Some of the memories I have of this place:
- Spending three hours washing clothes on Saturday mornings
- Explaining dryers to Mary, which blew her mind
- Mary always making me way more food than I can eat (I typically ate my meals from serving bowls)
- Children crying out "Saminga!" (white person!) when we walked through town
- Mary walking around topless around the house (which is culturally acceptable here but difficult for me to adjust to nonetheless)
- Being awoken at 3:30 every morning by the rooster and again at 4:30am when Mary started her day
- Don't Mess with an Angel, the Spanish telenovella dubbed in English (although the content was clearly edited)
- The soccer game we attended, which morphed into a riot after the ref made an unfavorable call, a fan rushed the field to try to fight him, and 30 armed soldiers stormed the field to take him down
- Mary's tough love parenting tactics (every time Melissa did something Mary didn't like, Mary would threaten to beat her)
- Taking bucket baths every night
- Sitting on the floor eating with my hands
- The torrential rainstorms (nothing like the rain we get at home)
- Shopping for fabric, which I had custom-made into skirts for only $10
- Playing with the neighbor girls, Wendy and Mena
- Wendy and Mina's obsession with my hair
- Fati, one of Mary's students, who insisted on cooking me dinner and washing my clothes the entire two weeks I stayed there
- Pounding fufu and banku for dinner
- Melissa calling me "Auntie"
- Mary buying the two of us matching beads, which she replaced the beads she had worn since her daughter was born with
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