all things liquid are better

so i’ve pretty much determined that all things in liquid form are better (even meals… sigh). i’m really trying hard to embrace non liquids but it’s just really hard… i mean water! water is so good! i’m not really talking about water specifically here but water is the base for it all so yes i love and miss water so much. drinking as much water as i want, running water to wash my hands with, running water to shower with, water is great. don’t take your water for granted! ok so anyway i’ll start with conditioner. i purchased solid conditioner from lush and it’s just ridiculously hard to use. and i don’t even know if its good cuz the couple times i’v used it i don’t think it really worked out. it’s hard when you’re standing stark naked in your outhouse shivering from the cold and keeping an eye out for uninvited guests (frogs, cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes) in your bathing area, to get some in your hand and try to get it into a lather. so i said to myself ‘yeah dude i’m in africa i can rough it and not use conditioner… that lasted about a week because when i didn’t use conditioner my hair wasn’t soft and got tangled and it was dirtier quicker! i was feeling like i needed to wash my hair everyday! that’s just not possible! i mean i don’t even do that when i do have running water showers! so yeah i caved and bought wayyyy overpriced conditioner and it is seriously a universe of a difference… oh conditioner how i love thee. my hair is silky smooth again and lasts for like 3 days~ the less time i have to spend in my bathroom the better! the next is liquid soap. hand and body. bar soaps SUCK. SUCK SUCK SUCK. and i use it up so quickly! and again the whole lathering thing… so hard when there’s not running water over it. trying to balance soap and the water cup and still trying to get everything to lather? yeah totally awesome. the other totally annoying thing about bar soap and not having a real bathroom is that you have to let the soaps dry before you can store them again… which is easier said than done… yeah when we went to maputo to buy phones we were in a department store and using the bathroom and washing your hands with running water? GLORIOUS!!! i went to my friend donna’s the other day for lunch(who made us awesome mexican food with tortillas from scratch) and she bought liquid soap so i got to wash my hands twice with her pouring water on both my hands!!! oh the simple things in life~ next? laundry detergent… blue liquid fresh scented tide in the orange containers. why oh why do you not live in mozambique? i brought a few ‘sink packs’ and i washed my undies in that, but everything else? you guessed it – bar soap. they do have powder laundry detergent here, but my family said that it’s too harsh for clothing so to use bar soap instead, but i think i may have to switch to the powder even if it ruins my clothes cuz my ‘clean’ clothes just don’t smell or feel clean. as this is my ode to liquids, i won’t mention the washer and dryer, but you get the point… so yeah all my laundered clothes are stiff with soap still left in it because getting all the soap out of it would just require so much clean water and it’s just not practical… so yeah i’m trying to not think about how nice clothes feel when they come out of the dryer… the warm soft fresh smelling awesomeness of freshly laundered clothes… yeah maybe just one last moment of silence for the death of my clothes………………..

ps. My family will tell you, but quite contrary to my ranting in this entry, I’m actually super happy and absolutely loving it here!! Every single one of my family members has mentioned that I sound surprisingly upbeat so don’t worry!! Haha

pps. As I said earlier I did buy a phone so call me if you can afford it!! Skype is pretty cheap and there’s also a website called www.nobelcom.com that sells really cheap phone cards! So call me anytime!!! The country code here is 258, and my number is 822.948.194!!!

ppps. The elections are this coming Wednesday here in Moz, and the cell service has been really horrible, where we don’t have any kind of service for like entire days, so if you call in the next week and you don’t get through “it’s not you it’s me!” haha

love,
panda

as promised more pictures~

all the moms greeting us as we arrive to namaacha


i couldnt turn the picture over but this is my room... not a great picture sorry ill try to get more but yeah u get the idea~ = ]

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE