I hate pigs... and dogs for the most part. At least I hate the pigs and dogs that occupy the area near my house. Hate might be a strong word, but they are annoying. The dogs seem to start howling, and barking, and making noises like they are fighting or dying or both, around 11:30pm every night here. My best estimate has been that they don't stop until well after 2am, or possibly later. Now as for the pigs, they are much worse. They squeal, and snort all night. Worse then that some nights they start at 4am, so you have that to wake up to, and trying to sleep while a pig is making noise is not an easy task. The pig pen is in the back alley behind my house, so sometimes it is like they are in my house with the noise. I feel some solace though, as many volunteers in the area apparently have run into the same problem.

Change of topic, I should spend some time talking about the nose-picking that goes on in this country. It is a strange sight to see for a Canadian. What is more surprising is that this behaviour is not relegated to simply the children of the country, in fact it would seem that more often the adults are digging deep. Even more interesting is that the more respected an individual is supposed to be- say a head master at a village school, or a restaurant owner, or some of the politicians on TV- the more likely that person is going to be a nose-picker. Sometimes you'll be watching TV and there will be a politician who sticks his finger up his nose as a nervous habit. He will keep it there until he is done talking, which of course is funny, because that would about the time when the camera is NOT pointed in his direction. Another interesting "habit" here is burping. I guess it is a sign of a good meal if it induces burping. And burping in public here is like sneezing in America or Canada. Everyone does it, so it's no big deal. I happen to like these habits, and wish they were in place worldwide, but will have to wait for the world to catch up to us on that one.

A funny thing happened today after my classes. It was "Sports day," (every Tuesday and Thursday) and a teacher called me over to lead a group of students in exercise. I had no idea what I was doing but the students loved it... we did jumping-jacks, stretches, sit-ups (the students didn't know what those were), push-ups (the students did know these), and then a little running in place. After the "warm-up," I broke the group of about 45 students or so, into 3 groups and played a variation of a game I learned in acting class called Zip-Zap-Zop. To play this game you have a circle of people and starting with one person pointing to some one else at random saying "Zip," the second person then points to someone else saying "Zap," then that person points to another saying,"Zop," and then it starts over. I changed the game to "Shi-ka-moo." It is a greeting you give to someone older then you in this country. The kids liked this as well and I felt like a hero once again at school, which between this, mad libs, and hang man, is becoming a frequent occurrence these days :)

Finally, a funny scene. I was walking back from the bus stand at about 2pm on Sunday (the 7th) after walking Jenny to her bus back to her village, and I happened to see I thought I could share. I was near the last alley before my house when I heard a distant snorting sound, almost like someone waking themselves up from snoring too loud. I waited to cross the path before my alley because a bicycle was on its way. As the bike came closer the snorting grew louder, and as it passed me I could see what was going on. The guy riding the bike had strapped a 50 or 60 pound live snorting grunting pig to the back of his bicycle, and was cruising around town I guess. It looked funny as it passed, because it was strapped in tightly and only it's head was moving making the snort sounds. Anyway, I came to the realization that I have been here a while when the only thought that was in my head as the bike/pig passed me was: I hope that was one of the pigs from behind my house.