Things I get a kick out of but are perfectly normal here:
- Several families will share a washing machine, but instead of bringing their clothes to the machine, they carry the washing machine from house to house.
- Tough-looking men coming into souq wearing huge, heavy wool capes, but riding on tiny little donkeys.
- It is perfectly acceptable to wear your bathrobe and slippers all day, every day, anywhere in the village. And then when women leave the village, they just put on a jalaba over their bathrobes (still wearing their slippers) and consider themselves dressed. I bought a great (but ridiculous) floor-length leopard-print bathrobe and the whole village thinks it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen.
- You have to add “God willing” to the end of every sentence that takes place in the future, which seems normal for things like “I’ll be here for two years (god willing)” or “Next year I want to take a vacation around the rest of Africa (god willing)”. But it feels so ominous when to say, “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back (god willing),” or “Good night, see you in the morning (god willing)”.
