cheese dependent

On Monday, Cara, Adams, Sonya and I played an improvised soca/monkey-in-the-middle game in Cara's compound. Her little sister Kikiri totally schooled us. Anjd she was in a long dress and socks on gravel. Oh, and she's nine. Rose, the House Help, played too, but she had a hard time of it because she was in flip-flops.

On Tuesday, mama wangu introduced me to another baby! Can you believe, there's a five-month-old living basically next door and I had no idea. Her mom told me I can come over anytime. I will. Usually baby Grace's big brother Bogwa is on babysitting duty, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind a break. He's about four and he just parks himself and the baby in front of the tv most of the time.

At Liz's suggestion, I let Bogwa and Tony (his older brother -- I'd hazard a guess at age 8) choose a fun-patterned pencil each from the giveaway collection I brought. They were delighted, and Bogwa was still carrying his around a few hours later.

Mama wangu taught me how to make chapati! I took notes as I helped, but mama doesn't believe in measuring, just in "using your brain," so my directions are fairly vague, like "mix flour and water until it's the consistency of bread dough." They don't even own measuring devices. I asked. It seems like all of my classmates plan on cooking or baking something for their host families (many of them already have), but I'm super intimidated by my lack of familiarity with how to use the things in mama's kitchen. We have a stove/oven, but as far as I can tell it's rarely used. Most meals are made over some kind of cook stove that involves gasoline and tall flames. Seriously, the house smells like a petrol station everyday when dinnertime rolls round. (Benzine!) I'm still not really used to it. Also, my family members are not fans of cheese, which reduces my repertoire of cookable options to about two things. I am cheese dependent. Would it make me a bad person if I never make dinner for my host family? What if I fed them pb&j sandwiches?

The Gate Man who lets us in and out of school (his name is Justus, but he's Gate Man in my head) has taken to telling me "I love you," every time I leave. This is probably my fault, as I made the mistake of engaging him in friendly conversation shortly after we began lessons instead of treating him like a rock. A rock that knows how to unbolt gates. And makes you ask to be let out in Swahili.

D. Camp (that's Professor Dave Campion for those who prefer using respectfully official titles with authority figures) has started our history lessons. Maybe it's just because I'm a bit of a history geek, but I'm actually enjoying the homework readings and in-class lectures. However, this might be tempered by the fact that D. Camp was wearing something akin to pyjamas during his first lecture. Hmm. Nope, it's gotta be the subject matter. British Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolutions are my favourite.

I let Liz paint all my nails silver. She was thrilled to pieces. Now she's asking if any of my friends want their nails done.

And just so you know, I nearly had to type this whole thing twice, because just as I was getting ready to hit Publish Post the power went out in the entire cyber cafe. Fortunately, blogspot autosaved recently enough that I don't think anything was lost! (I'm at a different cyber cafe halfway down the block.)