A Few Things I'm Thankful For Now...

I know it’s only Groundhog Day, but I thought I’d make a posting about some things I’ve taken for granted that this trip has made me thankful for.


Washing machines
To be sure, there is something therapeutic about taking a few hours on Sunday to wash your clothes by hand. You get to know them a lot better. But it is HARD… So hard to get them clean and then to get all the soap out.

Reliable 24/7 electricity
I was basically without electricity in my room the whole weekend (but it came on for Saturday night and then turned off again Sunday morning). This has made me thankful for a whole host of other things – including air conditioning and showers with the light on and refrigerators – but they all come of the availability of constant electricity.

Blending in
On campus, it’s not so bad. But when my friends from the program and I go anywhere else, we stick out so much. I’ve been called “oburoni!” (which means “white person”), “white lady!” “Allison!” and some other random girls’ names, just while walking down the street. Men seem to call us by whatever girl’s name they can think of, even when it’s definitely not right. When children should “oburoni,” it’s pretty cute – they just want to wave at us. But when it’s adults, it gets old. I just feel it’s so ironic that generally, at home, I try to find unique clothing and haircuts and whatever to look different, and here, all I’d really like is to go somewhere and get no attention.

Being busy
There is so much downtime here, and I find myself needing something to do. I went to the first rehearsal of Beauty and the Beast today on campus as an attempt to alleviate my free-time problem. I’m so used to being busy all the time at home, and now I just wish I could occupy my time better, but there really isn’t that much to do between classes, or after dark (since we can’t go out alone, I always need to have someone willing to go with me to do anything after 6pm).

Knowing the rules
We always joke that there’s nothing that we can really do to make ourselves more awkward than we already are. But it’s so frustrating to know that there are social rules and expectations that are not the same as the ones with which I’m familiar. And no one will explicitly tell me those rules, so I just have to stumble around and mess it up until I figure it out. Until you have to leave the place where you’ve always lived, you never think about those rules, but getting around is so difficult without then.

Cheese (milk in general)
There is no milk here! Only at the western grocery store, and it’s terribly expensive. But more than milk, I miss cheese. Mac and cheese. Grilled cheese sandwiches. Quesadillas. Cheddar cheese. Cheese and crackers. Cheesesteaks. So many foods with cheese that I love. I don’t think I could have ever imagined a place without cheese. All there is is Laughing Cow cheese – the spreadable kind – that I usually get on my egg sandwich. (An egg sandwich costs .60, but with cheese, it’s 1.00, so cheese is somewhat of an expense.)


Those of you with all these things… be thankful! You don’t what you’ll miss until you no longer have it. In the meantime, I’m enjoying “sweet bread,” which is like white bread, but sweeter. And a suntan. And plantains. And papaya. And the insanity of riding trotros. And church/a rooster outside my window at 5:30am… except that one not so much. But really, there are some very nice people here, and I’m enjoying getting lunch for the equivalent of $1.

So, there are ups and downs, but I expect to learn a lot more about myself from this experience…