You know you're living in an African village when...

written Friday, 6 July 2007

 

 

• You give up your alarm clock in favor of the more reliable and effective braying donkeys.
• At least once a day you must chase a sheep out of your hut.
• Your idea of a special holiday treat is chicken livers and sheep intestines.
• When you are sick, complete strangers will walk up to you and ask "How's the diarrhea?"
• You eat food the consistency of thick soup with your hands out of a bowl shared with at least eight other people.
• You have more family members than you can count, and your cousins are also your in-laws.
• When traveling, it sems perfectly natural to stop at a stranger's house and ask to use the bathroom, and then to stay for lunch or even spend the night.
• When you are peed on by a baby, you just pour some water over the wet spot and go on with your day, thinking that, hey, pee is sterile, and not much else in your environment can have that said of it.
• You haven't properly greeted someone until you have asked them how their spouse, parents, kids, siblings, and sheep are doing, and noted that it's been a long time since you saw them last, even though you just saw them yesterday.
• "You are sitting?" "Yes, I am sitting." is considered perfectly good conversatiion.
• When you say you are full, you are told to keep eating until your ears pop out of your head.
• When the temperature drops to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, you start looking for your sweater.
• When you see chicken feet or sheep's ears on the ground, you think, "Who's having a feast and how come I haven't been invited?"