One of my favorite things to eat here are avocados. They're big, delicious, and cheap compared to anything I'd ever find in New England. I can often get a big avocado for 100 or 200 shillings--that's dirt cheap for such a nutrition-packed food. They're sold everywhere, but are pretty much always already ripe, so you can't buy too many at a time. I don't eat an over-abundance of them, but fairly often I'll eat 1/2 an avocado to try to get some fatty nutrition into my body.
Nonetheless, my love affair with the little green wonders may very well be finished. Over the past several months, I've been noticing that my lips, throat, and tongue itch when I eat things like avocados. It hasn't been the case every time I've had them, however, so I've tried to just limit my intake to a couple per week in the hopes the symptoms were just coincidental or relatively benign. I'm starting to think the danger of being allergic to them is real, however. Today I decided to eat half of a small avocado for lunch. Not only did I get an itchy mouth, throat, and ears, but my throat also tightened up. I had a hard time breathing for about an hour after eating it, which to me is not something I want to mess around with. So, I'm going to add avocados to my long, long, long list of foods to avoid, at least for now. Perhaps once my body is doing better avocados and I will be friends again, but for now we must part ways. I can't have tortilla chips anyway, and really guacamole is my favorite avocado product, so I'll just wait until I can eat the two together again. And have access to an EpiPen.
Really, it just sucks because now there's just another common TZ food I can't eat. I'm going to be considered the weirdest person ever when I go to my new site. Frustrating.
In other news, the power is out at Glenn's house again....and we're extremely low on water--though I did have a nice bucket bath today. (Thank goodness!) There's been kind of a draught here, so hopefully the rainy season will bless this region with some water-from-the-skies soon. Tony said he's never seen Lushoto so dry in the 17 years he's been here. The creek in Kongei (Glenn's village) is all dried up, and the plants around here are looking very thirsty. It is looking like it might rain this afternoon, though, so maybe Lushoto will be in luck!
I'm going to get stuff at my site tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous about going there since it seems like it might be a stressful thing to pack and say "goodbye" to people pretty much forever. But, at least I'll have my things. I think Hannah or Glenn should be coming to help me out. We will see how things go...
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UPDATE: It's raining! Hooray! Also, the power came back, but then went away because it's SERIOUSLY down-pouring. Glenn's floor is actually being flooded as well speak, so he has to keep raking the water out. But this is very good news for the villagers around here!
It's been kind of a hard day emotionally (terrible nightmares/inability to stay asleep have led me to be tired and a bit blue) but things are bound to get better I suppose. I am really enjoying listening to the sound of the rain. It smells great, too. Kind of like being immersed in a greenhouse. Mmm.
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