Thursday, October 22, 2009

22/10/09

We have a huge ant problem, we can’t figure out where they are coming from, but they especially love the peanut butter and somehow are always able to get inside the container. Well, I had wanted more protein anyway.
The homestay experience is incredibly helpful because most of us needed to learn how to do everyday chores and otherwise function without running water and many of the other cooking and household “luxury” items (such as vacuum cleaners, refridgerators, etc). However, the experience can also be pretty frustrating and incredibly humbling. All 69 of us are college graduates and although a lot of us just graduated in May, many people have been out of college and working for at least a few years. Also, I would imagine the peace corps attracts pretty independent people for obvious reasons. But for our homestay experience we are placed as a guest in someone else’s house and are generally treated like small children. Many of us have encountered this same situation: the ways we do things are not the “right” way—are not the way things are done here. Many of us have had to fight for our right to brush our teeth after breakfast because “in Mozambique we brush our teeth when we get up.” I knew how to slice vegetables, crack eggs, peel an orange, and take a bath before I came here, but I didn’t know how to do it the Mozambican way, and so it wasn’t right. So we are all learning the proper ways to do things now.
One thing that still throws me off is a common way of saying goodbye translates literally as "see you tomorrow." And people use it indiscriminately--regardless of whether they are going to see you tomorrow or not. So I should be getting used to it, but it still catches me off guard sometimes when people say they are going to see me tomorrow and I wonder to myself "really, I didn't know that?"

2 comments:

  1. isn't it crazy how ants do that! They can get into ANYTHING. The south has craaaazy amounts of fire ants, and they would find a way into all of your food at night, and would try and climb up your body into your mouth if you ate lunch on the ground somewhere - except they would bite you intermittently during their trot up your leg to your moth. By the time they reached your shin you were in pain and itching and jumping around like an idiot trying to get them off - but MOST frustrating was that I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER AND THEY ALWAYS GOT IN AND ATE THEMSELVES TO DEATH AND DIED INSIDE. I hate ants

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  2. Hey Love,

    I know it's a month late, but! while i was in mexico we had an ant problem too. to keep them out of our PB and honey we put both the items in small dishes filled with water. the ants never made it past the moats :)

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