Firsts

If you know me well, you probably will not believe the list of "firsts" you are about to read. Yes, I lived in the 'bush' of Africa, yes I know I AM still alive even though there was no Diet Coke, Coke Light, or Coke Zero, yes I would be perfectly content if that was my one & only experience in rural Africa, and no… I wouldn't trade a single day for any amount of money or time in the world. :)

1. I took prescription motion sickness medicine because I was afraid of getting carsick. I later found out from a CVS pharmacist that my 'motion sickness' medicine was actually the main ingredient in tranquilizers. I was a little tired.
2. I ate a fried fish. Like, it was a full fish fried in grease and I had to scrape the meat off the bone. No, I didn't throw up or gag. It was surprisingly okay.
3. I drank Fanta Passion (& it was the bomb.com!)
4. I slept in a Tanzanian "Guest House." Don't let the name fool you - it was a room with a bed with a sheet and two fake pillows and a mosquito net and small night stand. The first one had electricity and some plumbing (you had to dump a bucket of water down the toilet because it wouldn't flush, but I did have a few streams of water come out of a shower head). The third night had no electricity, which leads to another first:
5. I lit my first kerosene lamp.
6. I ate a mandazi for breakfast.
7. I used a squatty potty (luckily this was put off until day 2… and then I pretty much didn't see a real toilet for the next 10ish days).
8. I ate Tanzanian "Margherita Pizza"…. which was actually a TON of spinach and a few other vegetables (I think tomato dices?) and a barely perceptible sprinkle of mozzarella cheese on pita bread.
9. I ate chapati for breakfast.
10. I ate roasted maize for lunch (sooooooo good!)
11. I received a gift from a villager near Lake Rukwa (it was maize).
12. I ate chips mayai for dinner (that's french fries cooked with eggs. It's really popular here).
13. I tried ugali at lunch (it's basically a thicker version of pop - for those of you that are in Africa and know what pop is. For those of you that don't know what pop is, or ugali… ugali is basically ground up maize. It looks like play dough. Pop looks like mashed potatoes).
14. Experienced culture shock for the first time in my life. That was not so fun.
15. I stayed at a beachfront resort (for $31 a night!) with a gigantic bedroom and bed and beautiful view and cool breeze.
16. I rode an African cargo boat for 13 hours (which was a TON of fun and I found out later that week that it was totally illegal, so…)
17. I broke a law in Tanzania.
18. My passport, headlamp, sunscreen, and iPod fell out of the boat while we were going. Luckily a cute Tanzanian guy rescued it for me, so then…
19. I gave my hero a big tip the "Tanzanian" way by hiding it in the palm of my hand while shaking his hand and saying, "Asante sana," which basically means, "Thank you very much." I got applause from all of the Africans on the boat. It was pretty funny, lol. Sidestory: when it went overboard everyone around me was asking, "Was something important in there?!" What actually came out of my mouth was, "MY PASSPORT!!" but what I was crying out in my heart was, "MY IPOD!!! MY IPOD! MY IPOD! MY IPOD!" Apparently I don't care if I can get back to Joburg or America, so long as I have my music.
20. I ate boiled cassava (it's a root that's similar to a potato and very good. I also ate fried cassava a few days later. It's so similar that I'm counting all of this as one).
21. I tried Miranda N….something. It was soda that was pretty much just like fanta, but it was blackcurrant flavored, I believe.
22. I participated in basically a prayer vigil because it seemed like we were going to get turned away by a priest in the area because they were suspicious of what we were doing there. PTL that everything ended up being okay and we got to stay and visit more of the Kisi people!
23. I bathed in a body of water because I'm not a fan of bucket baths, and our water for bucket baths came straight from Lake Malawi. That was just about the coolest first I did. Bathing in the lake was AWESOME! The water was the perfect temp, crystal clear, and so refreshing :)
24. I spent 12 hours of the same day hiking through the mountains of Tanzania. I've hiked before and I've hiked through mountains before. Never in my life have I spent 12 hours of the same day hiking. I'm pretty sure that's what death feels like and I'm pretty sure all of those Africans think I'm total weak-sauce. Africans can WALK, man. They're crazy! They never get tired!
25. I fished a drowning ant out of my chai and still drank it.
26. I picked dead ants off my chapati and still ate it.
27. I ate raw peanuts.
28. I ate boiled peanuts.
29. I heard a dog killing another dog (at about 1 am in the morning).
30. I heard the call to prayer (at 5 am the same morning).
31. I rode a legit African bus (meaning there were about 60 seats that were full, then about 60 more people standing, and I'm probably underestimating. There were also about 12 chickens and a goat on the bus as well. Fortunately the standing people only pulled your hair and used your head as an armrest if you were white. If you were black, they were straight-up sitting in your lap).
32. I bought something from a street salesman from out of the bus window.
33. I drank Pinenut flavored Sparberry (a soda). It was pineapple + coconut and it was soooo delicious.
34. I ate ranch flavored Pringles.
35. I flew in a 14 person airplane (12 passenger seats and the 2 pilot seats).
36. The runway for the plane was a field of grass.
37. This trip included the first time I ever used a mosquito net.
38. I didn't wear any makeup at all for 14 consecutive days (since I started wearing makeup in 6th grade).
39. I ate an apparently normal Tanzanian mixture = rice + bananas + chicken + red sauce
40. I wore skirts for 15 consecutive days.
41. I hiked in a skirt.
42. I had no outside communication (phone, internet, etc) for 15 consecutive days.
43. I was blessed by another person (as in, someone laid their hands on my head to show me they were blessing me, and it happened to be a 4-ish year old!)
44. I had to take anti-malaria medication.
45. I had to make sure that I only drank water from bottled water (and had to remember to close my mouth while showering… who knew that that would be so difficult?)

I believe 45 firsts is the final number, so I'd say that 16 day adventure was well worth it :) Now I get to visit with friends for a bit and then I'm headed back to Johannesburg for my last 3 weeks in Africa!

God is good all the time!