my week and my trip (email from Amy)

So,

It's been a bit of a difficult week for me. Eleven of my grade 6 learners ate concentrated cleaning powder (they thought it was powdered sugar) that had, I think, caustic lye in it. Most of them spit it out and were only mildly hurt (although, by that I mean that Queen had a badly blistered tongue and Selma told me that her eyesight went yellow and then red.) But Mercia, Papou, and Thusnelde swallowed some of it and almost died. They were going into seizures with their eyes rolling back into their heads and they were throwing up white, foamy vomit. Papou in particular was very very sick. Someone had taken some of the extra cleaning powder and put it in the tap so she went to get a drink of water not knowing that it had poison in it. Anyway, eventually they took them to the nurse who gave them some sort of injection and they're all OK now, but it was very very scary for a while. I didn't see them until the next day, but they were still sleeping under like three blankets each (and, I know that doesn't sound like much, but we are approaching the middle of summer here. It's been between 90 and 100 degrees F at noon.)

This weekend I went to Otjiwarongo for a Halloween/Thanksgiving/Goodbye party. Several volunteers are leaving in two weeks so we all got together and ate good food and enjoyed each other's company and some nice movies and conversations.

As far as my crazy post-Peace Corps trip I have a tentative itinerary. I COS (close of service) on December 7 in Windhoek. I then attempt to get to Victoria Falls. I probably will hitchhike and it will probably take me 2-3 days. On the 18th I leave Vic Falls with a tour group we go through Zambia, Malawi (including Lake Malawi), Tanzania (including Zanzibar), and Kenya (including the Serengeti.) We end on January 5th in Nairobi. From there I fly to Cairo with a friend (possibly via Dubai or Adis Abeba) and spend a little over a week seeing the sights. Around the 18th of January I fly alone to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Then, near the end of January or the beginning of February I end up back in St. Paul (via Bangkok, Taipei, and Seattle.) That's the jist of the trip although a lot will probably change.

OK, that's about all I have for now. Lots of love to you all.