Oh, Africa!

Oh, Africa! As always, I could write story after story! Here are a couple highlights from last week…
*It was time to change the oil in the car. Simple enough you would think. Well, its not as easy as driving up to Jiffy Lube like back home (we found this out the hard way). Here you need to bring your own oil to have the oil changed at the Total station (it really is a Total station). So we pulled up and tried to tell the man what we needed done. We struggled in communicating with the him even though we had been practicing how to say, “we need our oil changed please. Please refill with 6 liters of oil.” We gave the man the oil and thought we were on the right track. As we watched him change the oil, and finish in record time, we had some hesitations. We decided to drive just a short distance and check the oil just to make sure they actually had replaced the oil.
I will never claim to know much of anything about cars but I do know that oil should not look like our oil looked!!! It was the blackest black I have ever seen. Maybe this is normal? We didn’t know. We were puzzled. Not knowing what to do we called someone at the mission to get advice. He reassured us as long as we saw them put the oil in we should be okay and he would check it out once we got home. When we returned to the mission he checked the oil and agreed- it is too black!! After some humming and hawing he asked what was apparently an obvious thing. We did change the oil filter right? Ah…nope!! Oops, apparently we had to bring our own filter as well. You don’t have to do that at the Grease Monkey back home! Oh, Africa!

*Saturday morning I decided it would be a nice day to go for a run. I was quickly reminded that when you run about 5 times in 4 months, it is doesn’t feel that great (especially when you go the wrong way around the loop and the majority of the run is a gradual incline). As I continued on, the run got a bit more enjoyable. When I turned off the highway onto the dirt road to go back home, without thinking anything about it, I said “Bom dia” to all the people gathered on the side of the road. As I continued on I thought I heard something behind me. I turned around to see a crowd of about 8 people following me. At first I just waved and kept going. Then I thought, hmm…culturally I wonder what I am supposed to do right now? Finally I decided to stop allowing them to catch up. First, a young woman caught up with me followed by 3 or 4 kids (5-7 years) and another woman. Others staggered in behind them. I spoke to them as much as I could in my broken Portuguese and then the women said in Portuguese, “Let’s go!” I guess they are coming with me I thought. So off we went. I couldn’t believe that these little ones with no shoes ran the rest of the way with me. Soon was nothing as a women carrying a baby caught up with me! I couldn’t believe it at first. Who goes for a run carrying a baby? At first it was okay because she had the baby on her front so she was able to secure it a bit but then we she moved the baby to her back!!! The poor baby was too small to stabilize her head at all. Her head was literally BOUNCING ALL OVER THE PLACE. I actually wondered if she was going to get Shaken Baby Syndrome. It was awful but apparently not a big deal to them, they wanted to keep on running. As we ended the final mile and a half I am pretty sure I was the most exhausted one. What a fun experience! I don't think I have ever runny over a mile with a permanent smile on my face. As I raced the kids to the end of my route I felt like a million bucks. It was one of the best runs I have ever had. Perhaps if I keep this up maybe I will come home running like an African!