Happy Halloween!

They don't celebrate halloween here. They don't even know what it is. But I hope you all have fun tonight and get lots of treats!

Well, it has been quite a month indeed. I have 2 hippos that live in a lake that is only a ten minute bicycle ride from my hut! They will migrate to the lake that is a ten minute walk from me in a few months. They are neat to watch. I haven't seen an entire hippo body yet. They stay in the water, only surfacing to breathe and wiggle their ears!

We had a relaxing weekend last weekend celebrating Cherie's birthday! It was so good to see everyone and talk and hang out and be American...well, as American as you can be in the middle of a fetus.

Please, take this moment to guide your eyes to the right of these words and observe the series of letters and numbers that make up my mailing address!!! I am so happy to finally get this posted. My parents have successfully sent a package so it does work! Takes about a month. And this will be my address from now until the end of my service.

I am now able to kill, defeather, gut, butcher and cook an entire chicken all by myself! I am constantly around chickens. Their behaviors range from funny and endearing to annoying and sometimes alarming. I really enjoy them and think I want to live in a place where I can have them when I get back to America. We have guineas here too and they remind me of the ranch, Mom. We also have 3 ducks. There were 4, but I ate one.

My mama here is having an oven built between our houses! She bakes bread a lot and sells it. She gives me buns-i almost everyday. I eat a lot here. Never would have believed I would gain weight in Africa, but I am. The women love to come up to me and tell me "Anya Zulu mwawona tutuba chomene lino!" Which translates to "Anya Zulu you look very fat today!" Being told you are fat is a compliment here. My emotions are torn on that one. Oh yeah, "tutuba" means fat. I think that word is hilarious. I tried to explain what a tuba is, but I don't think they understood. I feel very alone sometimes when it comes to humor. Their sense of humor is so different. They find things funny that I just don't get at all. And then they don't get my humor at all either and I find myself talking to myself, my walls, water bottle, food, mosquito net....anything that I happen to be looking at at the moment. Oh, I don't think I talk out loud that much...but I do just start laughing at things I think of when no one is around.

I'm finding more time to daydream and its so wonderful! I've also been shelling groundnuts and maize with the women. I've been going to lots of meetings. I played netball with some women last night and it was a lot of fun! Netball is like a combination of basketball and ultimate frisbee with a soccerball.

Day-to-day activities include waking up between 6 and 7am. Everyone else gets up between 4 and 5. Then I sweep my hut out...it's always so dusty. Then I eat cereal or oatmeal. My mama brings me tea and rolls. Then I either go to a meeting or read or crochet or hang out with people in my village. Eat lunch and do one of the above activities again. My sister brings supper to my hut if I don't cook. We eat together and then talk. I have recently been teaching her and others how to play cards. They love it, but it gets very exhausting because they want to play ALL the time. Feel free to send playing cards!

Ok gotta go. I'll try to make it back here in a week or so with more info. LOVE!