Woke up on this second day at 2:45am; puttered around and then went back to bed about 4:30am. It smells like what I remember Africa smelled like: Wet greenery, rotting garbage, heat, and different cooking smells.
We used half as many air conditioners that we used the night before, which is better for our electric bill (the largest bill we will have here). Today the goal is to just survive and the key, I've decided, is to not be too picky about anything, ie dirt, a mish-mash of furniture, wood floors that feel sticky from being mistakenly stripped of its varnish by the previous occupants, people being on time, waiting around to be served (eg almost 2 hours to open a bank account). My "profound" saying today is that it takes 'blind' courage to come here but to be here it takes 'eyes wide open' courage every single day. Before we left I did not know what I was getting into, but here there are so many differences, many of them challenging, that you just have to have courage to face them as they come and you can't ignore or go around them because they are part of life here.
An example would be the food. That continues to be a challenge every day here, even now three weeks later. Of course before we came here we knew the food would be different, and for the most part we eagerly anticipated trying new tastes. But now that we are here, we see it goes so much deeper than that and it does take some fortitude and determination to provide nourishment. To go grocery shopping we either have to take the bus at this point, or brave crazy drivers on a 6 lane road using a borrowed van in traffic that drives on the opposite side of the street going by intuition to find the store (a map of this small city is almost impossible to find). Once at the grocery store, we see few products we recognize, small or non-existent English writing on the products, unusual ways of displaying items (just pick up the unpackaged fish you want with a plastic bag over your hand, but watch out you don't slip on its blood that is on the floor) and a store layout that doesn't make sense (eg a rice aisle that rivals the longest cereal aisle you might see in Canada; anything made of pork you want to buy you have to go into a separate mini store and pay for it there and then continue your shopping in the rest of the store). I pay with money I have to look carefully at to determine what denomination it is. I cook on a gas store with two burners, and I have attempted to use the oven (in its own little separate room) only once and it was a dismal failure - top half of the muffins were very brown, bottom half were uncooked. Every day I think hard about what to cook. When I have cooked it has been spaghetti, or pancakes from a mix, or the odd bit of chicken (which I saw being carved up in front of me at the local market) or ground beef (which I heard being ground up 5 feet away). It is all good, it just takes courage for me, more than I thought I would need.
My other "mantra" these days is "listen, listen, listen". There is so much information being given to us by our host person, Jasmane, by other Dalat staff we meet, by neighbours and storekeepers, etc. And we want to remember it all as it is all useful and will help us find our way. We listen to the different dialects and accents to make sense of what people are saying, to understand them, and know how to respond. We listen with your eyes - to the signs to know where to get things, or as landmarks to find our way around, or just because they are interesting, eg a "kafe and kek" store (coffee and cake), a "restoran" (many stores are labelled this way in the top left side of the store front, above where they actually say the name of the store).
Everything is a learning experience, and we are certainly overwhelmed at this point but also thrilled to be here!
No comments:
Post a Comment