Supplies!

Things I hated in America but now love/am incredibly excited when I get.

• Plain yogurt. Or any kind of yogurt really, but I especially hated plain yogurt. Here it’s just really exciting to get any sort of dairy product and when it’s partially frozen -- Delightful!
• Tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes on anything, especially sandwiches, never really liked biting into them; here it’s one of the only veggies I can get regularly besides onions so I put them on everything.
• Vegetables in general and salads. I never really thought about them in America because they were everywhere, but here having a meal that doesn’t consist of something fried for hours in oil, but is instead fresh, clean and just looks healthy to eat is really a treat.
• Showering. I used to hate showering. It was so much work. Changing clothes, getting dressed again, looking sort of presentable, doing your hair…So much work. Here, cold showers wake you up the morning, and cold showers are really delightful at the end of a hot day and make sleeping so much more comfortable. I look forward to them; sometimes I even take three in one day not one every three days, three in one day. Incredible.
• Ice. Not that I hated it in America, but I do appreciate it so much more now.
• Skirts/dresses. Nope, that’s a lie. I still hate them, but I am forced to wear them everyday to teach/be respected/a woman.
• Cooking. I avoided it like the plague. Now I like doing it, because I know what goes into my food, I know it’s clean, and it passes the time. Am I any better at cooking? Please, don’t be ridiculous. I’m still terrible but I eat it anyways, and I eat it with a smile on my face.
• Chicken. I did not hate it in America, but oh man do I get excited when I know I will be eating some chicken! It’s a spendy bird here and when you are used to eating dried fish, or meat that is mostly bones and fat and have no idea what animal it came from, it is really exciting to eat chicken and have it taste…like chicken. Such a wonderful flavor that you all take such advantage of.

I’m sure there are many more things but I can’t think of them right now.

Things I still love – reading and garlic. Oh garlic, you make everything taste so much better! And reading and books and poetry, I could blog about you all day long. Unfortunately, no one wants to hear about that, they just want to hear about Africa. Dummies.