A boring blog post, but I did visit Boukoumbe

Okay, so things are going well here. I visited Boukoumbe for the first time, and it was awesome! I had a run in again with that old friend Diarrhea, but I survived. I'm actually in the med unit now again, because they were so worried about me, but of course all they did was slip me some medicine, and, "Goodbye Mr. D!"...it's good that I came down though. I would rather come up healthy than extremely ill, because I was really having a hard time of it, and I was at the point where I couldn't keep anything down... or in my body in general. I had my first crap-my-pants experience. that was fun... I won't give details... well, I'll just say that it happened in front of my host family of approx 20 people, and it was oozing down my leg. (Okay, so that's details. Sorry. Believe me, that sentence of detail doesn't even begin to relate to the experience, so I don't feel sorry for you guys. Besides, you did choose to read this.)
Okay, so about Boukoumbe... Boukoumbe is AMAZING. My house isn't going to be where they originally thought. The only house that was available right now was one side of a duplex, which has 3 bedrooms, a back terrace, a toilet, a shower, electricity!, and really cool neighbors who have satellite tv! Crazy, huh? So yeah, if ANYONE wants to come visit me, believe me you are more than welcome.
The sickness only got in the way a little, but it's really a long story. I'll just say that I got really bad food poisoning, and I pulled off a pretty good show in front of all the right people.
My homologue is really awesome, too! His name is Paulin, and he's a really nice guy. We really hit it off well, and he introduced me to all the people in town, and he even took me over into to Togo to a marche there. The marche there was crazy! People drinking tchouk everywhere! Like, these people were gathered under these little vendor shack stands, with the tchouk in the middle and the vendor scooping the tchouk out into bowls or dried out gourd shells. It was pretty crazy! Also, there were some women there who had those big plugs in their ears, like the ones punks in the states wear, and they also had these crazy things that looked like a tigers tooth or something pierced through their lower lip with the point facing out. It was pretty awesome! These people are so into their culture, and their tchouk, and their tata sombas and their voodoo! It's just awesome in Boukoumbe!! On the second/last day I had there, the mayor took me to this awesome village on the top of a mountain (aka big hill), and the view there was spectacular! they want help developing their tourism there, which will be hard, but maybe I can help a little bit. The town's name is Koussou, if anyone is taking notes or anything.
So yeah, besides being pretty disguistingly sick with Diarrhea and vomit, my 2 day post visit to Boukoumbe was awesome! Really, anyone who is interested at all is welcome to come visit me! I have tons of spare room in my new house, and I happen to have bought some very yovo things as of late.... like ketchup!, and chocolate!, and corn starch!... come visit me... you'll understand. No worries, it won't be painful. You'll have a blast, and you'll have the experience of a lifetime ... but you will also understand why ketchup, chocolate, and corn starch deserve exclamation points.
Okay, so I'm better now, and everything's going well. I'm back in Cotonou, and I'm getting to where I know my way around this madhouse of a city.
Honestly, I actually wrote a really long blog about my whole experience this past week, but it was incredibly way too long, and the details were agonizing, so this is the readers digest condensed version. All is well. ...there it is, that's about all I have to say. Things were bad, but they're better again.
I had my first real experience of having thoughts of ETing (ET=Early Termination), but none of my thoughts were based in any form of logic, and I managed to notice that really quickly... so I'm good. Ya know, when you're sick as a dog, without a latrine, without electricity, without any privacy, and you have to wake up 10 people every time you need to go to the bathroom, and you have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes, you start feeling a little homesick. Part of me wanted to curl up in a ball, a whimpering, shivering ball of eccentric tears and cry, "I want my mommy!!" It's amazing how low a little food poisoning can get ya. The worst of it is, I know that this wasn't a very bad one. It could have been worse. It will be worse, next time when I'm really sick, at post, and have to take a bush taxi instead of the cushy PC SUV.... we'll see how low low can really be then.
Well, that's about all I have the energy to post right now. I hope you guys are great. the next post will be more interesting... I'm just too tired right now to be interesting. Sorry.

Sarah