Pepe LeSomething

I have noticed a new issue in our Zambian adventure... I smell weird.  Not necessarily bad - at least I hope I don't smell bad.  I've been one with my deodorant.  But definitely different.  Not the way I am used to smelling.

Part of this is that I no longer use several of the skin products I slavishly slathered on my skin to try and combat the effects of aging and growing up in California before we really believed that sunscreen was a good thing.  Add shuttling between a Central Valley farm and an island off the coast of LA  with a red-head's complexion, and you get your first skin cancer bout at the age of 36.

In a desperate attempt to try to combat the onset of leather skin, I turned to lotion.  Lotion and I began a love affair that has carried on from my late twenties until now, the beginning of the Zambian dry season.

My lotion of choice was from Bath and Body Works.  It felt so cool on the skin, and the scents hung around for hours, unlike the cheaper versions that feel greasy and don't absorb and then wear off quickly.  I went through multiple scents before settling on White Citrus.

I do love White Citrus.  I live in fear that they will retire the scent just as they did my previous Peach favorite.  But no matter, when we had a date to leave for Zambia I discontinued using the lotion myself.  I figured that we're using a malarial preventative anyway, it would be silly to perfume myself so heavily that the mosquitos swarm doors and windows to try and get at the intoxicating scent of White Citrus.  Even Mefloquine can't hold back that much mosquito, I figured.

I switched to a Vaseline brand lotion - a light lotion that works amazingly well and is very inexpensive.  I brought lotion with me, I packed lotion in our air freight shipment, and I put this lotion on our shopping list for when either The Husband or I have to take trips back into the First World.  I thought my lotion addiction was covered.

I did not count on lotion "disappearing."  But it did disappear from my checked bag and we don't have our air freight shipment yet, so I am at the mercy of local soap and lotion which smells nothing like what I am used to.  There are things I am used to available, but not at a price I'm willing to pay (for instance, a bottle of the Tresemme conditioner I use runs $20 at the store).  So - much like eating local, for the moment I am lotioning local as well.  And it's not what I'm used to.

And speaking of eating local - what you eat affects how you smell.  This may be politically incorrect to say, but different cultures smell differently, and what we eat is a huge part of that.  One discussion I had with a friend about how people smell once culminated in the statement that white Americans smell like baking bread.  I still laugh every time I think about it.  I'm pretty sure my normal American smell is baking bread slathered in White Citrus lotion.  I hope it's a good smell.  I liked it, anyway.

My grandfather, also a white American, but of the farm variety, used to complain that I smelled like garlic.  But that was during a morning-noon-and-night Japanese food addiction phase, so I'm not sure I smelled like garlic as much as I smelled more tart than he was used to.  I obviously didn't have enough barbecue chicken in my diet at that time.  

Mmmmmm, Japanese food...

Anyway, now I smell weird.  The Husband claims I'm overly sensitive to smells, but whatever the reason, I notice it.  This is the season I'd normally be gorging myself on watermelon and peaches and other delicious ripening fruits.  And cucumbers!  Oh how I adore cucumbers!  It's my peachy season.  It's turned into my sort-of-gamy-extra-garlic-cuminish season.  Also, cocoa butter.  From my lotion.

It's very disconcerting, not smelling the way one is used to smelling.  I feel off.  I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it struck me  last night that the discomfort I've been noticing was directly related to the change in my smell.

That is a side effect of moving to Africa I can honestly say I never even considered.