It has been two weeks since my last blog, and I have gotten pretty comfortable here in “Funky Town”. I don’t notice the smell anymore, and there is many things I have gotten used to.
Rice. We ate a lot of rice. We have eaten a lot of rice in every country, but here, we eat a lot of rice. I don’t know if I can eat any more rice. The rice varies with either goat stew, chicken stew, or chicken or goat or stew. Sometimes we have stewed greens.
I am not sure what the greens are, okra, collared, spinach, but they are supposed to be there (in a green sauce). One day I was eating the goat stew, in a (blood) red sauce, when I had a new flavor. This flavor was not supposed to be there. Later I was assured when watching a goat get slaughtered that this flavor was not supposed to be in my mouth. When I was chewing it, I assumed a chunk of full rectum made it into the stew, but goat turd looks like little raisins, and what I spit out was nothing from the grapevine. As I watched the goat get cut up, I saw the source of this green. The men were cleaning the tripe, and I realized I had been chewing the same greens the goat had ingested for his last meal. At least it didn’t taste like cigarette.
Something else has happened here in Africa. I have developed a strange new knee fetish. I don’t know how early a boy developes his interests, but I remember second grade at North Shore Christian School in Lynn. We had library hour once a week, and all the boys made a mad dash for the National Geographics so we could look at bare chested african women. Maybe this is a deep drive in my love for travel, but the continent doesn’t seem to have changed much from those days. In the United States we used to play punch buggy or slug bug (if you spot a volkswagon bug, you punch your buddy), but here we have talked about, but haven’t actually played the same game with naked babies or bare boobies. (I would call the game saggy baggys). Sorry, about the inappropriateness of the humor, but I am still adjusting to praying for women who are half naked. Laying hands on babies who are actually still nursing. Yeah, my humor was honed in the 5th grade bathroom.
Sorry, it is all true so far, except for an explanation on knees. Here that is the fascination. A proper woman does not show her knees…(how far can I push this one?)… I wonder if african boys love to look at the bare knees of american women in their version of National Geographic?
The last bit I have not gotten used to is the lack of personal space. The lines are mini mosh pits. If you are timid, like Boston traffic, you get no where. Thats enough I guess.
More Funky Town.
