Making the Jump!: Pass the Kleenex...

Ok so here we go again. I guess I should mention that I will do my best to keep things in chronological order, but when I stopped blogging I wasn't journaling either. Also it is easier for me to recap the story as if I was there, so that is what I will do.

Game on...

As if my little buddy Juma Pequeno doesn't have enough to deal with by being small for his age from malnutrition and having AIDS/HIV, the poor kids gets sick a lot. This time he has a cough and runny nose. I find myself in all these strange situations. I know what to do in America, but just cause it's what we would do doesn't mean it's what I should do here. When his nose is running do I wipe it? What do I wipe it with, the don't have kleenex. When he is coughing while he is trying to sleep should I do something, should I wake someone up, will he just fall back asleep? Before I am even done having the conversation in my head he does fall back asleep.

I decide not to do much, but only to ask Juma P to cover his mouth when he is coughing. Every time he coughs I say his name and cough using my hand to cover my mouth. I realize that I probably should have used my elbow, but decide to just be consistent. He is pretty good about keeping his mouth covered, but like all children he needs constant reminding. One day Juma P and Helder were standing right in front of me watching me work on something and Juma P starts coughing. At that moment I know I will too have a cough and sure enough a few days later I am officially sick.

Apparently something is going around Pemba and so it's not just me and Juma P. Now that I'm sick though it really get's me thinking. In a week or so I go though 8 travel packages of kleenex. They are 3 ply and so when I notice how fast I'm going through the beautiful, soft, luxurious kleenex; I start pulling the pieces apart and using either 1 or 2 ply(?) at at time. Sure I have toilet paper but I think I could blow a hole though it from across the room. I'm sure it's similar to what you have to use with a septic here in the US but my guess is it's thinner. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, imagine really natural looking recycled paper. Then look at how thick it is and cut it in half.... so basically really really thin recycled paper.

So anyways, all this nose blowing has me wondering what everyone else is using to blow their nose? Ask and you shall receive as soon as I started wondering I got my answer. WARNING THIS IS GROSS… I saw a guy blow the nastiest snot rocket (when you push one side of your nose closed and blow with all of your might to get everything out), I mean yuck! All snot rockets are nasty, but this was nasty based on quantity... ugh there was just so much snot!

I don't think I made a face when I saw the snot rocket, but I definitely though YUCK! No one else even flinched, it's times like these I wonder am I thinking like this cause I'm a girl or because I'm American? Do the girls here blow snot rockets in public? Aah the life one lives when surrounded by males 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 4 weeks (cause I had Julie for the first 3). Sometimes the norm here is just so strange to me. I even thought should I offer these guys kleenex or some toilet paper, but they probably would have put it in there pocket and saved it for the bathroom and thought I was nuts for suggesting that they blow there nose in it. I mean snot rockets are free?! So in a town where a days wage is $3.20 a little more than some boxes of kleenex, you do the math.

The other really funny thing about all of this is that with ALL of the medicine I brought… I didn't bring one thing for a cough. Another one of those little lessons that any planner hates learning. It's humbling knowing that I will never be able to prepare for everything, at some point I just have to be ready to hand it over to the Lord… even the little things like having a nasty cough in the middle of Africa. But man what a blessing the day I found Halls cough drops in one of the little grocery stores. It really is the little things here in Pemba... 3 ply kleenex and a package of orange flavored cough drops.