Never thought I'd thank God for the language barrier...

Andi, the swiss I'm-in-love-with-you-please-don’t-leave nurse here, and I exchanged a 'we have friends' high-five the other day when a nurse who lives in Galmi invited us over for dinner.


(Side note…Last time, we had these two Nigerien nurse friends over to Andi’s house for dinner...and:
...I ended up in the middle of the room without my skirt as they taught me how to wrap it correctly.
...They ate two bites of their food and then said “oooh, SOOO GOOD” and pushed it away.
...They both finished eating and left two minutes later…I’ve been told its cultural here to linger longer BEFORE eating and leave right after eating.)

So although we joked about only eating a bite of THEIR dish and then leaving, our experience was quite the opposite.

After getting lost on the way there and being fifteen minutes down the road (who knew it was only two minutes from the hospital!!), a young girl, who turned out to be M.'s niece, came up to us out of nowhere and said she would take us to the house.
(Wonder how that conversation went at home: “Go find the only two white people on the street and bring them back here").

Our idea of it being best to leave after we ate was shut down when M. popped in a movie from Nigeria. Well, we thought it was a movie. But four discs later, I was starting to think we were watching an entire season of the Nigerian 'Desperate Housewives'.
(Don’t get me wrong, I was really into it…even though the whole in-English film was being explained to me…and our friends only speak Haussa and French).

But about five episodes later, my system started to reallllly feel that ‘I don’t know what I had two helpings of instead of two bites of'’ delicious meal and unfiltered water. And yes, I was thanking God for my first language when I started telling Andi…"I’m not gonna make it through this”…"we‘re gonna need to go“…and with continued explanation, she realized that I really did need to go...to the bathroom.

So we had to leave before the season finale, BUT we were invited back to finish it.

So we still have confirmed friends! And thanks to language barriers…our exit was still lookin' classy.

Someone told me that God has a sense of humor and we're too afraid to laugh.
…just to clarify, Lord, it wasn’t laughing I was afraid of!

***This will not happen to everyone that eats the food here...I have discovered that my fragile digestive system is best suited for sour patch kids.***