I’ve just encountered my first frustration… I’m sure its minor in the grand scheme of things, but currently as I’m writing about it, it’s annoying, and frustrating me….

I got up this morning with full intentions of doing my ‘own’ wash (laundry), I gathered some of my dirty clothing (as the laundry line isn’t large enough to hold many or all my things at once), and as I started washing my first few items and hanging them on the line my counterpart came over…

Great lady so far, except that she MUST do everything for me… Every morning thus far she is sitting outside my room waiting for me to get up. She then follows my into my kitchen to sweep it out, then she sweeps my room (I’ve started drawing the line with me room), then she empties my trash. If she sees me cooking she’ll take all my dirty dishes and start washing them, and if she is given the opportunity to take over my cooking, she will, telling me that I’m doing it wrong (I wonder what they think we eat in the US if they think I have the inability to cook?)… arrggggg.

So as she saw me washing my clothing she quickly took everything off the line that I had already washed, grabbed another bucket and started to rewash them… as if I have the inability to wash my own clothing… not sure, but seriously does she not think in the US that we do anything…? (Now maybe in 6 months time I’ll really enjoy having her, or someone else for that matter, do my wash, but when I struggling to fill up the day with things to do, taking three hours to wash my clothing is great because that’s three hours that I don’t have to think about what to do.)

I’m curious how I’m really suppose to help these people out when they freak out if they think I’ve been doing something too hard… carrying my bath water, fetching pure drinking water (“Sister Abra, why didn’t you send someone to fetch it for you?”), going running, or even pounding fufu (“Sister Abra, you must be tired?”)

So when I tell them that I worked on a farm before coming here, they look at me, laugh and shake their head saying “No” and I look at them saying “Yes” and again they shake their head saying “No.”

Its not like I’m some teeny, tiny, weak, link. I like to do manual labor, I enjoy cooking my own food, keeping my place clean and organized, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m enjoying washing my clothing by hands (although in the states doing laundry is by far my least favorite thing to do, well that and pumping gas but I don’t have to worry about that here.) So if farming is my main project and I’m suppose to go farm with the farmer (yet they wont let me go) then???? Great question, I’m wondering the same thing?