Our house got an upgrade last night. Since running water just won't seem to come back, Dundee told us that we would begin a "bucket system" of showering. This system involves getting a bucket of water from the well outside, and then heating it with a special heating stick. It may seem a bit...primitive? old-school? to you people at home with ever-flowing running water, but for us it's pretty exciting.
You don't understand how far an entire bucket of water can go until you've successfully gotten an entire "shower" out of one bottle of water. I mean like, a little individual Mountain Springs sized bottle of water. Kendra and I were making do with that (along with our very, very rare gym shower) up until last night. Last night, we had our first bucket shower. There was so much water in that bucket, I didn't even know what to do with it all. I bet it was like the equivalent of ten bottles of water. And, the water was actually kind of warm. Oh joyful cleanliness! When I get back to America, I'm going to live in the shower for hours and hours. It's going to be hot and clean and amazing. And then I'm going to eat chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (*cough* Mom *cough*).
Ethiopians have a problem with making cake. Or really any kind of dessert, because the last time we had "ice cream" it tasted suspiciously of cough syrup. Kendra and I have tried about five different kinds of cake from multiple places, and each time we only get about one bite down. For some reason, there is a lot of liquid in the cake. Meaning if you press your fork lightly on top of the cake, water leaks out the bottom. And runs down the sides. I'm not sure why they wet their cakes, because it pretty much ruins it and makes you want to vomit. In fact, Kendra took a bite of one once and nearly did throw up right then and there. So I really just want a piece of cake, from a box.
Today, we were walking back from school with Mastasha and he asked us if we'd ever had sugar cane. We told him that we'd had sugar...does that count? Evidently not. Apparently eating sugar cane is very different from eating sugar. He bought a piece of sugar cane (stick of sugar cane? branch of sugar cane? Who knows.) for each of us. We took it, and stared at it. It looks like a giant piece of bamboo and Mastasha just kept saying, "Okay, so just bite it." But, how do you eat something that really looks like a tree? He took some, a took a nice big bite. It legit looked like he was eating a branch. He just chewed away. We soon had a large audience of strangers out on the street watching to see what we would do with this supposedly delicious thing that looked like a piece of wood. We tried a bite, but well, it looked like wood. It was an odd sort of thing to chew. Confusing to the senses, most definitely. People kept laughing at us, and Mastasha kept enjoying his piece. When we got home, we handed off our pieces of sugar cane to Desta, who gladly took it and started eating. I don't know, evidently it's good stuff. A delicious dessert. In my opinion, it's no Betty Crocker chocolate cake.
Okay there's something I've been meaning to write about. Giving things away to the kids here. Several times, we've brought things to the orphanage or the school...small toys to the orphanage, bubbles and bouncy balls to school, things like that. When we give toys to the kids at the orphanage, it's usually fine. We bring something for the toddler room, or something for the 6-12 month room, etc. The school, though, is a lot harder. This week, we were teaching the after school program because the normal school is on break. The kids we are working with are from the streets, and obviously don't have much. Kendra and I brought bouncy balls one day, for the kids in our group. We had younger kids, so it made sense. They were super excited, and so happy. They all kept hugging us. So for a minute, you're all pumped because the kids are happy. But then, as soon as word gets out, every other kid in the area runs up to you asking for something. Most of the kids were older, maybe 12 or 13 years. They were all over us, asking and asking. We told them we didn't have any left, but they wouldn't give up. It's really kind of a bummer, because we just don't have enough and we can't make everyone happy. Even if we did, as soon as they see us reach into our backpacks they all start trampling each other to get to us. It's literally dangerous for the smaller kids. I understand that they don't have anything, and that they would all be so excited to get their own new ball, crayons, bubbles, anything really. And we end up feeling so bad that there are so many kids and we can't make them all happy. I don't really know how to explain it. It's so confusing, because is it better to bring what we can and see what happens? Or is it better to just leave them all blissfully unaware? Obviously we're going to give away as much as we can, it's just hard to figure out the best way to do it. Some way that doesn't initiate a mob of 90 children, leaving 50 of them more bummed than they were five minutes before. Maybe we can only bring things to the orphanage, where we can hand it out in smaller groups. Or maybe we just hand things out to kids we meet on the street. There are at least ten random kids each day that walk up to us to say hello, and we usually give them a sucker. We could start handing out other things, and at least that would only be to a couple kids at a time, thus eliminating the mob issue. Who knows...hopefully we figure out a good strategy.
