Not so easy, but not bad at all.

Life in Africa is not easy. The simple things in life I took for granted back at home feel like a distant memory, and now the simplest tasks can take hours and hours. But at the same time, it’s those things that make me enjoy being here and appreciate where I come from. This is on my mind especially today because I did laundry, and it is never an exciting part of my week, although it is very rewarding. I always look forward to laundry day because I know that I will be wearing only clean clothes for a short time after that day, and I will know my body will smell nice because my towel will be freshly washed. But my point is exactly that, I took for granted having 3 or 4 towels that I could cycle through at home before sticking them all in the wash and having them fluffy and dry after a short hour. Here I use the same towel for a week and I’m lucky if it’s actually clean when I finish the wash, and fluffy is a word that is nonexistent from my vocabulary these days. Well, I did use it to describe my new roommate recently. I call him Larry and he is a rodent of some sort, with big eyes and a long fluffy tail. He actually might be a marsupial by the looks of him, but he made an abrupt appearance in my room last night and after trying to coerce him into a bucket for the better part of an hour without any luck, I agreed to let him stay, and he is probably somewhere in my room right now, enjoying the smell of my clean clothes. I’ve had mice in my house in America, and it’s pretty easy to get them out, you open the door and chase them out, it wasn’t so easy here cause I didn’t want to lose sight of him and in order to get him out I would have had to use two different keys to unlock two different doors. Not easy, I’m telling you. And I could go buy a trap, but I don’t feel like killing an animal that I gave a name, and for me to buy a trap I would have to take a taxi that costs me 11 rand and then take the same taxi back, which is about thirty minutes to an hour each way. Not easy. I think what is the most difficult though is the water situation. If you are in America, go to the faucet now and turn on that water and wash your hands real good. Hands are filthy. If I wanted to do that, I would have to find clean water, without any worms swimming in it, and then boil it so it is clean and then find clean soap, and also find enough water stored somewhere to do all that. Most of the time I simply opt for hand sanitizer, it does the trick. I could go into a myriad of other things that are simply not easy here, but I’ll spare you the sob story and get on with my day.
Peace out!
MB