Dear Ms. Hohman’s class,

The following post is written to Ms. Hohman’s class where Miss Shannon Campbell is completing field work:

I hope that as my sister is teaching history she is able to make it come alive for you! One is more intrigued and better able to appreciate a place when they know some of the thousands of years of history that have taken place there. While her job is to take you through the past, I would like to tell you a little bit about the present. I live about 5 blocks from the coast (which Miss Campbell will show you on a map I presume), the water is gorgeous and there is often a strong breeze blowing. A crowded road runs along the coast which makes for an easy way of getting from one end of the city to the next. Micro buses pick up people all along the road and drop them off wherever they wish. A mixture of old and new would be a good way to describe this big city, and I mean this not only with technology and conveniences but with ideas and mindsets as well. The men with their donkeys and carts drive right alongside the cars. There are some nice larger grocery stores and then also outdoor markets housed in shacks. I have enjoyed getting to know shop keepers from the grocery store and fruit stand around the corner from my apartment. I just got back from buying warm bread from the bakery for a 10:30pm dinner which is quite typical here as shops don’t close until that time. 

The library here is nice and relatively new. It is funny to see a Cinnabon being one of the “nice” restaurants on the grounds though. The weather is almost identical to Jacksonville though we have not had a cold snap yet. Here many people feel controlled by their circumstances rather than in control of their circumstances. They are often not ruled so much by the American mindset that hard work will pay off, and they don’t think that one person doing things differently will make any difference. History is always changing though it often repeats itself. You can definitely sense from the people here a tension over these changes which will shortly become history.            

My new “normals” include public transportation, hearing horns… all the time, spooning butter out of a can, buying milk that has never been refrigerated, talking to my family daily through the internet, having a Friday/Sunday weekend, cutting off the gas to my stove, carrying groceries on the tram, going up and down, and up and down stairs, sounding out songs from squiggles that have become letters, using hand signs to catch a ride on a van that goes up and down the road by the sea, eating full, falafel, and kushiree, having a fine coat of dirt everywhere all the time, crossing very busy streets one lane at a time with no cross-walks, and smiling when my vocabulary has run out!