Foreigners

Living out here is definitely very different than living in the capitol. First off, we are the only 2 white people for miles meaning that everyone knows who we are and what we're doing. We met a lady in the village we're working in 30 miles away who said that she saw us in the market last week. We were in a shop yesterday when our plumber called. He had heard that we were in the market and wanted to make sure that we were ok. In that same shop, 3 guys came in, saw how short my roommate is (like 4'8") and were discussing amongst themselves how they had seen her driving around town but couldn't figure out how she could drive this huge 4WD SUV when she was that short. Of course we understood them and just laughed at how serious they were about this conversation.

We are also constantly reminded that we are the foreigners. Everywhere we go the word 'khawajia' is yelled at us. (a rude term for white person, probably the equivalent of using the 'n' word) People stare and follow us all over. We've been here a month and even our neighbors still haven't gotten used to seeing us.

My roommate and I have been having an ongoing discussion about the appropriateness of the staring. For instance, there are some people who you can tell have never seen a foreigner and are just honestly surprised. Then there are others who are all 'ooh baby, ooh baby' making inappropriate comments and gestures. I don't mind the first ones staring but the majority of men fall in the second category. Actually most of the boys over the age of 4 fall into the second category...I don't know how many little kids arms I've twisted for grabbing me in the street. That sounds really mean but the neighbor kids need to understand that they can't run up and grab us inappropriately every time we step out of our front door and simply telling them no wasn't working. You just get tired of it, but what can you do?

I don't know that this is a concept that anyone can understand until they've actually experienced it so I guess at this point I'm just complaining. Although this is a huge part of every day life outside of the capitol and I don't know that I'll ever get used to.