so...the Internet went down for a few days. up-dates go like this...one i could be/most likely will be moving to the Niger boarder to a town called Fada for three months, from oct. to Dec. so that will be cool...I'd live at a mission there...i would teach at a local secondary school in Fada...good news about that is there are lions and crocodiles, which means weekend safaris...I'm over the trash bag rice and have teetered on the edge of malaria and now attempting to not catch what is most likely strep throat...we had moto (scooter/small motorcycle) lessons, i almost killed myself and it was wonderful...pulled off a sweet jump landed it and managed to stop before running into the wall, good times...after that it got better but i need WAY more practice before trying crazy ouga traffic...watching how everything changes is loads of fun...the stupid light on the water filter changes colors, from red (meaning drink me and you'll poo for days) to green meaning here's some water (that is if the sink's not broken)...the water in the shower changes colors from water color to orange, even if i took a shower, got out and immediately took another shower the water would still turn orange...the tile floors changes from white to Orange every day...the rooms change from lights on to lights out, daily and if it doesn't happen it's just rather surprising...went to the international church of ouga yesterday, the one good line from the service was "why are there so many miracles in Africa? because we don't have medical care". The rest of the service was kind of painful, so i took like 2 or 3 hours to read my hymnal and sing songs in my room, that was WAY better. I ate guinny fowl the other day while we were visiting Fada, that was cool...we also bought like 30 guinny fowl eggs from a guy on the side of the highway...loads of people make their money from traffic on the highway...happily there were no birds in any of the eggs, yet...made a friend, his name was GIGANTIC SPIDER CRAWLING ON MY SHOULDER!!! that sucker was fast too, and he kept coming back so he had to be destroyed...our students along with the rest of the city can't figure out why none of us are married...not in a, "hey i can't believe no one's snatched you up" kind of way but in a more "you're not married? what's wrong with you? you're old"...my students like to offer up their sisters, which is nice, but NO. I make stupid jokes all through my class that no one gets, it's like they don't speak English or something...i think the measure of my success will be if they start picking up on the jokes, then i'll be happy...pastor zongo had a shirt made for me I'll be sure to get some pictures of that out...of course when i tried it on the first thing my friend Noel said to me was "you'll have a wife by the end of the day"...thanks Noel....French is getting much better, spending a bit of time talking with Noel (he's from Mali, sadly he leaves after the intensive on Aug. 14th) and our two guards...did i tell you our guards' names? cause they're John-Baptist (pronounced frenchly) and Emanuel, it's like some one's looking out for us or something...I'll drop some pictures in here they are of a storm coming in, the pictures are of the dust blowing in at about 1 in the afternoon...they start with loads of orange dust that block out he sun then turn quickly into, i suppose a squall would be the best way to say it.

peace

Ben