Living Local.

Our family has stepped into a completely different culture and environment, and it's interesting to me that my kids have not noticed one bit. In fact they keep remarking on how they love it here. They have adapted very well, eating on the floor with the other kids, running around in the dirt, flushing the toilet by pouring water from a bucket into the commode... things of that nature. To them, they have just made a whole set of new friends. It really is true that racism, contempt, and hostility towards others who are different from you is a learned behavior and does not come naturally. We were all created to love and it has never been more obvious than now that if you surround yourself with love, love will come pouring out of you.

As I mentioned, we are really living local. Chickens with spindly legs are running the streets and the yard. It's refreshing to see proper sized animals instead of animals injected with hormones to make them plump to eat. Our kids play outside on the porch with a woven mat that is laid out on the ground underneath them to protect them from the dust and dirt. I am washing dished outside in two big plastic tubs with water from the rain barrel. One tub is for the washing of the dirty dishes, and the other plastic tub is used for rinsing the dishes once they are clean. Last night I took a shower in a bathroom haphazardly put together. Right beside me, hanging on the wall, were several large spiders. There was no toilet paper here when we arrived. Instead the local's use a water spigot next to the commode to wash themselves off once they have finished their business. Thankfully, I had packet small packets of tissue paper that we could use before we made a trip out to the grocery store and purchase the proper thing. The washing machine empties out into a self made hole in the ground.

Honestly, a lot of times my husband and I don't know what we're doing here. Let me rephrase that... we don't know what we're supposed to be doing while we are here. We haven't been given too much instructions and we don't want to offend the people we are with, but we know we probably are offending because there is the cultural and language barrier between us. We have been told by our hostess how many mouths they have to feed, as a result I am so paranoid about our family eating too much at meal times, which results that I don't eat at all. They cook different meals for our family, but my kids prefer to eat what the kids at the home eat. I'm not sure if its a cultural difference, or simply a personality quirk of our hostess, but they seem to be a little bit passive aggressive. She's told me that when other teams come, they don't clean out their rooms while they are here, but wait till they leave. Other than picking up our clothes and keeping the room tidy, we haven't cleaned our room yet either. Our hostess seems to enjoy telling us of all the negative things past teams have done, so it makes me a little wary that it is a jab at our family.

This is truly an experience for us. It is probably more of a learning experience than anything. I'm not sure what we're all doing for the next couple weeks, but I do know that a properly organized team is coming next week, so perhaps we will have more structure at that time and feel a little more useful.