SOME people in our family have been counting weeks. It turns out this week is "hump week" -- the half-way point of our stay. So regardless of our level of homesickness, it is a good time to stop and assess some things. See our lists below!
Things we’ve learned to live without:
·
Dishwasher
·
Clothes dryer
·
Drinkable tap water
·
Garbage disposal
·
Reliable electricity
·
2 cars
·
Bicycles
·
Television
·
Unlimited data
·
Hardware stores
·
Shopping malls
·
Voicemail
·
Air conditioning
·
Winter, snow, brown lawns, barren trees
·
Traffic controls in many places (who needs stop
signs?)
·
Mail
·
Fast food (it is culturally inappropriate to eat
while driving, walking on street, or any place in public that is not a
restaurant)
·
Tools
·
Frozen foods (there are some, but very few,
comparatively)
·
Decaf coffee (RA has to import her own)
Things we’ve learned to live with:
·
24/7 personal guard
·
Housekeeper/cook
·
Metal bars on windows and doors
·
Large brick walls around property
·
Large metal gate at driveway entrance
·
Tropical plants
·
Constant warm weather
·
Hills, hills, hills everywhere
·
Being foreigners (language, skin color, culture)
·
Very limited supplies in grocery stores
·
Uninsulated house (but we don’t really need it)
·
Dirt roads (and associated red dust)
·
Unpredictable rain storms
·
Unusual insects & critters in the house
·
Noise (construction, church music, parties)
·
Tropical birds and bird songs
·
Thinner air (we live 4,830 feet above sea level;
our Ann Arbor house is 3,880 feet lower!)
·
People EVERYWHERE (Rwanda may be the most
densely populated country in Africa)
