Tastes of home?

Some things are very, very different here.

For example, sleeping under a personal mosquito net was very hard to get used to. I was hot and so I tossed and turned, but I also stuck to the plastic on the bottom of the tent. It would get all twisted and I would wake up with my face on the bar that was supposed to support the net. All night I heard a noise that sounded like someone was mowing the grass outside our window. You can imagine the Doppler effect as they went by ... "vaaaa-roooom..." about 5 am I realized the noise was an oscillating fan in the room next to us. Did we have a fan? Yes we did! But we hadn't turned it on.

Also different, we are discouraged from asking personal questions. Even a question such as "where's your wife today?" is considered inappropriate because if she had run off or died of AIDS, you would have inadvertently touched a very tender spot. So it's not just that you don't ask because you don't want to put your foot in your mouth, it's that asking means taking that chance which is perceived as rude. So you ask things like, "how old is this child?" rather than, "do you have other children." Fortunately for us, Nedson and Sebber have to translate everything we say, so they keep us from making a serious gaffe.

When you shake hands, you shake with your right hand and then you rest your left hand on your right arm, between your wrist and elbow. In this way, everyone knows where everyone's hands are. Sort of like playing poker with both hands on the table in the Wild West.

When we checked into our hotel tonight, we were surprised to find someone else's suitcase in our room. We discovered that if you want to stay an extra night, but are told there's no room, you just leave your stuff. The hotel employees will not remove it for fear of being accused of taking money out of your luggage. We had to go back and ask for another room; we certainly weren't touching it!

I wanted to include some photos of here of things that made me feel at home, but the internet connection is dial-up slow I can't seem to post any more photos. I'll save those for another time...