7 months in.

This post is overdue, but I wanted to note that ... Ramadan is finally over! Hooray!

At the end of the month, we did not eat our sheep after all. Because the day after the feast to celebrate the end of the fast, our sheep gave birth. In our backyard. I am not used to seeing animals actually bring offspring into the world, so it was a bit of a new thing to me. That whole day was a lesson in patience and cultural adaptation, really. The day after Korite, I hoped to be able to do some laundry in the morning, all quiet-like. But first my brother had untied the sheep in the backyard, where the faucet is to get water, and I was slightly distracted from filling my bucket by the head and foot of a miniature sheep stickily protruding from the once singular sheep's back end.

Almost as soon as the entire small creature was exposed to air, storm clouds started to rapidly gather overhead, dashing my hopes of line-drying my wet clothes, and starting my whole family to worrying about whether this newborn should be left out in the downpour. Meanwhile, there had been a funeral for an elderly woman who had lived next door, and the mourners who had filled the street were starting to pile into our house at the first sight of gray sky. After some minutes of rapid discussion, the back door was opened and mother and baby were herded into our small kitchen just as the first drops were starting to fall. Closing the door behind them, I tried to make my way back through the corridor to my room, almost tripping over people filling up the hallway, looking at me oddly, not knowing that I actually live there, and had much more right to be in the hallway than they did, even if I am a white person in a black world.

Needless to say... I only managed to get 2 shirts and 2 pants washed and suffered much indignation at feeling unwanted in my own house (after carefully fostering a sense of belonging over the last several months). By late afternoon I finally got out into town and away from the bedlam, had a successful trip to the market and visited with my sitemate who was sympathetic to my cause. All in all, at least it was a story to tell! Days like these make me rethink how "adjusted" I really am so far here. The next time a farm animal gives birth in my kitchen maybe I'll be a little less surprised!