Timeline: June–Southeast Asia. July–September: Africa. October: Southeast Asia again.
Pre Africa: Would have been annoyed that our current room at the guest house has a lingering scent from the water pipes in our bathroom.
Post Africa: Praise Report! There’s this wonderful thing called “running water”–and it’s in our very own bathroom, complete with a sit-upon toilet!
Pre Africa: Try your best not to trek dirt into the house–the tile is always spotless!
Post Africa: Wait–floors can be made of something other than mud? That’s high class!
Pre Africa: Really annoyed at the loud Asian all-day-all-night karaoke going on a stone’s throw away!
Post Africa: still pretty annoyed, but in utter SHOCK that the power has lasted that long!
Pre Africa: pretty ignorant to Muslim culture in any way, shape or form.
Post Africa: confused not to be awoken at 5 am every day by the call to prayer. Equally confused not to see megaphones mounted on every third telephone pole.
Pre Africa: Showering every 36 hours was recommended.
Post Africa: Showers= baby wipes to get rid of any visible dirt, except on Sundays and special occasions.
Pre Africa: Mystified by the squiggly art language on menus.
Post Africa: Grateful that when I point to a menu picture, the item is, in fact, available for order. Equally grateful that the menu was not just a “decoration” but did in fact correlate to the restaurant where you are eating!
Pre Africa: Less than keen on sharing a room (although getting slightly adjusted), and still coveting personal space.
Post Africa: Mystified to sleep through the night without being awoken to someone’s feet in my face or my feet on their face.
Pre Africa: In shock at how few times we have gone to church on the race!
Post Africa: Bragging rights that within three months, I more than doubled the amount of hours spent in church in my lifetime.
Pre Africa:clothes fit the way you want them to.
Post Africa: grateful to have hand-washed clothes and thus stretched them exorbitantly, so that even after eating carbs-only for quarter of a year–the clothes still fit.
Pre Africa: Petrified of getting a parasite from eating uncooked greens.
Post Africa: Confused that food could be any color other than brown and cooked in any other fashion other than fried. (May need to get readjusted to this, though, if I do in fact end up in the South in 2012).
…Africa changes even the Princess-iest of us.
