Hi! I am sorry it's been so long since I've been able to write! It has been an eventful several days, but unfortuntely we were nowhere near internet access. We spent several days in a fairly large city called Onitsha, which is located on the Niger River. It's a very poor place with extreme poverty - shanties everywhere, raw sewage lining the streets in little troughs or ditches that have been dug (my worst fear in the world is that I will fall in one of them!), extreme pollution and congestion, and overall filth. It was more like what I expected the entire country to be like. While the rural villages are extremely poor as well, the cities are just so much more desperate and depressing. The rural areas are incredibly peaceful, but I did not feel that Onitsha was peaceful at all! We had a bit of a scare as we were stuck in a big traffic jam on our way out of the city. Thankfully, everything turned out okay though. While in Onitsha, we saw a lot of people and they were very, very ill in general. A lot of malaria, typhoid, worms, and many other problems. We were able to treat some of the things with meds we had with us, but there were also many problems we were unable to help with. We have a big list of meds we need to buy from the pharmacy and have taken to the people after we are gone to be distributed. And then there are many more problems we will never be able to address, such as strokes, injuries from accidents, infertility, etc. I wish we could do more. All of the kids that we saw in Onitsha were given multivitamins that include vitamin A.

I saw a 20 year old girl with HIV in Onitsha. I asked her if she knew how HIV was transmitted. She had no idea. I explained how she got it and how she can pass it to others. I told her about precautions she needs to take in order to prevent spreading it. I also explained that she can pass it to her children when she has them one day and that she needs to get on medications before becoming pregnant. Even if I've done nothing else on this trip, it was worthwhile if this girl will keep from spreading it to others, especially her future children. I hope so much that she listened and took me seriously.

We are now back at Queen's, which is great because we've had some very difficult living arrangemnts on this trip. I am also having a difficult time with the food. I'm a pretty adventurous eater except when it comes to meat. They really like meat here and it's nothing like our meat. There's "bush meat," which no one can ever really identify (but sometimes it is rat which makes me want to vomit just thinking about it!), a ton of goat meat, beef, and chicken. It's hard to eat the meat when you see the animals grazing on a pile of trash for food. It also doesn't help that we see stands on the side of the road selling raw meat, as the sun beats down on it for hours and hours.

I had the most awful tasting thing I've had in my entire life last night at dinner - fortunately, I only had to take one bite. It's called foo foo and is a staple food here. It tasted like it was rotten. I almost couldn't swallow it even!
I would be completely satisfied eating just rice and fruit at every meal, but they watch you and it offends them if you don't eat everything on the table. It has been so hard!

My birthday was Monday and the Nigerians we have been staying with got me a cake. It was nice but had an interesting taste. It wasn't bad, just interesting. They even sang Happy Birthday to me. It was weird being so far away from home on my birthday, but I was lucky enough to get to talk to my Dad and Kevin. And I finally got to talk to my Mom yesterday.

We all sat down and watched a slideshow of our trip last night. It was so much fun to see what we've done since arriving and all the people we've seen. I can't wait to share my pictures on the blog when I get home. We've got some great ones.

We went to a market yesterday in Owerri, another city. It was so much fun! Everyone yells "Onyoche! Onyoche!" which means "White person! White person!" when they see us. We definitely drew crowds at the market. I don't think they've ever seen a real-live white person. It was such a cultural experience because it was so real. It was awesome. I bought an African drum and a pot. Others bought a lot of drums and other African musical instruments. I considered buying some dried fish that looked like dead rats, but I decided not to. (-:

Today we are going to the pharmacy to buy the medications for the people in Onitsha. Tomorrow we leave Nigeria for the U.S. It will be a long trip - Owerri to Lagos, Lagos to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Minneapolis, and Minneapolis to Des Moines. I will be so tired when I get home. I think I will sleep with my windows open after being this hot for this long! I'm dying here!

Thanks for checking in. I will post pictures when I get home!!