(photos, in order are: kitchen which is also where the children sleep; living room; sunset viewed from my yard; my bed/curtain-door; the table in my bedroom where I keep all my crap off the floor away from scary things that crawl around in the night)
hey all,im a sweaty dirty pig but im having the time of my life. my host family is the best ever (five kids age 1 and a half to 10 who wake me up every morning before my alarm by screaming and crying) and im having tons of fun. no sunburn yet! got a sweet tan going on. made friends with the cockroach that lives in my shower. i named him arthur. i have to scare him back into his hole sometimes but its cool. i never go to the bathroom while its dark out because there are a billion cochroaches the size of my thumb that live in the outdoor hole in the ground they call a toilet and they all come out at night. also, there are bugs whose bodies are the size of the palm of my hand. just sayin. africa has some mutant bugs.
got a bike as soon as I got here. one gear and only the back breaks work but hey. its pretty fast anyway. also it is the heaviest bike i have ever seen. I named it Bill after the bullet bills in mario. all of the africans are super impressed with my biking skills and the fact that i did otesha last year.
in fact, african people apparently think that white people are incapable of a lot of things. for example they are also impressed that i am able to hand wash my clothes and pump water. they tend to do a lot of stuff for me, partly because they think i cant do it but also because they want to be good hosts. Dad always said i was spoiled at home, but he doesn't know what spoiled really is. everthing is done for me here. i dropped my water bottle the other day and it got dirty so my host sister ran over, brushed the dirt off with her hand, then got some water to rinse it off and gave it back to me. its actually getting on my nerves a bit because they try to make things too easy for me and i get frustrated. i can figure things out on my own too! im ok with a bit of dirt on my water bottle! its kind of like black slavery all over again, only that this time they are doing it voluntarily.
i can already tell that going home will be rough. having all the conveniences of home, playing with benji, having my nice comfy bed back without the need of a mosquito net and not having to yell at the goats and chickens and pigs to get away from the food that is cooking outside and not having to pause a conversation because a donkey is having a fit beside us and is being too loud for me to be heard will certainly be a change in pace. despite all of the oddities of rural african living however, i love it here and if i could just get a door for my room instead of a sheet, a comfier bed and an indoor toilet i would be pretty happy about my life here.love and miss everyone, and you can call or text me on my cell 001 226 72 62 61 48
kelsey
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