Tanning and Drinking Glue

Today I went to the beach to work on my tan!! I can say that now because I have real tan lines!! You can see the out line of my sandals on my feet! It is beautiful! It actually makes my feet look constanly dirty, but I am just so proud of them.
This week I have been staying at Mdumbi and working with one of my homebased care groups almost constantly. Which is so good because they really do need the attention. I spent one of the day walking their route with 2 of the caregivers. The go door to door seeing people.
It was amazing to see into the homes of the people in the community. Reality shaking actually. Because the homes we were in were mostly those of really poor people, either very old or ill and unable to work, or homes where there were orphans. Some of them had virtually nothing in them. Just a table with a stack of empty containers on them because they have no food, and a straw mat to sleep on. They are all mud huts with no windows so they are all very dark and stuffy, and most of them cook over a fire inside so their straw roof holds in all the smoke and starts to rot so they become very musty.
They people however were amazing. All of them were very nice to me, one family offered me a paint can with this white goo stuff in it. (It looked like white school glue) I was like "what is it?" and they laughed at me (they laugh at me about everything) and one mama took it from me and drank some and made this disgusting face and said it was super sour, it needed sugar. Then handed it back to me for me to drink. So I had to drink it and I so nearly threw up. It tasted like it was fermented and had the consistancy of snot. But I smiled and handed it back and they passed it around and drank it. I can still taste it. eww.
Some of the community members now think I am also a home based care worker because I was with them. One man came looking for me today calling "Makiah! Come and look at this!" Makiah is the xhosa word for an HBC worker, and he wanted to show me somewhere he was hurt. I had to try and explain to him that I am in fact not a Makiah and he should talk to a doctor.