Ways My Life is Different

Hey all! I just wanted to write you all a quick note. I swear in as a volunteer in about a week, and on Semptember 1st! Anyway, I wanted to give you some peices of my life here that are slightly different than back home.

• We eat every meal with our hands. You ball up a bunch of rice, and mix it will fish and vegetables (or whatever is on the plate) and then pop in in your mouth. My family likes to make fun of me because I'm horrible at doing this. Lately, they've been making the rice extra oily so it balls up pretty easily, but that also means I have oil dripping everywhere. I'm also supposed to lick my hand when I'm done, but I have not taken this step. I prefer just to wash, and my family has accecpted this as just a strange thing their white girl does.
  
• I sleep outside pretty much every night. This is pretty much the only time of the day when my body temperature feels slightly normal.
• I am constantly covered in sweat, and then when the wind blows, the sand sticks to it. So even though I prefer to be clean, it is phyisically impossible to not be covered in a layer of sand all the time.
• Everyone on my street knows my name and expects me to say hi to them when I pass (the fact that I've never seen them before doesn't matter). Though there are a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers living in my neighborhood (just for training, not for my permenant site), we continue to be like celebrities. Everyone knows strange facts about us, pay attention to the close we wear, and know where we live. Especially for children, toubab-watching is an acceptable pasttime.

That's all about that for now. I'll leave you with a my-family-is-crazy-supersition of the week:
I pulled out a pillow to sit on it. My sister told me not to because if I did, I'd have a headache when I woke up in the morning. In this country, pillows are only for leaning on. Who knew?

Miss and love you all. I promise, pictures are on the way...it will be one of my Ramadan projects.