Man Day

Sundays are our 'self-directed learning' days AKA our only days off. Thus my usual Sunday consists of me sleeping in late and just hanging out with my family in the village. This past Sunday I had planned on waking up early to go running, but that never happened and I ended up sleeping until 10am. I would like to exercise more but the fact that I don't have a shower or efficient means to clean myself after said exercise sometimes prevents me from doing it. I digress. I woke up late and had my usual breakfast while my mom sits next to me with a palm branch and swats the flies away from me. The flies in the village are a little intense. I stopped counting one morning at 32 after I realized it was useless to try. I have just recently started to get used to them, only swatting when they go near my face. After breakfast I helped my brother put in a new door in the new house. Again, it consisted of taking a pickax to the wall. It is a lot of fun and good exercise when they let me have a go at it. They probably think that I'm going to hurt myself if they leave me to my own devices for too long, probably rightfully so. Once we were done putting in the door we decided to go for our usual relaxing walk through the fields and pick some fruit. Towards the end of our walk Abdelrafour noticed something in the bushes and immediately grabbed a rock and ran towards it. Turns out to be a snake about a 1.5ft long and just as I arrive he bashes it with a rock. The snake was stunned for a second then quickly tries to slither away towards safety. He spent the next 10 minutes grabbing its tail and dragging it out of a hole. After slicing it in half with a stick (I never knew the other half still wiggles for 5 minutes or so after being disconnected from the main body) he finally gets the rest of it out and tells me to hit it in the head with a rock. I did just that. Thus, I had the manliest day out of any of the volunteers by building a house and bashing a snake's head in with a rock. I then spent the remainder of the day playing Uno, helping the women cook, and learning the intricacies of making 'Moroccan whiskey' or mint tea. A pretty complete day if you ask me :)