monkeys, baboons, and geles...oh my!

Hello all! Yesterday makes three months that I have been at by site. Things are progressing well. My rabbit project is still expanding rapidly; turns out rabbits will breed like rabbits. My garden is also still alive. It is now requiring a lot of water because the sun is becoming more and more intense. There is new FAO project in my area dealing with guinea foul that I am going to start getting involved with. I’m also hoping to get involved with the forestry department near my house and possibly start helping out at a few schools in my area. So I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied for a while.

Here’s a couple short stories about my happenings over the last month~
The garden of evil- the monkeys have been coming into my garden and stealing my sweet potatoes. So I decided to tie my dog in the garden to keep them away. This was a great idea until my dog had puppies and she decided to move them all into my house. So now the monkeys are back.
Water is in short supply right now because it hasn’t rained since October. The bees have decided to get water from my tap in the garden. They also decided they didn’t like me working in the garden. So I’ve been stung twice in two weeks.

Road hazards- the other day I decided to ride to a town 10km away to try and use the internet (which was a waste of time, b/c it didn’t work well. I got one email out in an hour) on my way I came across a pack of baboons. If you didn’t know, baboons are really big and scary. So I just kept riding towards them and they got out of the road and disappeared into the bush. It kind of makes you realize there are probably a lot of critters in the bush near by, but you can’t see them b/c they blend in so well.
I went to a weekly market. The market was really crowded and busy and I ran into some PCVs (peace corps volunteers) that I knew. I crossed the street in front of a van (which are called a gele-geles here). An other PCV followed me, walking her bike across with her. Once we reached the other side, she stopped to talk to someone she recognized. the gele-gele then ran over the back tire of her bike. no one was hurt and the bike was repaired, but now i know how close a driver is willing to get.

gele-gele rides- geles are 15 passanger vans that hold at least 28 people. this does not include babies on laps or young men hanging onto the outside or sitting on top of the van. you can put anything you want on top of a gele, as long as you are willing to pay the price. i've see couches to goats, from tires to huge jugs, bicycles to huge buckets filled with fish; everything is game. there is no air conditioner in them, and people don't like the wind and dirt blowing into the gele, so the windows are typically closed (partially cracked open if your lucky). anti-persperant is not a common thing for folks to use and it is well over 100 degrees already. the roads around me aren't too bad, but there are still a lot of pot holes and no shocks on the gele. i rode about 50km and it took about 3 hours. This includes all the stops along the way from imigration and security check points (about 5) and all the times we picked up or dropped folks off (about 20). when i got to my destination i got out of the car and it felt like someone had poored a bucket of water down my back b/c i was sweating so much.

well that's all i've got for now. missin ya'll as usual.