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Dear family,
I know there is an 8 hour time difference between here and the states but why haven’t you called?
I’ve already been done a month…
Whatever
Anyway
Listen
You know how we imagined African winter to be warm
Skirt, shorts and t-shirt weather?
Yeah, Disney fucking lied!
They lied about the whole dry thing too

Life is completely different here
Let me tell you about the kabone
It’s a big hole in the ground
Built around it you’ve got walls, a roof
And a door that doesn’t quite shut all the way
Stand on the floor, squat and aim for a hole about the size of your foot
An outhouse essentially
But you know how if you drop your phone down the toilet…
You can bite the bullet; reach in there and save it?
Here it would be more like biting a grenade to go back for a fallen comrade…
Fuck no, that shit is lost forever!

I can’t remember how to eat with a fork
I maybe shower twice a week
In half a bucket of river water

I haven’t told you about the rice-patties yet
Imagine field after field of stagnant water
Swimming with feces from cows, pigs, chickens, dogs and humans
There are narrow pathways to get through them
But you feel like you’re playing that lava game as a kid
You Will Die if you fall in!
Do you remember how you felt the first time you aced a test?
Or drove a car alone without crashing?
Or the Rocky movie – when he gets to the top of the stairs?
That’s how I feel every time I manage to come home not covered in mud

I remember sitting in an air-conditioned burger joint
Stuffing my face with the most delicious combination of
Meat, cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise
Ever smashed between two pieces of bread
And now I eat rice
Rice and cold laoka

What I wouldn’t give for a grand slam breakfast right now…
2 eggs, 2 strips of bacon, 2 sausage links, ham, 2 pieces of toast and a short stack with butter and syrup
Could you put that in a box,
Send it over for a small fortune,
So I can get it in a month?
I don’t care if the postman jacks the butter
Or the rats get at the bacon
I just want some fluffy pancakes dripping in maple goodness!

I remember walking from my car to my house in blissful silence
There were not brat kids
For 3 miles!
Yelling vazaha at me every 5 minutes!
Or singing that damn chicken song!

And you know what else I remember??

I remember when I was that little shit kid too
Annoying the hell out of everyone just because I could

I remember being a teenager
Thinking I was invincible
Too cool to listen to authority
And you know what – they are the same here
I may not understand when they ask
Tia mananihany olona ve ianao?
But I know how much weight that word carries
It’s how many kilos of comfort is created from a grandmother’s hug
It’s the pounds of ice cream it takes to heal a friend’s broken heart
It’s the amount of poetry she wrote about him before that day
Yeah, that translates

This may all sound cheesy
But Laughing Cow is equal in cost
To a phone call home

Whether it’s dolls or rocks
Kids still play out how they understand the world
Imagine who they will become
They still pluck the wings of dragonflies
Before they realize what it means
For beauty to be free