I had a pretty crazy week.  I suppose the biggest event was that one of my volunteers went home early, which is too bad, but it was the right choice for her.  I was sad to see her go, but it was a relief, for me as well as for her, of course.  

I also had some other complications this week - one random woman in one of my towns spread some rumors about how the volunteers were demanding purified water and special vegetarian dishes.  They were lies, but they meant I had to take an extra trip out to investigate.  

In another town, one of my volunteers is extremely homesick, but is actually doing quite well.  Last weekend her partner called staff house because she was having a panic attack; now she does not remember most of what we talked about on the phone.  When I visited her this week, she expressed feeling homesick, but she seemed to be in control of it.  She was very happy to see me. 

Getting back to staff house was really nice.  I always love seeing staff after being out on route.  Yesterday I made chili and cornbread for dinner, which turned out well.  I almost lit myself on fire with the oven while making the cornbread though.  Basically, I lit the oven with the lighter, but when I checked it later it had turned off.  So I tried lighting it again, but a bunch of gas had accumulated in the oven, so this huge blue cloud of flame just exploded into me (this is what the people sitting in the dining hall told me it looked like).  It was just very high pressure gas as a very high temperature for a fraction of a second that smacked into me.  It didn't even singe my hair (luckily), but it was kind of scary.  

Today we are going to start planning for midterm break for the volunteers, which is next weekend.

Maya