On a completely different note, we're sitting at the hotel using internet right now and are pretty sure we just encountered an African killer bee. Those exist, right? Cause this thing was crazy! The hotel people all laughed at us as we tried to avoid it. Scary! I hope we make it out alive. If this is the last blog post, you know what got me...
You don't understand how far an entire bucket of water can go until you've successfully gotten an entire "shower" out of one bottle of water. I mean like, a little individual Mountain Springs sized bottle of water. Kendra and I were making do with that (along with our very, very rare gym shower) up until last night. Last night, we had our first bucket shower. There was so much water in that bucket, I didn't even know what to do with it all. I bet it was like the equivalent of ten bottles of water. And, the water was actually kind of warm. Oh joyful cleanliness! When I get back to America, I'm going to live in the shower for hours and hours. It's going to be hot and clean and amazing. And then I'm going to eat chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (*cough* Mom *cough*).
Ethiopians have a problem with making cake. Or really any kind of dessert, because the last time we had "ice cream" it tasted suspiciously of cough syrup. Kendra and I have tried about five different kinds of cake from multiple places, and each time we only get about one bite down. For some reason, there is a lot of liquid in the cake. Meaning if you press your fork lightly on top of the cake, water leaks out the bottom. And runs down the sides. I'm not sure why they wet their cakes, because it pretty much ruins it and makes you want to vomit. In fact, Kendra took a bite of one once and nearly did throw up right then and there. So I really just want a piece of cake, from a box.
Today, we were walking back from school with Mastasha and he asked us if we'd ever had sugar cane. We told him that we'd had sugar...does that count? Evidently not. Apparently eating sugar cane is very different from eating sugar. He bought a piece of sugar cane (stick of sugar cane? branch of sugar cane? Who knows.) for each of us. We took it, and stared at it. It looks like a giant piece of bamboo and Mastasha just kept saying, "Okay, so just bite it." But, how do you eat something that really looks like a tree? He took some, a took a nice big bite. It legit looked like he was eating a branch. He just chewed away. We soon had a large audience of strangers out on the street watching to see what we would do with this supposedly delicious thing that looked like a piece of wood. We tried a bite, but well, it looked like wood. It was an odd sort of thing to chew. Confusing to the senses, most definitely. People kept laughing at us, and Mastasha kept enjoying his piece. When we got home, we handed off our pieces of sugar cane to Desta, who gladly took it and started eating. I don't know, evidently it's good stuff. A delicious dessert. In my opinion, it's no Betty Crocker chocolate cake.
Okay there's something I've been meaning to write about. Giving things away to the kids here. Several times, we've brought things to the orphanage or the school...small toys to the orphanage, bubbles and bouncy balls to school, things like that. When we give toys to the kids at the orphanage, it's usually fine. We bring something for the toddler room, or something for the 6-12 month room, etc. The school, though, is a lot harder. This week, we were teaching the after school program because the normal school is on break. The kids we are working with are from the streets, and obviously don't have much. Kendra and I brought bouncy balls one day, for the kids in our group. We had younger kids, so it made sense. They were super excited, and so happy. They all kept hugging us. So for a minute, you're all pumped because the kids are happy. But then, as soon as word gets out, every other kid in the area runs up to you asking for something. Most of the kids were older, maybe 12 or 13 years. They were all over us, asking and asking. We told them we didn't have any left, but they wouldn't give up. It's really kind of a bummer, because we just don't have enough and we can't make everyone happy. Even if we did, as soon as they see us reach into our backpacks they all start trampling each other to get to us. It's literally dangerous for the smaller kids. I understand that they don't have anything, and that they would all be so excited to get their own new ball, crayons, bubbles, anything really. And we end up feeling so bad that there are so many kids and we can't make them all happy. I don't really know how to explain it. It's so confusing, because is it better to bring what we can and see what happens? Or is it better to just leave them all blissfully unaware? Obviously we're going to give away as much as we can, it's just hard to figure out the best way to do it. Some way that doesn't initiate a mob of 90 children, leaving 50 of them more bummed than they were five minutes before. Maybe we can only bring things to the orphanage, where we can hand it out in smaller groups. Or maybe we just hand things out to kids we meet on the street. There are at least ten random kids each day that walk up to us to say hello, and we usually give them a sucker. We could start handing out other things, and at least that would only be to a couple kids at a time, thus eliminating the mob issue. Who knows...hopefully we figure out a good strategy.
On a completely different note, we're sitting at the hotel using internet right now and are pretty sure we just encountered an African killer bee. Those exist, right? Cause this thing was crazy! The hotel people all laughed at us as we tried to avoid it. Scary! I hope we make it out alive. If this is the last blog post, you know what got me...
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