Preparations are underway for the 4th of July. Seydou was sent up to a market yesterday and came back with our Friday meal, a big old ram who will live in our courtyard until slaughter. He's awfully cute--white with a black face and big twisted horns sticking out over floppy ears. I have done myself the favor of not naming him. It is very odd getting to know your meat before it shows up on your plate.
Last night was one of those unfortunate nights where I assumed it wouldn't rain and was wrong. Around 4 in the morning, I awakened to cold little splashes on my face. All of us not under shelter (Abbie, Seydou and I) scrambled to get tents and mattresses into places out of the rain. Abbie and I had Bug Hut 2 Village set up in the main room of the house, while Seydou migrated to the hanger, where Jeff is permanently installed. It was the first big rain we've gotten here. The courtyard was all mud this morning, and the streets still a murky swamp on the way over here.
The Palace needs some fumigating, I'm afraid. Another scorpion this morning, this time by the light switch. I might as well rename the blog Scorpion Watch with the luck I'm having. Luckily I have a long ritual before I go into any room to avoid getting stung: investigate the door; unlock the door: investigate the door frame; pass through the door frame; investigate the door curtain; pull it aside; investigate the wall by the light switch; turn on the lights; check out the rest of the room; proceed. Of course, upon seeing the scorpion by the light switch, I screamed like a little girl and had Seydou crush it. It took some crushing, though--shoe agains the wall just knocked it down, sending me screaming and scrambling away until the thing was sufficiently smashed and lifeless.
Also, electricity here seems to be on a rotating schedule of cuts, presumably due to the energy shortage. Our neighborhood is without power from about 6PM-10:30PM every three days or so. It seems like it would be better to cut electricity in the middle of the night, if they want to save power, rather than at sundown when all of the nasty invertebrates emerge. But what do I know?
I will be taking the next week to stop collecting new data and instead put everything I have so far into the computer. It is a long and slightly tedious task, but also good. With 130 pages of data, I should probably look at it before moving on to anything new. The current plan is to spend the next week doing that, and then go back out to the village late next week. I will post a linguistically oriented update in the next couple of days with any points of interest I come across.
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2 comments:
Uck, Scorpions. Edwin use to tell me all these horror stories about Scorpions in Mexico and I was always so freaked out about encountering one of those nasty little creatures. I'm sorry you have to deal with so many of them. Hmmm, so about that card I sent you, now that I've read your posts I'm thinking it may have ended up somewhere else by accident. Oh well I tried. I intend to try again from Costa Rica so we'll see how well that works out.
Good plan on getting the data typed up. That's tedious work, which is why I try to do it right after each elicitation session (although I don't always succeed). Typing up several days worth of notes is a big chore, but 130 pages will definitely take you all week (especially if you write in two columns like me)! It's worth it though. Do you have enough batter power to use your computer screen as a "script" to check the work you've already done? I often had electricity in the field and when I didn't (for some part of every day), I had enough battery power to display all the words that I had previously collected and wanted to (re-)check. It made checking things go so quickly...
Anyway, say hi to everyone, and good luck avoiding the scorpions! Happy 4th!
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