The Concert and Other Fun Stuff

First off, our new sign is up and looks great.

In the last week and a half, I have gone from having the room to myself to having 3 roommates. To be honest, it’s quite different this time around. There a number of factors why, but I find myself feeling a deficiency in the energy it takes to build meaningful relationships with any of them. I suppose I’m just tired of the turnover; it’s kind of exhausting. Don’t get me wrong…all 3 of them are lovely girls and they’ve been very enthusiastic and helpful and I’m enjoying getting to know them, I’d just rather spend time with the people I’ve grown to love over the last 9 months. If that makes me callous, so be it. J

So, the concert…what can I say? The volume in the room made it really hard for Benji and I to hear ourselves or each other so it felt like kind of a mess but I suppose it was a success based on the feedback we got. A highlight had to be Emily W doing the rap in Justin Bieber’s “Baby” with our friend Kate beat-boxing…oh, and she changed the lyrics of the rap to be about me.  The important thing is that I had an absolute blast doing it and I have no regrets and everyone who came seemed to have enjoyed themselves too. Technically, this was a professional gig since cover was 3000ush per person and Benji and I got all of it. A whopping 90,000ush each…about $36.00! 

 Benji's not actually mad, it just looks that way...

The morning after the concert, I weirdly woke up really early and after some deliberating decided to get up, go for a walk outside the compound in my pj’s and watch what was left of the sunrise. It was worth it.

Yesterday afternoon, Maggie (one of our mommas) came rushing in to tell Em that there was a black mamba in the store room. Just to clarify, a bite from a black mamba snake will kill you in about 15 minutes and the only place with an antidote is at least 15 minutes from our house. We deliberated for a minute or so about how best to deal with the situation before going outside to find that Nam, our 17 year old, had taken it upon herself to take a stick to it. Despite much translating, given her mischievous little smirk throughout the lecture, we have little faith that she is fully understanding how serious we are when we say…”That thing could kill you, don’t you ever do that again!” When we got outside, it was laying in the dirt clearly immobilized but still twitching so Emily H took a paddle to it. Its post-paddle injuries were, in a word: severe. Once we were satisfied that it was dead, we thought it best to dispose of it by throwing it into the latrine…Nam beat us to that too.  

Notice Maggie cowering in the back behind the post? And Nam looking quite proud of herself beside Emily?

Heading to the latrine...

Last week sometime, Emily made use of a fancy enclosed boda called the “New-Style Boda”. We’d been meaning to try it out for some time and I was quite upset that she’d taken it without me so when she got back, I grabbed the other Emily and the 3 of us took a wee cruise around Kimaka. Given the sight of 3 white girls squished into the back and the fact that the driver was blaring his Mzungu mix-tape which included songs with questionable content and colorful language, we drew a fair amount of attention.