Midigo

I traveled with Pat and Janet (two of our staff) to Midigo to visit our Fall project site.  We spent 7 hours in a bus (fortunately we got ONE bathroom stop) to a small city, followed by 3 hours in a car on a bumpy dirt road to a small town, followed by 20 minutes into the middle of nowhere.  =)  (Then we repeated that trip, but longer because of traffic, two days later!)

Safe Harbor Midigo is a great ministry and has been doing a lot to make a difference in their region.  They have a medical clinic, child-sponsorship program, mentoring program, church, primary school with K&1st grade, and a small farm.  We are going to design the expansion of their farm and the building of facilities to process, store, and package the food, and a training center so that they can use the farm to employ and train people from the community in farming practices.  We stayed on a compound with the head pastor (he and his wife are the only two doctors that the clinic has) and a few staff.  They were all super nice (including their incredibly-energetic two kids), and the food was amazing.  It was kind of like camping with electricity...and flushing toilets.  It was really helpful to check it out ahead of time to get to meet the staff in person and see the site ourselves so we can get a better idea of what our project will entail.

Unfortunately, I got kind of sick while I was there, so the many many hours of traveling were not so fun.  I don't think it's anything serious, but I'm not really sure what it is/was.  I was really ache-y all over, exhausted, sometimes weak, dizzy, and nauseous, and I still have a semi-constant stomach ache.  I had a slight fever Tuesday morning, but feel a lot better now.  Since we were in the West Nile region, I started to wonder if it was West Nile virus.  =)  I really doubt it though, because I started feeling bad the morning after we got there, and I would think that would be too soon.  It's probably just a combination of traveling in a bus for 10 hours without drinking anything, standing out in the hot sun all morning surveying, and eating something that irritated my stomach.  This is probably the most interesting thing that has happened to me health-wise while I've been here, which is pretty miraculous, but I'm still sorry that it took up a whole paragraph of my blog.  =)