I will begin by apologizing for not updating my blog before leaving off to site. It was a very hectic weekend and once I got to site I realized that there is no internet without traveling at least an hour and a half back towards the capital. So, I figured I might as well just wait and update my blog and emails when I go to the capital at the end of the month.  The previous post was from my first week at site, so obviously there has been  other happenings in between that post and now.

I would like to begin by outlining some of the more interesting/disgusting/ hilarious things that I’ve seen while at site. First, one morning while at the CSPS, a woman was waiting with her infant child, who was obviously sick based on the amount of snott running from his nose. Subsequently, the woman looked at the baby’s nose and proceeded to put her mouth to the baby’s nose and suck all of the snott out of his nose with her mouth and spit it on the ground. I was mortified and disturbed all at the same time. That just went so far past motherly love and into a whole relm of sick. Next, my first week at site I decided to go to the church that’s like two stone throws from my house. It’s a Protestant church so there’s a lot of dancing and singing. Anyway, the church was pretty big and there were a lot of people and the service was held in Bissa. So I tried to sneek in about an hour late while they were in the middle of singing and praying just to say I went and show my face in the community.  I also thought that because I’m black too, it wouldn’t be so obvious when I walked into the church…Wrong. In the middle of the service, the woman said something in Bissa and the entire church turned and looked at me. I turned to my neighbor like what the hell did she say and why is everyone staring at me like that. He told me that she asked if there were any strangers in the church who would like to stand up and introduce themselves. I was like oh hell no! (I actually said this in English out loud.) After another 5 minutes of akwardness, everyone turned back around and I tried to sneak out but to no avail. As soon as I stood up everyone was like oh are you tired, are you going to sleep, it’s almost over, where are you going? I was like sheesh….I’m just going to the bathroom, I will be back. In my head I was like “Damn”. I can’t do this every sunday. That’s out.  Then, one night while sleeping in my already creepy house, I heard a loud crash in my living room. I jumped up scared as the noises became more frequent and accompanied by loud screeshing. I eventually realized that there was a bat flying around in my living room. I tried to tell myself that I was protected by my mosquito net and the bat was in the living room so there was nothing to be afraid of. Again, wrong.  A bat flys into my room and starts flying into the wall and over my bed. Just as I tried to call my neighbors over to save me my phone died; and, I realized that there were two bats because while the one was flying around in my room, there was still one crashing into stuff in my living room. I tried to put my ipod in and turn it up really loud so i couldn’t hear the bat flapping it’s wings over my mosquito net and the one slaming into the stuff in my living room, but that didn’t work. I told myself that if I didn’t have a heart attack and was still alive in the morning, I was going home. I was packing my bags and leaving. But instead, when morning came I went for a bike ride before the sun came up and did some yoga under a baobab tree. (I know it sounds cliche but it was the only thing keeping me from boarding then next plain to the U.S.) Two weeks later, I walk in my house to see a bat sleeping on the ceiling. When my neighbor came over to kill it, they noticed another sleep in the corner. I stepped outside while they killed both of them with a stick. Again, I was disgusted. But happy nonetheless.

You will also be happy to know that my village loves me! But ofcourse you knew that already My humor has not been lost in translation, nor  has my charm! I have found that I don’t have to cook at anytime of the day because my village feeds me…all the time. So much so that I’ve gained a little bit of weight (healthy weight ofcourse). I always tell them that my family will be extremely pleased when I tell them that I’ve finally put on some weight. And the make me eat meat I find myself telling people quite often, that I’m an adult and if I say I don’t eat/want something, they just have to respect it. Usually after saying this, I wind up still eating whatever they’ve given me. Perfect example: I’ve kind of grown accustomed to seeing chickens being killed and then de-feathered here. One night I watched as someone killed a chicken in my honor and I didn’t really think anything of it. The next morning for breakfast, a pot was placed in front of me with boiled chicken parts. By this I mean, the head, feet, organs..everything was in the pot in front of me. I was like uh…I don’t eat meat in the morning.  There was no way I could bring myself to eat that. So, after minutes of chiding and telling me how I should at least taste a little bit of it because it was killed for me, I ate a very tiny piece of meat from the breast. It wasn’t bad, but it’s the principle.

Overall, things here are going well. Many of you would be surprised to know that little things that use to annoy me to no end, don’t annoy me as much anymore. My patience is steadily improving, as is my ability to let things go. Can you believe it? By the time I come back, I will have zen like patience LMAO! 

As always, to my friends and family I love and miss you terribly. I hope all is well. Keep commenting on the post! It let’s me know that you’re reading them and I’m not waisting my time writting them. Also, please excuse all spelling and grammatical errors (comme toujours). Until next time!

Song: Hil St. Soul : Sweet on You