Look out, women! You know what they say about sneezing… (don’t you?)

I promise you this gets funny.

In the last two weeks, I’ve grown terribly allergic to something in my house, probably in my room.  I wake up sneezing in triplets every morning, and it’s hours before it subsides.  I’m down to my last Claritin, which I’m saving for the worst of the worst, because the Benadryl knocks me out for an afternoon.

Today nearly qualified as the worst of the worst, but I’m going to Kigali, so I’m not wasting that Claritin on the three hours I’m home.  But the sneezing will not stop.  Finally, the guard asks me, “Are you sick?”  I say no, not really, but I don’t know how to convey “allergies” in Kinyarwanda.

No matter; he already has his own meaning.

“In Kinyarwanda, we say that when a girl sneezes like you, so many times, it means she wants a man.”

Suddenly, I wonder if the most appropriate response to, “God Bless You” may be a suspicious, “With what?”