Lazy Sundays, and Saturdays too

We hand wash our clothes here, in an outdoor sink behind the guest house. Banana trees hang overhead, and roosters crow and dogs bark behind the walls of vine and stone. It's easy to forget where we are when we sit on mattresses made up by maids, with drivers on call and cooks to serve us. One step outside the perfectly manicured lawns, and you enter a dusty, sad, yet somehow joyful existence in the heart of a third-world country. There are two huts across the tiny dirt road, where two families and seven children live. Brenda, by far the favorite of CCS volunteers, ran up to us yesterday, spat in her hands, then rubbed them together to clean off, then after deciding her own saliva wouldn't suffice, rinsed off in a muddy pool. She then jumped on us, asking for "Pipi" (candy). Her clothes are tattered and mud-stained, and she has snot running down from nose to mouth. Her mother is never anywhere close by, and I have not seen a father at all.
Lauren, a lovely twenty-five year old from Texas who teaches special education, Lea, a girl who went to Georgia and graduated last May, and I went shopping to pick up gifts for people at home. Every trip to town is mentally and physically exhausting, being constantly bombarded by people and smells and heat. We walked back to the home base, about an hour under the African sun, and then turned in for dinner. Every night here is an early one, unless we go out to bars or clubs, and we talked about past relationships and family until falling asleep. Lydie should get back from Arusha at some point this afternoon, and our schedule will begin again. Days are shorter and more fulfilling now, having finally gained my sea-legs. Someone is waiting for the computer now, as always, and so I don't have time to edit, or read over. Love to all at home/to anyone who actually reads this thing.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.  ~Herman Melville