It's 3 am and I'm still awake writing a song

Sept 1, 2010

The long hot African days are taking a toll on me. Today I could not wait to get home and rest, and then I realized that i had to do my laundry, which i have not done since I got here. So maybe I claimed that I would do it three days ago, but I have not. Now I am starting to feel humbled, because washing your clothes by hand sucks. I could only do a very limited amount of clothing and I thought it was never end. There is a whole methodology to it that Ndahafa showed me and basically you use your knuckles as a washboard. It takes like 10 minutes to handwash one pair of pants. She says to me, "This is nothing my dear! Try cultivating the fields without any money for livestock!" Degrading and comforting at the same time.
I can only get free internet in the middle of the night so I woke up at 1 am to go online and now it is 3 am but it feels so nice to be able to take my time. The only other times I have been online were when people are waiting to use the computer behind me or when I got to quickly borrow someone's iPhone. After my total embarrassment trying to handwash my clothes (and i mean like 5 items of clothing and 10 pairs of underwear that you are not supposed to wash in public), I come into the house to relax and watch some Shades of Sin like usual. It is this mexican soap opera (which they call a soapy lol) that is dubbed over by terrible English voice actors. Shades of Sin is a huge hit here. Everyone knows about Paco and Preta's love drama and it is the talk of the town. [We watch TV non-stop and it is overwhelming. I mean that it is on all day and all night. We got up early on Sunday morning and she had the TV on some random soap opera and no one was watching it so I turned it off, and Ndahafa came out of her room like, "What is this? What happened here?" and I was like, "No one was watching it so I turned it off." Apparently she is listening in the other room to what is going on in the soap. Don't ask me how. So she turned it back on and I learned my lesson. don't turn off the TV. ] Anyway, during Shades of Sin we ate Oshimbombo (the traditional sand porridge) and cow intestines for dinner. I really couldn't do it. Is it not enough that I am eating animal skeletal muscle? Do I have to eat the smooth muscle too? The texture was somewhat like eating a tongue or something and it had all the cilia that one could imagine. I put intestines in my intestines. She said she was trying to get me used to rural food.

Last night I cooked her a tuna pasta dish that I learned in Italy. I steamed some green beans for a side and made some chicken soup for a starter randomly. I took my time with the pasta sauce and it turned out quite successful. My servant brother even went back for seconds. I have been trying to connect with him but it has been a minor failure. I bought a crappy soccerball (N$25) to kick with him. I let his friends and him take it and they popped it in like 15 minutes. So that was a fail. But I also bought cards and we played war for at least 40 minutes (and he beat me) and then some other games. That felt like a successful night even though we didn't speak. I still managed to talk smack to him in the end when I beat him at the game he taught me. "Aww don't cry Itana, it's okay don't be sad." Ndahafa thought it was funny.

I am trying to face cultural issues head on and see how I can change my way of thinking or perspective, but it can be really hard. Ndahafa is a serious born-again Christian and I am open to many religions, and it can be tiresome listening to her preach to me for a long time late at night. Sometimes what she says really conflicts with my beliefs. She is pro-corporal punishment, because they do not know anything better. She was beaten and, from what it sounds like, she would not hesitate to beat her brother and maybe learners (students), because she does not think they learn from anything else. I told her that I have never seen anyone beaten in schools in the US and most of the time, things work out fine, so I don't understand why it is necessary. There have been a number of other things but they may be too controversial to write on a blog, but everyday I feel a bit tested. It is good exposure to say the least.