Chuckle Causers

I haven't had any "pee-your-pants" moments recently but daily I am blessed with bits of randomness which makes me smile and chuckle. Here are the most recent "chuckle-causers."

* The twins. When we pulled up to the village they were both running around stark naked after just getting their baths. Just two hours later they would be both be filthy. These two terrors were a riot at church today since they have reached the terrible two stage. If we had been in America in church, their parents may have gotten some dirty looks. The congregation has built a temporary "fort" where we meet for church and these two seemed determined to tear it apart. They both hung from the branches and laughed their little heads off during the sermon. I take back my first comment of this entry because there was indeed a "pee-your-pants" moment but it wasn't from me. While hanging, they were having so much fun that they both decided to pee right then and there; soaking their camo shorts. They then dragged their feet and legs through the fresh pools of urine beneath their hanging bodies and the women all started snickering. They rolled in the dirt, ate the dirt, then wiped the dirt on all victims in their paths (me included) I couldn't help but think of my own crazy twin brothers and how they once poured syrup all over the back of our van.

* Watching adults learn to swim. When we arrived at the public pool for swim class the other day, there were about 30 men lined up on the edge of pool, standing straight and looking very focused. I assumed they were some sort of Mozambican swim squad until their "coach" made the first person dive in. Belly flop. Flailing. Whole class laughing. Friend jumps in to pull the poor victim to the side. This was the pattern that continued as each of the non-swimmers was forced to dive in the deep end without knowing how to swim. They all were great sports about it and laughed at themselves once they were pulled to safety. Interesting teaching strategy. Their laughter was contagious and I couldn't blame my kids for being distracted by all the belly-flopping and laughing.

* Eating a "Mozambican donut." I am a sucker for donuts. I love them and crave them often. I knew they wouldn't taste the same here but my goodness... When I bought the donut the girl tried to tell me something in Portuguese but I didn't understand and did the typical "nod and smile." Apparently she was trying to tell me that the donut I had pointed to was days old and hard as a rock. I discovered this once I bit down and felt like I had bit into a tire. (or something else that is really hard, all I can think of is a tire right now)

* Walking past my friend the "thumbs up man." This is what I have named my new friend. Every day I pass by him and he gives me thee most enthusiastic thumbs up I have ever seen and smiles so huge that it always brightens my day.

* Watching Natasha jump off the high dive. She just learned how to jump in a pool from the side and then decided she could also go off the high dive. Once she got to the top though, she freaked and I don't know why but it is very entertaining to watch someone terrified of jumping try to summon the courage and leap. She contemplated sitting on the edge of the board and lowering herself down but in the end (after about 3 minutes of pacing the board) her brother snuck up behind her and pushed her off. She screamed like she had seen the Grim Reaper, plugged her nose and hit the water hard but resurfaced gasping for air while laughing.

* My students' random comments. The other day out of the blue Coleson announced, "I hate this black table!" Then he looked up and saw Peter looking at him and quickly said, "Not because it's black; just because it's small."

* Judith cooking "liver cheese" for dinner. My friend Judith is German and invited me over for some "German meat." This sounded intriguing so I went over after first eating cereal. When I saw the meat I almost burst out laughing. It looked exactly like "head cheese" which is a meat I bought in college and used for a practical joke because it looked and smelled so nasty. I kept my cool though and inquired as to what type of meat we would be eating and when she said, "Well, it has a really weird name..." I grew even more suspicious. Could her "liver cheese" be the head cheese sold in American deli departments? I'm still not 100% sure "liver cheese" is in fact "head cheese" but if they are the same, I ate chopped up pig snouts and hooves....and liked it.

* Teaching more than just my students how to dive. The other day I was standing on edge of the pool modeling how to dive when my girls started chuckling. "What's so funny?" I asked. "Ummmm....Miss Katie, all those men behind you are staring when you bend over." Ahhhhhh!!! I quickly dove in, blushing.

* Listening to Ude and Oko speak words in Xhosa. These brothers daily entertain me and recently they revealed that they are from the Xhosa tribe in South Africa which uses clicks in their language. Perhaps this is not so culturally sensitive of me but I now often make them say words because it sounds so cool.

