Thursday, December 10, 2009

Chocolate, Cheese, and Hot Running Water

We are experiencing a little bit of Africa burnout. It started, as I knew it would, as soon as the school term ended and our day-to-day feeling of usefulness was harder to sustain.

Little things that wouldn't have irritated us before all of the sudden seemed almost intolerable, like the intermittance of the water supply to our house. When we arrived, we expected no water! We washed our dishes in buckets for the first two weeks! But ever since it started raining a tiny bit more, we've come to expect an unfettered flow.

Whatever: my point is that we are on edge. We have started to be WAY critical of the people and culture around us. We are starting to feel like colonialists, looking around and thinking "This is not the right way to do things! Here, let us tell you what you are doing wrong!"

Time for a break. Tomorrow we fly to Berlin. A week and a half later we go to England, then after Christmas we go to Holland. With ubiquitous access to wireless internet, it is possible you will see more posting from us over the next three weeks. But it's also possible that we will be too busy eating chocolate-covered cheese while soaking in tubs, and we will not post at all.

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