Tissue is precious in the country. It’s sold by boys on the street, in bus stations, in the al fresco restaurants . . . OK, food stands/kiosks, not really restaurants . . . and just about everywhere else. It’s sold in the convenient tiny packages that we American’s know as travel-size facial tissue. I don’t think the Burkinabe use it as facial tissue. We Americans know it as Kleenex; here’s it’s called Lotus (pronounced loe-tuse).

I have a cold. A real-live cold with a terrible sore throat and a sniffly nose. Who get’s a cold in this warm climate? Is it cold season? What’s up with that? I don’t feel bad, but in any event, I’m going through my precious Lotus like it’s . . . well, like it’s Kleenex. This is not good. This means that for every Lotus tissue I sneeze into, it’s one less trip to the latrine. Can they be dried and reused as I formerly did with paper towels in the U.S.? Yes, this U.S. gal who’d spend $50 on a bar of soap would reuse a paper towel . . . I’ll clarify: a paper towel that had merely been used to dab up a few drops of clean water by the sink.

So I see that the end is near, and tissue is gonna be a hot commodity by this evening. Time to make the downhill run to town to the alimentation. Gonna make the big expenditure and buy the four-pack of genuine papier de toilet. Yes, it is actually sold here, somewhere. Then it begins to rain.

When it rains here, at least in Po, it’s like a hurricane. Winds in excess of 40 mph, torrential downpours, things blow all over the courtyard (things such as chickens and clothing and cookware). Chickens . . . really. It’s like a tropical storm force gale, at the least; and sometimes it can last for hours. So much for my tissue run.

I’m utterly and totally bored. I realize that the PC job is 24/7. I’ve done 24/7 jobs before . . . no big deal; but this time I need a day off. A me day when I don’t have to speak French or Kassim, when I don’t have to smile and meet and greet, and when I can simply wallow in self-pity for feeling so worthless. Po Kathy.

I received calls this morning from three special friends in my stage, each of whom (without prompting) stated that they, too, felt useless, bored, anxious to get to work. So I know that I’m far from alone. This helps. It’s the three-month lock-down and acclimate-to-village-life theory. We understand. Intellectually one understands the importance of becoming well integrated into the community. But as a practical matter, on some days it’s boring. Come on now, how many hours a day can one meet-and-greet? No, we don’t question PC methods. I’m drinkin’ the Kool-Aid and have bought into all of it. Still, I’m bored. I’m bored, and it’s pouring rain under black-as-night clouds, and I’m sniffly and I need tissue.

And I need Zain. Zain is the equivalent of T-Mobile or Verizon. It’s a little scratch-off card with a code that is revealed for additional pay-as-you-go mobile time. We PCVs are on a plan whereby we have unlimited talk time between PC HQ and other PCVs, but this doesn’t include texts. Why would Kathy Davis care about texts? Because I’ve finally become a fan. Hey, I said that I was drinking the Kool-Aid. This isn’t a generational-thing. I have friends far older than I who love to text . . . who embrace their Blackberries and iPhones and text. I was a staunch anti-text counter-revolutionary, but no more. Becky, you’d be so proud. I can text with my eyes closed. However, it’s not something of which I’m proud.

So I’m bored and I don’t know what to do. Already did my nails. Removed the whore-red polish from my fingers and toes and gave myself a pedicure. I’m anxious to decorate my home . . . either hang pagne fabric on the walls and/or paint some walls. Just can’t decide what and where to paint. And I’m not a person known for her indecision. Sometimes I think I’m wishy-washy, and other times I’m just not so sure. Maybe I should paint little symbols around the grey “painted-on” baseboard that surrounds my home. That’s probably 200 interior linear feet just beggin’ for little symbols. That should keep me occupied for a while. But what if I made an error and needed a tissue to make a correction?!

Why would some Burkinabe paint-on something intended to look like a baseboard? This baffles me. Why can’t I decide what symbols to paint on the painted-on baseboards? Should I paint words on my kitchen walls? French cooking words? French verb conjugations? Do I sound a smidge whiny? How does one say, in French, Kathy, get over it! ? We can only speculate.