Our first few days out in the village we spent a good deal of time sitting and watching our new older sister as she prepared the meals and did everything else required for taking care of the whole compound… Most of the village is aware that we are out here to learn language and about their culture, but it didn’t occur to us at first that for us to be learning how to do all the women’s work (pounding the grains, cooking ‘to’ and ‘kili’, drawing water from the well, working in the fields, ect.) looks an awful lot like we’re being trained for marriage… I think I noticed it first when I caught the eye of one of the young men as he watched us at our sad attempts to pound grain… As though everyone here has this thought “a few more years and some more practice and they may be good for something after all…” Oh well, even our incompetencies in cooking and cleaning do very little to deter the constant teasing of the old women and grown men who try to give us away to someone several times a day. All we can say in response is “No! I don’t marry now.” Our new family’s wives have even added to the morning’s list of blessings “May God give you to someone,” or better yet, “May God give you to one of the chief’s sons…” Oh great… that’s just great…