Hey woman! Will you marry me?

\How can I even begin to sum up life here at site? Well, first of all, I'm posting this from my house in my isolated village that has no electricity. Explain that! Then there's my neighbors. They've all been super friendly and welcoming (or at least I think so). Since they only speak in Susu I could be totally wrong. I think they like me though because they will always drop what they are doing to try to help me, and of course laugh at my pathetic attempts to speak their language. My go to words are Adé (No) or Iyo (Yes). If it's a woman I'm speaking with I'll normally say Iyo, but if it's a man, I always feel safer going with Adé because they will usually ask if I'm married or if I'll marry them! Frustratingly enough, even those who speak French talk to me in Susu as if I can understand them. I also can no longer stand any sentence containing the name Albert. Sorry Dad! Albert was a European who lived here several years ago and spoke excellent Susu. Since we are both white foreigners they love to compare me to him and I definitely don't measure up!
Being that all my encounters are sufficiently awkward on my part, I spend a lot of time alone in my house. "You end up just talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you are going to say next." In all seriousness, I've slowly been learning what's great to do alone, and what's not so great. Example, cleaning, reading (during my 11 weeks of training I read less than 100 pages, but read an entire book before two days at site were over), playing solitaire (I'm up to 137 games) and balancing things on your head are all great!
Some of the not so great things? Reading the health manual. It details all of the fun things you can get/catch here. (I've gotten more infected arm hair follicles here then I thought possible in a lifetime.) Who knew you could still get dysentery or that there are multiple types. While on the subject of poop, I have 3 additional things to say
A: Someone and by the size of it, an adult, took a dump on my front step! Is that a commentary on my presence here?
B: I'm keeping a "this girl has been diarrhea free for _____ days at site count. I'm holding strong at 13 which happily is how many days I've been here.
C: Kids are cute, but they aren't much different than the chickens. They will eat anything, poop anywhere, and they carry diseases. One doctor here can be quoted as saying "they are walking biohazards." They are also scared of me. All the babies at least. If I wave at them, they start bawling. The parents find this hilarious so they'll bring babies up to me to watch their reactions.
Elections finally came and went. So far no violence, mainly because everyone is relieved they are over. Three years is a long time to delay things! Perhaps the reader will find it interesting/amusing that the leader of the opposition party called me out saying I was an ignorant white person who can't speak the local language. Ironically, this was said in Susu and was translated to me. No, there is no mistake. I'm the only white person here making me insanely popular and easy to spot. Those who don't know my name yet still shout at me whenever I walk by. Some days all I want is to be invisible, but I stick out in the same way Zaphod Beeblebrox would anywhere on earth. (Sorry for all the Hitchhiker's references. I'm currently re-re-(re?) reading it.
I'm already frustrated by the work ethic here but not that of the women! A man told me that women have to drop out of school to take care of kids because "men don't have time." Well I don't know if any actually work because I've only ever seen them sitting around for hours drinking tea.* They are really serious about their resting time. It doesn't matter if the task is done because it will get done eventually. I'm anticipating this same reaction for the beginning of the school year. I'm sure I'll start teaching eventually!
Being here is such an emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes I'm ready to call it quits and other times I'm gung-ho about everything here (minus the bugs).** I'm either going to come out of this the emotional equivalent of a muscle woman or a slug! The thing that has been the most emotionally troubling is to see people sick and dying. My heart broke when I visited a little boy who is deathly ill with malaria.. I still haven't heard any news good or bad, but it's sad. I've been lucky that death was never a big part of my life in the states, but it makes it harder to come to terms with here.
I've been told that my decision to come here was either extremely courageous or extrememly stupid, or a combination of the two. Sounds about right, but even with everything my mind, body, and soul is going through, given a choice I'd do it again.

My mosquito fort and amazingly large bed!

My house :)

Where I'll be teaching for the next two years

Children at the training site

Practice school!

Climbing "Le Chien qui fume"

All of the different fabrics I've already acquired here 

My host brothers Sédiki, Ousmane, and Adolf (my husband)

Adolf and Raoul my oldest host brother

G-24! All of the volunteers from my group

Waterfalls near the training site

*Here I had to refrain myself from making another Hitchhiker's reference.
** I've battled spiders, beetles with 9 lives, army ants, maggots, roaches, and other unknowns. Plus frogs!