I went to a wrestling match yesterday in Garly. Everyone wore their fanciest clothes and the wrestlers were decked out in Speedo-type bottoms with frilly decoration. I went to pay for my ticket as the drummers were doing their thing and the sun was setting.

100 ougiyas for kids, 200 ougiyas for adults, they told me.

I was stumped, and it was standing at the makeshift gate, the crowd pushing around me, that I realized the extent of my confusion concerning this question. What are you? A kid or an adult? In so many ways I am considered a child in the village. Some naive baby everyone is watching out for. In other ways I am ooooold and I am long overdue for some children of myself.

I have a job, but I am not married. I have the freedom and ability to travel and leave the village by myself, yet I need help performing the most mundane tasks in the village. I can't cook meals, prepare tea without wincing at the heat, and I play easily with the kids in my host family. But I have a brick of money in my room with which to construct latrines and I can sit with the old important men of the village without it breaking social rules.

It's all very weird and while I decided to pay the 200UM entrance fee, my place in the village remains as fuzzy to me as my job description.