wikendi (weekend)

This past weekend has been full of excitement! Some good, some bad. To start with, on Friday night most people from my program went to a bar called Casablanca. I decided to stay in because a) I was still pretty tired from Wednesday night, and b) I didn't really want to be in a huge group of white kids. It's been so weird and awkward walking around together in Nairobi that I'd just rather keep a low profile when I'm out. 5 or 6 of us is okay, but I knew that like 20 would show up. I heard it was pretty crazy and am kind of glad I opted out. On Saturday I slept in til almost 11 (fabulous!!) then hung around the house all day. Simon came over again with his wife, Grace, & daughter and I played with Bethany (who is almost 2) for a while. She's super adorable, but speaks no English and only baby-talk Swahili, so I can't really understand her at all. But we're getting to be fast friends. :) Then I went to Uchumi (the supermarket) with my brother and his friend. I got some DESPERATELY needed conditioner and ingredients to make french toast and nutella crepes. :) Tamara, the crepes are in your honor!

Back at the compound, I hung out with Ashley and Aubrey and we walked around with like 7 or 8 of the local kids. Aubrey has 2 little siblings, and as we walked around, more and more kids joined us. We taught them the hokey pokey, and they laughed at me when I tried to learn a dance they showed us. It was really fun, but good LORD they have so much energy. When they started doing flying leaps over a barbed wire fence, I decided it was time to call it a night. We dispersed all the kids back to their respective homes, and then Ashley came over to my house to chill. We ended up playing "Kenyan poker" (which is like a combo of Uno and Crazy 8s) with my brother and like 7 of his friends and taking shots. I was up til 3am and had SO much fun. Then the next morning, I got up early to make the french toast before church. Andre came over for breakfast too, and by 11am there were probably 12 people in my living room! I made french toast for all, with cinnamon sugar on top because there's no maple syrup here, and it was a big hit. Of those 12, most of them were women from my mom's Women's Group, and they are all so strong and amazing and empowered. One of them runs a huge group in Kenya for teachers who are HIV+, providing them with support, fighting stigma, making sure their jobs are secure and that they work in areas with access to ARVs. She's incredible, and she invited me and Andre to a conference she's running next weekend for HIV+ teachers. I think it's going to be an amazing experience.

After breakfast, Andre & I met Sarah at Nakumatt Prestige (a mall) about a 45 minute walk away from our houses. They have free wi-fi there, so Andre brought his laptop and we chilled there for a while. Then we went to this gorgeous Ethiopian restaurant down near Sarah's house. That was probably another 40 minutes walk away from the mall. Once there, we had incredible Ethiopian food and sampled Ethiopian honey wine (called Tej). Overall, it was pretty cheap considering how nice of a restaurant it was. Probably $40 or something total for 6 people. Though today for lunch, we had the exact same food at a different place for about $12 total for 6 people. I wanted to grab a matatu home to save myself a bit of time, but had no idea which one to catch, so we just did the hour+ walk back. By the time I got home, I was SO exhausted that I just passed out on a chair in the living room while chillin' with my mom & her friends.

My weekend was all good, but some others were not so lucky. One girl got her backpack stolen right out from under her feet! And another guy got mugged by a gunman while getting his hair dreaded at a salon!! Luckily they were both fine. A few people on the program are sick right now, allergies & food reactions and stuff. I've been lucky so far. No problems yet! The only issue is the pollution here in Nairobi, which is making me feel like I have a cold. But anyway, I'll write again later. Gotta do my homework!

:) Alana