Sunday, October 14, 2012

If you're not on FB this week

You might be missing great news like this. (If you are on FB but not here, you're missing the rest of the story)

Sun: I don't care what sport you follow, out here it's cricket season. We've killed or banished 7 8 9 in our home in the last 48 hours, I found another dozen on the stairs tonight. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear Moses was in town.

Joy adds: "Los pioneros".
Yes, bring on the seagulls! Just before I typed that, a hornet flew in the house through the air conditioner and headed mostly-straight for us after rebounding on the wall a couple times and hiding in a dark corner, we hope to die.

SatJoy caught our son today. She opened his door and found him reading The Book of Mormon. "I couldn't find my pencil to do my writing, Mommy," he explained. "So I wanted to do some reading in my Book of Mormon." Wed he had asked her if he could have a copy to keep in his room - but not the copy he has colored in "because sometimes I can't read the words behind the pictures."

FriJoy discovered today that people line up starting at 7am to see the pediatrician (who shows up around 9) and wait for hours, often not getting to see him. Not knowing this, she just showed up and asked at the reception desk. They brought her right past the entire line, into the room where another patient was getting treatment, and we're not sure if she was already done or if they asked her to leave to make room for our girl. Then they didn't make us pay for the treatment or the medicine. #ifwehaveunearn'edluck then #somethingisrotteninDenmark

Joy adds,
"I came home thinking - how would I have gotten through the morning if I had waited in that line? I'm feeling kind of down that I had no idea what I was missing out on. It's strange being on the outskirts of a community and not feeling like you know what's going on. I don't feel like I should I be treated any different from anyone else. I guess I was a little sad that they didn't get the same treatment."

Thur: Prince said, "Daddy, I solved the problem. I ate the problem up."

The problem was a piece of bread that was falling apart. It really bothered him, but we were unsympathetic. He ate the pieces that were falling off first and now his bread was pristine and he was happy.

Wed: Someone during a class debate said I was demonstrating "multiculturalism." When I pressed her for what that meant, the answer came back in not quite so many words - clueless.

The Story: We were discussing "Gender and development" and I was not convinced the kids really understood what was meant by the line "Gender is a social construct." So I wore my Nigerian hat. I asked them what my hat told them. It told them I was: Muslim, Northern, Male, and multicultural. The multicultural bit was that I was not wearing the rest of the traditional garb, just my usual Western attire, so it really looked off to them. The discussion led me to show them how "a hat" had meanings that they constructed I knew nothing about, and much the same applied to gender roles.

Did you know (I didn't) that men wear black and white and red; women wear purple, yellow, and green? Our other lecturer on that day mentioned that if you dressed your little girl in white and black, people would ask you why you don't love her. It helped me see why people couldn't pick up on the fact that Princess is a girl when she's dressed in pink.

MonAround here, carrying things on your head is normal: meat, water, firewood - all perfectly normal. Seeing two guys with sewing machines on their heads was new, though.

Last week SaturdayPrince read the ingredients in our bread. The only one that gave him trouble was nutmeg.

Joy adds that in subsequent readings he also has difficulties with "sugar" and "glucose". "He can read the syrup part. He spends more time reading them out loud to me. The other day, he says, 'Mom, let's spell some words together!'"

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