Monogomy? You must be joking.

I yell goodnight to families sitting around a fire on a cool evening in December. As I reach my compound I find our landlord and his wife chatting by the fire. They look so cute and in love. A few months later, it’s now May. Our landlord’s wife had a baby in February but he has been gone working in the city for the past 2 months. I hear commotion outside and look out the window to see what’s going on. I see our landlord has returned. His wife is all dressed up and runs to greet him. Both times I smile to myself and think how great it is to see them so happy. But in the back of my mind I remember that this is his third wife and he has kids older than she is. He has just come back from spending 2 months with his second wife and their nine children. This is certainly not the only man with multiple wives. There are very few men who like the idea of having a friendship marriage with only one woman. I can’t imagine what it must be like to share your husband with another woman. I will be happy to wait for a man that I know loves only me.

No Germs in Africa

Sometimes I forget that I’m in a remote African village… and then I’m reminded by small but significant differences in culture and mindset. I will take the next few entries to attempt to share these stories with you in a way that you can relate with me.

Stepping out my door on my way to work I’m asked to sit down and join my neighbors for some breakfast. To be polite I pull up a stool around the communal bowl of rice pudding. One of the kids runs inside to get a spoon for me and as they return I can see there is evidence of last night’s dinner still on the spoon. They swish it around in a bowl of ‘clean’ water and hand it to me. Of course, in my head I’m thinking “That water hasn’t been filtered and without soap that spoon is still greasy.” But I take the spoon and dig in right beside the two year old who is squatting beside the bowl with no pants and no underwear. And that’s when I’m glad I get to eat with my hands (which have been washed with soap) for lunch.

Life is a giant sandbox for the kids and a giant litter box for both the children and animals here and any child under the age of three can get away with running around with no clothes on. As I walk back into my compound at lunch time all it takes is for one person to say my name and the kids come running from all directions wanting to be picked up and held. I don’t even think about it anymore with the little girls but I will not pick up the little boy if he doesn’t have clothes on, but I think he’s okay with that considering he still cries if he gets too close to the Tubob (white person).