Tips for Life from Sudan

I know I've used this photo already--
I don't care. It's a good depiction of our friendship

Note 1: Most of these things were said to me in all seriousness, and I only find them funny because I’m a weird foreigner of dubious nationality. My friends know I laugh at them, but they laugh at me too, so now we’re even.

Note 2: The photos of my friends do not correspond with the quotes. Some of those pictured here have no quotes in this post at all. Others have multiples. It doesn't matter--they are all my cool friends.

With that disclaimer, here are some conversation highlights from the past couple of months in Sudan :

• Don’t put lipstick all over your lips, only in the middle so that your mouth will look smaller. Smaller lips are prettier.

• You can use Fenugreek oil to gain weight. You rub it on the places you want to be bigger, like your butt or your thighs—or your chest [pointed look at mine].

• Skinny girls can’t dance—their bodies don’t move.

• Use more eye shadow so that your eyes look bigger.  No, more than that. Still more. Just give it to me and let me do it.

• Rice is for Chinese people and some Egyptians.

• The best place in the US is Losangels and Sandigo. Anywhere you go you can eat in a garden.

 

Friends eat bricks of chocolate
ice cream wrapped in newspaper with you

• Why don’t you have a man? Do you have a boyfriend at least? Why not? You’re pretty. They must be afraid of you. They are afraid to ask you. They think you will say ‘no.’ It’s OK, though. God has chosen a man for you from a long time ago. Hopefully it’s a Sudanese one.

• If you leave Sudan, I will start a protest. I’ll make a sign and march up and down the street.

• Can you see that with your green eyes? (Author’s note: my eyes are blue.)

• Pepsi doesn’t have any sugar in it, only carbonation. (This fact was proven to me by reading the ingredients, none of which are ‘sugar,’ but a lack of knowledge regarding various alternative names for sugar is probably why cookies are in the 'health food section' advertised as ‘rich in glucose,’ and this is thought to be a good thing.  Chemical-sounding ingredients MUST be good for you—magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, etc. I always try to make sure to get my recommended daily intake of glucose.)

And finally, here are ---

People’s Best Guesses as to my nationality (interestingly enough, people rarely guess ‘American’):

            Egyptian

            Lebanese

            Moroccan

            German

            French

            Indian

            Somali

            Chinese  (Maybe they saw me eating rice and drew the obvious conclusion.)

Yeah, I know--but this was me teaching Selma how to use picstich,
it was never meant to be a work of photographic art,
and drawing hearts is hard.