This is America . . .

I have a few more stories to share with you all . . . hopefully they will make you laugh . . . :)

Monday I headed down to the post office to pick up two packages that had arrived for me!! Thank you so much for the packages!! I have received some fun and wonderful stuff for myself and for the girls! Who knew that ranch salad dressing could taste so wonderful!

Anyways, upon arriving at the post office, I greeted the mail man. He had remembered me from a few weeks ago when I had picked up another package. We were talking for a few minutes when another lady walked up. I greeted her as well, trying to be nice and get on her good side (they don't have to give me my package if they don't want to . . . :). After exchanging the usual Nigerian greetings such as, "How is your work?", "How is your house?", "How is your body?" (the response to all of these is "Lafiya" which means "fine"), the woman looked me up and down and said "How old are you?" I told her I was 25, and she responded with a very controling voice, "Well, you don't look like it." I said "I know, I know, I look much younger than I am, but I am 25." Her next question took me a bit off guard "Are you married?" I responded with "No, I am not married." She quickly asked me "Why not?" I said, "Well, God has not called me to be married yet."
If her questions hadn't caught me off guard her next statement sure did "Well then you should marry my son." After she said that I sort of just stood there, not exactly sure what to say . . . for the next few minutes she proceeded to tell me about her son that he was 22 and that I needed to marry him, she was sort of demanding that I marry him. After a few minutes I finally decided to say, "Well, actually I have a boyfriend back home in America and I don't think he would like it if I married your son." Her response to that was "Well your boyfriend is already engaged to someone else." "Really?! . . . I don't think so" was my surprised response as I tried really hard not to laugh . . . she then spent the next few minutes telling me that my boyfriend was already engaged to someone else and that I needed to marry her son (How she would have any idea that Sean was engaged I'm not exactly sure, but she sure sounded like she knew what she was talking about). After telling her that I was pretty sure that my boyfriend wasn't engaged to someone else since I had just talked to him that morning, she finally stopped trying to convince me that Sean was already engaged to someone else since I had left him back in the states. . . As I was leaving, she reminded me about her son and then said that if I wasn't going to marry her son than I at least needed to invite her and her family to my wedding when my boyfriend and I got married. My response was "Well, we will see." So, Sean you better not be engaged to someone else! :)

As if that post office experience isn't enough, today I headed down to pick up another package and have another funny story. The same man was there today, so we chatted for a few minutes, before another man joined the conversation. He asked me where I was from, so I told him I was from America. He eventually asked me where in America I was from, so I said "Seattle, Washington, in Washington State." People here don't know that Washington state exists, so every time I mention Washington, they immediately say "OH Washington DC I know that place." Then I have to inform them that actually I am not from Washington DC and that Washington State is on the entire other side of the country, usually I end up saying something like it's above California since most people have heard of California . . . so after going through this discussion with the man, he said "Washington DC is the former capital of America". My response was "Yes, Washington DC is our Capital". He then proceeded to explain in a very complicated manner, that actually Washington DC is the FORMER Capital of America and that NOW New York is the capital of America . . . I kept correcting him, because I thought he was asking me a question, but about half way though I realized that he was INFORMING me that New York is the new capital of America, and that Washington DC is the old capital. After trying to explain that Washington DC is still the capital, and him totally not understanding I finally just said, "Oh, yes, wow, great, thank you" and walked away with my package . . . :)