The Copeland Ramblings/

13 Days, Wedding, Ticks, Head Gash and Senegal fact #8

13 days!!! WOW! Well, sorry for not posing yesterday, and today is almost over… We headed up to Wine Country this weekend for my cousin’s wedding. It was so nice to get up and see almost the entire Rutledge (my dad’s) side of the family. It was really neat to see them one more time before heading off! I will TRY to post more about that tomorrow.

Today about 30 minutes after we arrived home, I noticed Emmaus had something stuck in his hair… I looked closer and almost lost my breath… There was a TICK stuck to his scalp! =( Poor Emmaus… although he had no idea… it was more be being freaked out that there was a bug on his head and I couldn’t just take it off… So we did a little research online to find out the next thing we should do. We read that it was bad to use petroleum jelly… which is what we all thought was what you are supposed to do… But instead they all said to take tweezers and pull the tick back just enough to tug on it a tiny bit and wait until it releases. After a few minutes of trying to get a good grip, we got a good grip on the thing and after just about 30 seconds of a contant tug it released! Praise God!!! We were quite happy to get that thing off his head!

Sad boy!

Just a little while later, maybe 45 minutes, Emmaus was playing around and got up on the couch, he then grabbed a few of his stuffed animals and suddenly stood up and flipped himself over the arm of the couch… right back onto the hearth of the fireplace… hitting a really sharp metal corner of the fireplace. He immediately starting screaming! My dad picked him up and I ran over and took him. I then saw the blood dripping from the back of his head. Not a fun sight! =( He got a V shaped cut right on the back of his head. He cried for a little while and got over it. He seemed a little irritated with the pain, but for the most part seemed just fine. We watched him closely to make sure he was ok, we cleaned it as well as he would let us and smothered it with Neosporin. He really didn’t want to lay on his back when he when to bed tonight… of course. But he had no problems getting to sleep. He was pretty worn out from a busy day visiting family and driving home.

Ouch!

Senegal Fact #8

I like the web page the CIA World Factbook. I think for the next few days I will go through a bunch of the stuff on that page. Today I am going to take the subject of PEOPLE!

Population: 13,711,597 (July 2009 est.)
Age Structure: 0-14 years: 42.2% (male 2,911,324/female 2,877,804)
15-64 years: 54.8% (male 3,728,664/female 3,786,000)
65 years and over: 3% (male 190,343/female 217,462) (2009 est.)
Median Age: total: 18.6 years male: 18.4 years female: 18.8 years (2009 est.)
Birth Rate: 36.84 births/1,000 population (2009 est.)
Infant Mortality Rate: 58.94 deaths/1,000 live births
Life Expectancy:  total population: 59 years male: 57.12 years female: 60.93 years (2009 est.)
Fertility Rate:  4.95 children born/woman
People living with HIV/AIDS: 67,000 (2007 est.)
Major infectious diseases: degree of risk: very high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, dengue fever, malaria, Rift Valley fever, and yellow fever
water contact disease: schistosomiasis
respiratory disease: meningococcal meningitis
animal contact disease: rabies (2009)
AIDS:67,000 (2007 est.)
Ethnic groups:Wolof 43.3%, Pular 23.8%, Serer 14.7%, Jola 3.7%, Mandinka 3%, Soninke 1.1%, European and Lebanese 1%, other 9.4%
Religions: Muslim 94%, Christian 5% (mostly Roman Catholic), indigenous beliefs 1% (note: Most people are Muslims on paper and what they claim, but most practice folk islam, a mixture of their tribal beliefs and islam.)
Languages: French (official), Wolof, Pulaar, Jola, Mandinka
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 39.3%  male: 51.1%  female: 29.2% (2002 est.)

I hope you guys are enjoying learning about Senegal! Please let me know what your questions are! I would love to be answering questions instead of just putting up anything that I think might be interesting! =) Thanks so much for everything. Thank you for taking the time to keep up with us!

On this day..

• Live Eagle Cam - 2006
• Frog Hunting Season - 2005