Flash cards

I've come to the conclusion that I really need some flash cards. I'm learning Swahili and I understand the sentence structure and how to describe things, and my computer is great; I have a dictionary, a verb guide, practice sentences and "words I want to know" documents that are really helping me. I made the dictionary and verb guide and they really seem to be great. Only problem is all my stuff is on my computer now so it's impractical to carry around with me. I'm pretty sure the computer is the easiest way to organize the things I'm learning right now because you don't have to allow a certain amount of space on a notebook page for expansion. All one has to do is click "enter" and a new line appears. But it's not enough. I need to practice raw vocabulary and I think flash cards will be the way forward, so I need some index cards or something like that. I was going to use regular printer paper if I had to but I couldn't find any in my room so I'm going to try and find index cards, cut them down to size, and see what happens.

There is a doctor here now doing fistula repairs. She is originally Dutch and now lives in Uganda, and has been doing fistulas almost exclusively since 2000. There is a backlog of almost 100 patients here at the hospital and when she showed up they flocked to her singing and thanking her. She is a very interesting person to talk to because she's been in Africa for a very long time. Oh, and she was also the one who as soon as I pulled over for the flat got out of the car and went with whoever was giving her a ride.

We were talking last night at dinner and she was talking about the nature of the fistulas. She said only 3 or 4 out of a hundred were because of the most brutal rapes where bamboo, knives, or gun barrels are used and the rest are of a different result. What happens when the soldiers rape young or unhealthy women is they get pregnant. That then brings shame to the families and the families try to hide the young victims. When they are too young or unhealthy to give birth naturally and really need a Cesarean Section, the families don't even try going to the hospitals because of the shame, so they have the child anyways, resulting in the fistula. I thought maybe this would only happen to the young women though and all the older women must have had the damage done in the actual act, but that was explained too as some of the women have had their fistulas for 20 or 30 years. I'm not trying to downplay all the media from this region, because the most brutal rapes are the ones that get all the attention, but it is not like that all the time. Most of the time the fistula still comes from rapes, but are the result of the pregnancy from the rapes.

I thought Wilfrieda was coming back this week, but I heard a rumor that she ran out of money and couldn't get back. Someone was trying to get her money but the gist is she's not here yet and I'm still chilling. I don't mind too much, but I'm really at a standstill now having run out of ideas to research and needing to know more information about the local situations before I go any further. That said, now it's the rainy season, but I think I might re-look at solar cookers again. I checked them out a lot when I was in the Philippines and I think I might do some more research on that.

I also just found out some of the girls are going to Salt and Pepper for Indian food in a half hour for lunch. I've never been there so I'm probably going along. I hope it's good.