing all sorts of t-sirts from various NGO programs in the village in the past.

It's just like the way they do not take care of their belongings. Well, they don't really care about their health. Today is today Why worry about tomorrow.

I am slowly starting to understand why it is that perhaps all the big organizations like a Peace Corps and all do not Ru any project with the Bediks....they would probably be wasting their time. Hmmm...

Tonight was the big world cup final. Germany vs Argentina. Shame that Argentina lost, though the German goal was spectacular. It was fun to watch the game on the small TV screen though. Between the snow on the low quality screen and the flies, following the ball was a total challenge.

According to thew christian/animist believes of the villagers, they were expected a very special mask to come down from the mountain and inspect the village. When this happens, the tradition wants that the mask does not find a single soul outside, or else it throws stones and becomes a not violent. (I personally believe that this is purely to scare off the young ones...but I couldnt manage to find out. These things seem to be top secret in their culture).

But when we heard the mask noise coming from afar, I swear, everyone ran like mad to hide in their house. And not a single noise until the mask was gone.

The whole time I tried to peak through the window to see what the mask looked like, but no luck.

The noise it was making was a bit scary though, I must admit. What a shame! In would really have loved to see what that mask looks like.

Tonight everyone was way to drunk to carry on the plan we had talked about to go to Ethiolo for a couple of days, so I will most definitely be departing the village for Mali tomorrow. So let's get some good rest as tomorrow will be a long day!