Saturday, January 21, 2012

La Vie en Brusse

Things I've done in the past 4 weeks:

1) eaten snake, antelope, hare and porcupine. I draw the line at chat tigre (apparently a tiger cat) and monkey. It was a bit unexpected and a little shocking when someone showed me a monkey head that was part of a carcass being prepared for dinner.

2) not see another American. Although I did see another European since the Catholic priest is from Europe and has been at my community for decades and can speak the local language fluently.

3) drank quite a bit of Top or Fanta but rarely any beer like 33 or Mutzig.

4) had more electricity than I would have expected considering I supposedly live in the bush (the Congo basin according to the map). People tell me though that the electricity will disappear during the rainy season.

5) said the sentences 'je ne comprends pas', 'pardon', and 'qu'est-ce que tu as dit?' quite a lot, which means I still have a ways to go before I'm fully fluent in French.

6) used the text-to-speech feature on my Kindle which made reading more interesting, like a robot narrating the story.

7) occasionally pondered whether I can forego the familiar comforts of American life. Comforts like the easy availability of a nice, fat burrito.

8) finished some good books like Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory, Michael Lewis' The Big Short and Dave Eggers' What is the What?