Mmmm...Carbs

I am in Africa with limited internet and I am sorry for posting multiple entries at once like a blog junkie.

When I first arrived in Kayanga in April, I was only just adjusting to a diet full of strictly non-perishable foods. At that time, I craved the rare stuff I was never going to get - peanut butter m&m's, coffee oreo ice cream, homemade chocolate chip cookies, etc. Now after I have been here 6 months, I go crazy over very unexpected stuff, like.. bread. Butter? Forget it, I go crazy. I have to stop buying bread in Rundu, my shopping town that's about 3-5 hours ride hitch hiking. I get so excited when I return to my village that I end up finishing the whole loaf in two days. I go food shopping once a month, so I should be partitioning my food items out but instead I find myself rationalizing, "yeah... its OK if I have 3 slices with every meal" or "if I just finish the loaf off now I wont crave it anymore". Other things are happening that illustrate I have been in the village a long time. For example, when a car drives into the village it is a little mix up in my day and really exciting. It's such a rarity that and I, along with all my kids, stop everything we are doing to stare at the visitor. The younger kids even chant in Thimbukushu “Car! Car! Car!” (I don’t think I will ever get to that level of excitement though.) One time it was a white person and everyone asked me that day if my family was visiting.

So with some things I am adapting to the life of the Mbukushu people, but after all this time other things still shock me. At the center I work at there is a storage room for the chairs and...that's actually the only materials we own... and anyway, the other day I was more frustrated than usual when the little kids were having trouble opening the door to put their chairs away.  Finally I exclaimed "why do they have so much trouble with this?!?" My co worker nonchalantly replied 'because they have never had to open a door with a handle before.' It makes sense, all the doors at their homes are made out of the reeds and the only other building with a door handle in the whole village is the school, but none of them are of school age yet. I have not been able to get them to correctly pronounce the word “Thursday”, but after that day's tutorial now all 47 children between the ages of 3-6 in Kayanga know how to operate a door handle. Look at this work I am doing!

the kids with their chairs!