A Few New Things Here and There

Here are some new things that I just realized I do on a daily basis that I never did before coming here:

Cooking: Before now I had never peeled garlic, made something with random ingredients and without a recipe, knowingly eaten eggplant, or experimented with fruit juices in the place of spices. It’s almost odd to say, but I think I might be an okay cook. Give me time. I’ll perfect it.

Spoken another language: this one’s fairly obvious, n’est pas? … the French is improving and I can almost understand everything that’s said to me, and I can most definitely respond to things… now for the local language, Ditamariiba!

Not eating meat: The meat’s weird here. It’s all… wild. I guess there aren’t many Tyson factories around here…. All the chickens lack genetic modification, and therefore they taste too natural I guess. Oh, and if you did want to buy meat here you’re either buying a living, breathing creature with everything intact (I prefer my chicken parts in a bag on the frozen food isle), or your watching someone chop off the part you asked for… it’s a little much for me. Did I tell you guys about when the host family had a cow in the front yard one day, and the next day it was gone, and then after that we had beef for the next 4 days (it was for a festival)? Did I mention that? It just seemed all too real. All of this brings up an interesting thought though: How detached are we (as Americans) from our food?

Gotten used to the heat: Well, it finally happened. I now get cold when it’s less then 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess it’s only natural for your blood to eventually thin out enough to where anything less then blazing hot feels good. I still sweat when it is blazing hot though… the heat is relentless. But really, I have to say, I definitely wouldn’t trade it for what you guys are getting into. I HATE THE COLD! …let’s see how I feel about that after these next few seasons though. This (the rainy season) is supposedly the coolest. Here comes the dry season(s)!

Read all the time: I think the iron pills might be helping with this one. In case you don’t know, iron pills are just vitamins that fight of anemia, and anemia is just a lack of iron in your blood. It usually occurs in young women, and vegetarians… or in Africa’s case, it also occurs in kids who have worms (If you ever see a picture of a kid in Africa who looks like (s)he could be pregnant at the ripe old age of 3, then that kid probably has a stomach full of worms. It comes from untreated water. The worms eat all the nutrients that come into the kid’s stomach, leaving him with a huge malnutrition problem. Prolonged malnutrition usually leads to anemia and so many other problems associated with underdevelopment. The kids eventually grow out of it.)
Anyway, the point was that now that I’m on iron pills I don’t feel tired all the time, so I can actually make it through more then 10 pages of a book at a time. So far I’ve only read 4 books and all my Peace Corps Manuals (of which there are quite a few, and they’re thick as well.), and a number of random things in French or English.
Books I’ve read so far: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Slaughter-House 5, The Monkey Wrench Gang, and Travels with Charlie. Slaughter-House 5 and Travels with Charlie seem to be the best of the four… you’ve got to love Vonnegut and Steinbeck.

…That’s all that I can think of right now.

Sarah