More more questions!

This time I'll let you figure out the questions for yourself :)
Porridge is more the consistency of mashed potatoes than what you are probably picturing. Even a little thicker. You make a little ball and eat it with your hands. It is not as delicious as mashed potatoes, but always comes with something to dip it in so that the flavor is overwhelmed by something delicious. Also, I do my laundry by hand. I have a big sink out back that I can use, which is nice, and a clothesline too. It is considered highly inappropriate to hang your underwear outside, but this got really frustrating because a. it doesn’t dry inside, and b. I only have a place to hang one thing in my room so I would have to wash every day. I now hide my undergarments inside of shirts and pants outside, and so far no one can tell! Sneaky!
I am slowly getting more adult friends. I have one woman in town who had me over for lunch and I have gotten to know one of the other teachers better, which is really nice. She offered to take me for a braai at brandberg mountain with the high school principal, which sounds incredible. Mostly I am starting to recognize faces better and pretty much everyone in the location knows me by now, so I’m trying to expand the brief conversations I have with everyone. It’s going slowly, but I can really see progress now.
I’m going to do a post about the “lost boys” soon so that you know more about their personalities. For now their future is unsure, we have been holding off talking to the principal until after this long weekend. They are still here and now it feels totally natural to have them around, it feels a lot more like a home with them here. And I found out today that behind my back they refer to me as their “mother”. Mostly joking, of course, but it is a little maternal the way I have to wake them up in the morning, go with them grocery shopping, remind them to brush their teeth (Peter has been having toothaches lately), scold them about washing dishes or leaving lights on, and asking about their day when they get home from school.
As for the whistle/mace I feel very safe in Uis. I don’t go out much at night, and never alone, but even so I wouldn’t be too worried. Windhoek is a little more dangerous but some other members of my group have mace and we are always careful to travel in groups and try to keep a low-er profile.
We did the electric slide without music (just me counting) but I’m hopefully going to get the “cha cha slide” from my field director soon, which has the instructions in the music (so it’s a listening activity too!)
Soccer has been… sporadic. I haven’t seen the girls since netball started but supposedly that will be winding down soon, we’ll see. The boys still practice every day but I honestly have not had the energy to go out there for too long, although I do go watch sometimes.
As to why my friends liked Uis so much… I honestly think they like my house (it is quite nice... well relatively) and just the home-y feel. They liked that I know everyone around, and the house was bustling with all the kids here. But it’s also a quiet little town and, aside from the heat, was a nice way for them to just relax and have an excuse to do nothing (there is nothing to do!) And of course it’s always just nice to see eachother, the three of us really really like one another.