Halloween.

I love Halloween. I've tried to explain it to people here and they are willing to try to understand but it's pretty hard to express exactly why it is so fun to dress up and eat candy. So, alas, here I am on Halloween without anyone to make cool costumes with or get a candy belly ache with. I hope all of you in the US eat an extra Snickers in my honor.
I have so many good memories of Halloween. Digging in the leaves on the front porch in Blue Ash, looking for candy not found by the trick-or-treaters. FILLING pillowcases with candy (including the big candy bars from the Blue Ash cops). Mom hiding our candy in the dog food so we wouldn't all simultaneously develop diabetes. Crazy Halloweens in Kent (Abe Lincoln, Y2K girl, "No, You're Stupid", Mario and Luigi, the bloody wig, Tom crawling down the hall in Terrace, Denine dressed as Danny DiVito). Waiting for trick-or-treaters at Everett and no one ever coming. Athens. I suppose I can take two years off from the mania without losing my ability to create an absurd costume and eat sweets all night.
I've finally started to get mail here but I know there is a stash of mail that was sent to Pretoria that I have yet to see... it gives me something to look forward to! Thanks for writing to me. Thanks for sending me emails. It makes Halloween alone on the other side of the world seem not so bad.
Maybe I'll go to town and get some candy so I can at least have the belly ache...

These photos are pretty awful but they give you an idea of what it looks like where I live. Don't let the mountains fool you. My new village is very flat... these photos are from my training.

It has been about two and a half months since I arrived in South Africa. I’ve started wondering how this experience is going to change me. So far I’m pretty much the same person I was when I left the US. The following is a list of ways I have changed/habits I have developed/skills I have acquired since my first day in South Africa:

- My hair is slightly longer
- I’m more tan
- I pee in a bucket at night
- I drink at lest two cups of tea a day
- I know that “now, now” actually means some time in the near(ish) future
- It takes me no less than an hour to get ready in the morning
- I read more than I ever thought possible
- I am getting really good at sitting and thinking for extended periods of time
- I can speak a little Setswana
- Hoards of children shout my name as I walk down the street and (I swear) it doesn’t go to my head
- I’ve lost any inhibition I had about saying “I don’t want to talk to you” to persistent men
- I’m becoming more tolerant of being called “sweetie”
- I’m becoming less tolerant of being called “baby”
- I sweep my room two or three times a day
- I polish my shoes a few times a week (although I should polish them every night)
- I no longer cringe when I see someone litter
- I go to bed around 8:30 most nights
- I have given in and started sending SMS’s (text messages)
- I carry my money (and sometimes my jump drive, my cell phone, my id, my bank card...) in my bra
- I’ve finally accepted that the flies are just part of my décor
- I know how to wrap my hair in a scarf and not look like a total idiot
- I’ve become inordinately possessive of my “good pens”
- I eat oatmeal almost every single day
- I have become obsessed with ice cream and rarely escape a trip to town without caving to the urge to buy a cone from the grocery store
- Children touch my hair so much I have become almost completely oblivious to it.
- I have learned that lots of wind can make you very tired.
- I now know most of the words to every ABBA song (they are inexplicably popular here)
- I find myself giving in and saying “black American” because explaining the term “African American” to African people is laborious and often slightly maddening
- It no longer bothers me to be openly mocked, laughed at or talked about and being stared at is just an accepted reality.
- I now know that rain on a metal roof is a pleasant sound but hail on a metal roof is one of the loudest, most horrific sound experiences possible.
- I’ve convinced myself I actually look better now that I only wash my hair every four days.
- I’ve taken to saying “aaaysh!” when I am tired, exasperated, frustrated, confused, amazed, clueless...
- Amazingly, I’ve become pretty neat.

Don’t worry, you’d still recognize me if you saw me on the street (especially if you saw me on the street in my village because I’m pretty much the only white person around). I’m the same awkward, absurd person I was when I left. I’m just developing some new quirks that may or may not become part of who I am permanently.