When you have a dorm of seventh grade boys, you get many requests for pets. We’ve inherited a rather stupid dog for the term that enjoys moaning and sewer water, but she is never quite enough for 15 boys. So tonight, after a meeting, all our guys came home with mice they had found in the field. Nan hates mice with all her heart, so they thought by showing her the mice individually, they would win her over. By the fourth mouse, Nan was close to the ceiling. If you had heard their pleadings, you would have thought this was training for further lawyers. But we have held firm, and think we are presently mice free.

This week will be unusual; Thursday is just another workday. I’m sure it is the ugly American in me that is still shocked that Africans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but it will be business as usual here. Since we are full up on our schedule, a kind friend has invited us over for a turkey dinner. Don’t feel sorry for us though; did YOU get Moi Day off?

The cultural differences here are still striking to us. Nan has written about how taboo it is to ask someone if they are pregnant. Contrast that with the states, where everyone who is pregnant tells everybody they are. Our friend Grace told us that if we asked her if she was pregnant, she could hit us!

I experienced the other side of it this week. Some of you might remember Charles, the man who carved salad spoons and bowls for a demonstration for our dorm boys when we were here before. He has since died, and his son and an older friend came by yesterday to try to sell some of their wares.

After showing us what they had, the older friend informed me that Charles’ son was 16 and was soon going to become a mature man. I thought about the states, and what that might mean. The only thing that came to mind was getting your drivers license.

But it was something quite different. The way you become a man in his tribe is to get circumcised when you are 17. And you have to do it without showing fear. And that was fine to talk openly about.

I’m afraid I would not make a good African. I showed fear just talking about it. And the flinch I had indicated that I would not be a brave member of his tribe.

I’ve always been kind of a rude guy, but even on my worst day, I can’t quite imagine going up to some 16-year-old kid and asking, “Yo – you been circumcised yet?”

Have a happy Thanksgiving; if you are a guy, I trust I gave you one more thing to be thankful for.

Your pal,
Steve