Mud Huts

On Saturday we went to a mud hut village to see how the people live. We got a tour of the village, but only after ALL the kids ran to meet us. They were the dirtiest little kids. Rags literally falling off their shoulders, rotting teeth, and flies all over them.

At one point as we walked down a path to gather for the tour I had 4 little hands holding on to both pinkies and both first fingers.

The girl on my left who must have been only 8 had her little brother on her back. These girls must train from birth to carry things on their heads and backs.

Her little brother had the saddest sores on his head with flies all over them. I just wanted to keep swatting them away and wash his little body. Such poor hygiene. But when there is a lack of water, why would you waste it on washing your body?

The village was very interesting. We were walking through legit mud huts out in the African bush with thatched roofs and cloth doors. We learned about how their particular village specializes in the making of Shea butter.

They take the nuts, pound them, dry them, boil them, separate what rises to the top, then boil that and separate the fat that rises. They roll the fat into balls and what they don’t keep for themselves, send it off to be added to beauty products, etc.

We also got to see the Chief’s chambers and climb onto one of the mud roofs to see how strong they were. Not too fancy huh?

~The sweet little faces~

Very foreign for sure. I can’t lie, I breathed a sigh of relief after we left because it was so different. I feel a little anxiety when I am in some of these new places. Happy, simple lives... just not the life for me!

They had a full on Witch doctor...

a lady who spun the cotton...

...and their own tobacco farm.

Just wild that people live that way.

I found a new bike for Ty...and a new route as well

So as for the monkey story I alluded to earlier…….

We were having breakfast on Saturday outside on the porch when a monkey started coming around. By this point in the weekend we had found warthogs on our doorstep followed by an elephant eating our bushes. So monkeys roaming around were no surprise. The lady running the place started chucking rocks at it. We were kind of surprised because it’s an animal right? Well, we found out real soon why. It got really bold after a while and came back around. It jumped up onto my chair and freaked me out.

I seriously thought it was gonna jump onto my head. The lady scared it away and everything was fine. Then the waiter brought out table fresh mango juice and back came the monkey. This time it jumped onto the table and took a drink from Ashley’s cup. Not even thinking, I immediately reached forward to grab my glass back from in front of me. The monkey freaked out at me, grabbed my wrist and spilled my glass before jumping off the table. He grabbed hard too! Scratched me a little, but mostly I was just surprised. Only in Africa does a wild monkey jump onto the breakfast table, then freak out and scratch you because you won’t give it your juice. Rude! Haha

Lastly, on our way home we stopped by some waterfalls for a bit. It was nice to get out and move. There were some great vines we all hung on…just because! Pretty areas everywhere in the world. Next week we will actually hike to some big waterfalls where we will swim and play...but first it's back on the bus.