Being Taira.............Acceptance

ADVISORY!!!!

This blog is not for the squimish!!!!!

After riding matatu's, walking through manure lined streets, drinking warm coke (yes....it's true), eating "chorma" (roasted goat) and leaping over open sewage....I thought I could handle anything! But last night I experienced something I can only say I have seen in those B-rated horror movies! The lingering effects of a cold had me coughing in the wee hours of the night. Grace had set out some cough syrup.....just in case! Wearing my fancy head lamp I made my way down the pitch black hall into the kitchen. Everything looked so normal....the syrup was on the microwave where Grace had left it. As I turned to get a spoon from the drying bucket my hand comming down innocently.....and just before I grabbed a spoon I saw them.....cockroaches! They were having a party in the kitchen, scurrying about. Everywhere I turned, my head lamp caught them as they rushed out of the light back into darkness. I suddenly felt like they were crawling over my neck and feet.....a trick of the mind I am sure, and I ran back to the safety of my room (Do not post anything about my room not being cockroach free). Now I know they are just bugs and I had seen a few already but there in the middle of the night clutching my bottle of cough syrup I felt the bizzare, macabre sense that maybe I was in a Stephen King novel. I took a swig of the cough syrup hopeing that it was chalk full of sleep inducing medication.

As I lay there listening.....waiting. I thought about all the things that I have shared with the kids at Sidai (sorry about any previous mis-spellings but this is the right one). The other day we brought in peanut butter and banana sandwhiches for them to try. Most of them had never heard of a sandwhich; although a few boys said they had seen a picture of such a thing. And we just expected them to eat it, not to squirm at the sight of this strange looking and smelling thing. The little ones held them in their hands, waiting.......There was much coaxing from the teacher in Swahili to take a bite. The braver ones put there teeth on the bread, watching the teacher for further instruction. Once the older kids started then one by one the younger ones began to try their sandwiches. And then the room began humming with the sound of mmmmmmm. They liked it! One little boy took one bite then put the rest in his ratty back pack. When the teacher asked him if he didn't like it he said he wanted to take it home to show his mother such a strange thing. The older kids loved them.....and I am not sure if it was because they really did like the taste or because it was something from the outside....and anything from the outside is considered worthy of having. They accepted our sandwhiches, like they accept most things here; things just are....even cockroaches.

I would like to add that though they ate our treat, when we told them we like to drink cold milk with our peanut butter sandwhiches there was a look of disbelief.....even horror at this idea.....much like my wide eyed terror in the kitchen!