Finally home

Aimee Gray
Andy is finally home! Ashlee sounded very relieved. She said that she felt safe enough from strangers as her neighbors are very protective of her and would come to her aid, but she was more worried about other things. She said every mosquito that hit the net at night made her jump. One day she found a snake skin outside the outhouse and so she used the bucket inside the rest of the time. She said all she could think of was getting bit on the butt and having to run to the neighbors' and pull down her pants and try to explain that they need to suck out the poison.
I was curious about the adds from the newspaper that she sent in the last letter and so I asked if the people actually believe in all the charms and spells. She said they absolutely believe in it and it is called juju. She said even the Christians believe in it. It is a big part of the culture, but one she can't really understand.
The first rain was all they heard it would be. Terribly loud and it lasted for hours. She said that she was so glad that Andrea sent ear plugs and sleeping pills as it will be very difficult to fall asleep in the storm.
It has been ridiculously hot. The have been spending several hours each afternoon lying of their concrete floor.
For now Andy is not allowed to ride a bike or to gather water so Ashlee has been doing that and riding into town for things they need and to check the mail. He is feeling fine, but is on restricted duty for a while.
The workshop they did last week was very successful and Ashlee was very energized by it. It was a nutrition workshop with two parts: Eat a Healthy Diet and Grow a Healthy Diet. She said many of their response to the things they were teaching them were interesting. They would not believe her concerning the amount of water the should drink. Their cups are very small and so they were teaching them that they need to drink 12-16 cups of water each day. That was astounding to them considering most of them drink only 1-2 cups per day. One man asked if it was bad that he only drinks monkoya, the fermented corn drink that is popular. One person asked if it was bad to only pee once per day. She said they have absolutely no concept of a balanced diet or any basic nutritional concepts.
She learned some interesting statistics about their village. First it has approximately 500 people. The education level is typically the 8th grade. There is one person in the village with a 9th grade education, 1 with a 2 year college degree and 1 with a university degree. That means that Andy and Ashlee triple those statistics alone. The people ask a lot of interesting questions like: Are there black people in the United States? Which she says they know there are because they know rappers and singers like R. Kelly and 50 Cent, but they do not relate the two. They are also quick to recognize the difference in skin tone between African Americans and themselves. Ashlee said that an acquaintance asked her if she could not tell that he was "from a mixed background" because of his skin and she said that, yes, compared to all the others he is lighter, but she doesn't look at him as different from them because in the US there is such a wide range of color amongst African Americans.
They were relaxing and about to sit down to dinner and a box of wine Andy managed to haul back with him and they were hopefully that it would knock them out for the night. She said it is unbearable at night right now. You wake up in the middle of the night completely naked and completely drenched in sweat with no relief in site. Makes for difficult sleeping. Hopefully they slept peacefully for once.