* Scaring Lisa and Sabina. In the picture we are at Kruger Park back in November. I have so much fun with these girls and I especially had fun with them the other night when I scared the scream out of them. We were all walking to Bible study but I was coming from my place and was a couple yards behind them without them knowing. There is one stretch of this walk that is a little scary because there have been shootings there and it isn't well-lit. Perfect spot for scaring. I tip-toed across the street and started giggling before I even reached them. Once I was directly behind them, I yelled, "Boo!!!" really loud and watched them both jump and the blood drain from their faces. They did not think it was as funny as I did but getting in a good scare is so satisfying. The Mozambicans thought it was pretty funny too.

* Being chased by stray dogs. Ok, this actually didn't make me chuckle because I hate being chased but I laughed about it afterwards. A pack of stray dogs have staked out territory which is right in the middle of my running route so I try to sneak past them with Gizmo but am not always successful. Last time three of them sprinted after us and Gizmo tried to run towards them making it quite difficult to run fast. We escaped only to run into two more dogs and this time one of them only had 3 legs. Being chased by a 3-legged dog is no laughing matter. It's quite terrifying.

* Watching my students struggle to recite their memory verse. This was actually quite painful- like watching someone sing a solo who can't find the right key. At the monthly potluck the 9th and 10th graders had to recite a bunch of verses that they clearly had not memorized completely. I was the one in the crowd with the shaking shoulders because it was so bad. I let them redeem themselves and recite the poem we had memorized next and they nailed it but I still give them a hard time about their awful recitation. Below is a picture of them struggling to recite and a picture of me with Miria and Canan. For the record, I'm not the one giving the bunny ears.












* Playing ping-pong with Lisa. On Friday night I went to "Cafe Shalom" with four of my girlfriends here. The cafe was started by a missionary here as an alternative place for young people to hang out. After destroying the wall trying to play darts, we moved onto the ping-pong table. You may not know this about me but I am a little competitive when it comes to sports and games. Ok, a lot competitive. I was doing good keeping my cool and pretending like I didn't care if I messed up until I played Lisa. She is also a "closet competitor" and when we realized we are equally matched in our ping-pong abilities, things got serious. The other three girls mocked us for our serious faces and how frustrated we would get with ourselves when we messed up. We hogged the table for a good 40 minutes, I worked up a sweat and had a blast. We will have a rematch very soon. (obviously I didn't win best out of 3 and need a chance to redeem myself) We were, however, both able to laugh at ourselves afterwards for how intense we both got.

* Mafat threatening to wipe a booger on me if i wouldn't burp. Mafat is this adorable little twin and his mom was late to pick up the boys the other day when I was on check-out duty. Since we were the only ones left at school, I shared a secret talent of mine with them and belched. Loud. I know, I shouldn't be bragging about this and I have honestly stopped belching in recent years because I know how disgusting it is but occasionally I just have to let it out. Please don't ask me to belch for you- it makes me feel like a freak show. Well, after I did it once, they had to hear it again and when I said no, Mafat picked his nose and chased me around the school threatening to wipe it on me if I wouldn't burp again. I had flashbacks to Heidi chasing me with boogers on her fingers and I gave in.

* Riding to school in the back of a truck. My usual ride to school showed up last week in a truck with only room in the back. I was happy to jump in back with some of my students but got some really funny looks from Mozambicans and had some crazy hair dos all week.

* Learning Lisa's "novelty dances." I spent the night at Lisa and Sabina's and after dinner they started moving the couches...."Ummmm, girls, what do you have planned?" "Oh we are going to do novelty dances now." Yeah, like that's normal- that's part of the reason I like these two so much- they are NOT normal. For the next hour Lisa taught us a bunch of really strange but fun dances that her hick town in North Carolina does once a month when they get together for square-dancing. In the pictures below we are re-enacting several of the dance moves, one of which involves pretending to be an ostrich. For the record, it was super hot in their apartment...













I am so thankful that God has such a great sense of humor and blesses me with so much laughter no matter where I am in the world.