My Mother's questions

So I got an email from my mom with an impressive amount of questions. She seems to think my flighty and scattered blog thoughts are lacking solid information. Because she is right (as parents always seem to be, even an ocean away) I thought I would respond to the best of my abilities to her inquiries:

--Are the people there happier than here? Or are we all the same?

Hm. Well, the honest answer is that I don't know. I get the sense that we are definitely NOT all the same, but the cultural differences are still totally beyond me. I think that people experience less conflict with bad things that happen because of the general fatalistic attitude here. So much depends on "if Allah agrees" and "Allah willing" than when babies die, or women are lacking the opportunities men are, it's just kind of accepted. This doesn't mean people are happier, I suppose, just way more passive about terrible things.


--Are there animal feces everywhere and if so, how do you keep from stepping in them all day?


Awesome. This is way easier than the first question. Yes, there is poop everywhere. In the streets, on the side of the streets, in the yard. Totally and completely everywhere. Just like many gross things on the ground, you just walk carefully. And when you get a squishy treat on the bottom of your (awesome, and i totally recommend to everyone) Chaco sandals, you just gotta laugh.


--Does it smell bad there?


The bigger cities smell like the hot trash that is cooking out on the streets and in the puddles of standing water. Smaller villages just smell like the river, or grass, or heat. (Ok, perhaps heat doesn't have a smell, but it permeates life in the same way.)

To Be Continued...