The Weekend

Hi everyone! I feel like I have a lot to write, so I am breaking it up into parts so that maybe it's easier to read. We had a really fun weekend. Saturday we cooked an American dinner for our family. This was kind of a multi-purpose exercise: we wanted to do something nice for them, teach them (and ourselves) how to prepare food we like with their materials, and have a meal that we really enjoy. So we made hamburgers with caramelized onions on top, garlic mashed potatoes, and sauted some veggies. It was really good (at least to us, I don't know if they really liked it or not).

The whole experience was a typical African business deal. We went to the market Saturday morning to order the beef and we were told "no problem", it will be delivered that afternoon to the center where we have class. By 3pm there was no meat so we got the phone number for the butcher and called and he said he would send the meat right away. Shortly after we got off the phone the butcher's son came to say we weren't getting the meat after all. So we went home (about 1km away) and decided just to do potatoes and veggies. After we got home, we realized that I forgot the milk at the center so I rode back to get it and the butcher's son was back with the meat. So it all worked out. We are learning to adjust to the way things work here. For example, when you go to a restaurant and order food and they say ok, it doesn't mean that they have the food and will make it for you. Sometimes they have run out and just don't like telling you bad news so they wait about 10 minutes before telling you.

Sunday we did laundry and went to the pool. The pool was great! We even ate some pizza, sort of. It was ground beef, cheese, and onion on a pizza crust which is good enough for me.This week we meet our homologues and visit our site. I don't know if I explained the homologue situation so here it goes: we each get a person at our site who is involved in similar work that helps us integrate into the community and answer any language, work, cultural, life, etc. questions we may have. Then we get to visit our site from Thursday to Sunday. Aaron and I have it easy because our site is only 45km away but some people have 2-day journeys to get to site. Also, Jill and Marcus (who we are replacing) have one week left in country so they will be there to show us around. I am really excited.