Odds and ends

I thought I'd take the time to post about the few odds and ends that I've seen while here. I think that a couple of the people have already, but I haven't so here I go.

Probably one of the biggest things that stood out to me was the smells. A lot of the air smells like camp fire smoke, and even occasionally like roasted marshmallows. Then there is the not so good smells. You can also run across places that smell strongly of second hand smoke and when riding in the car all you ever smell is exhaust. The blasted cars here put out so much exhaust it's unbelievable. I mean, it makes my eyes water sometimes and I'm not kidding. Then there is the smell of the people. This ain't America, folks, and the people don't invest in smelling good as much as we do. As a result, everyone smells like body oder. It isn't so bad when you just passing by them, or sitting near them in a meeting, but when thirteen people pile into a nine passenger van, things start to get rough. It's one of those things that you just have to keep getting used to every time it happens.

The second thing is the food. Most of the food we eat here is really good. Nellie makes this stuff called chipote (spelling?) which is sort of a flat bread almost. I don't really know how to describe it, but it is awesome if you put a little minced meat and vegetables into it. I love it. Then there is the ugali. While it is rather tasteless, it's a blast to play with. The idea is that you take a little bit in your hand, ball it up, flatten it out, then use it to pick up your food. Kind of like an edible spoon. It's kind of the consistency of refrigerated cream of wheat, but drier. I'll tell you, I could play with that stuff all day long. The only reason I eat it is to mush it around in my hand. It feels really cool. I don't really have time to list all the foods I liked, so if you really want to find out what all they eat you'll just have to come and see for yourself.
Then there is the not so good food. I'll tell you what, these people can't make American food. There is just something about an American hamburger that you just don't get in the burgers down here. Then there is the really not good food like goat intestine and little fish. The goat intestine wouldn't be too bad if you didn't know what you were eating and it didn't have an after taste. When I first put it in my mouth, it wasn't so bad. However, a couple of seconds after I started chewing it, it got a little bit of the flavor of what passes through it (actually I wouldn't know since I have never eaten that, but that is what I would compare it to) and that was pretty bad.

The other really big thing is the roads. I'm sure you all have heard about the condition of the roads and the way these people drive, but you can't really understand it until you have seen it for yourself. The lines on the road are meaningless. As long as there is no car heading directly at you, drive where ever you want, pass whenever you want and make sure not to hit anyone. There are no stop lights in town, so basically it's like driving with very little rules. If the people were like American drivers, there would be hundreds of deaths a day due to car accidents. You run into lots of creepy situations, but in the end the drivers here watch out for other drivers a lot more than American drivers, so we haven't had any devastating experiences yet.
The other thing that is really different about the driving is the condition of the roads. I'm sure that everyone who comes here posts on the roads some. They are awful. They have parts of the roads, lots of parts, that are as bad as Sandy Flat when it was at its worst. Then there are quite a few parts that are worse. They also have speed bumps that would shame the ones in RCV every so often down the main road, to discourage speeders. As a result, the drive to town is very stop and go. Just as you build up speed, you slow down to five miles an hour so that the van doesn't go airborne over the speed bump. Actually, to be honest, the van wouldn't go airborne. Abba did hit one without slowing down. Luckily it was one of the smaller ones otherwise really bad things could have happened.

So anyway, that ended up being a pretty long post, but I hope you enjoyed it. In the end this is a wonderful place, and I would recommend that all of the youth at least save some money and go to some third world country. It will change your perspective on life.