Chill Weekend

Unfortunately I'm not at the street children's fair, as I got quite ill last night and I'm taking it easy at IU house. (Yeah, going up 2 flights for the bathroom is NOT fun when one is sick).

So here I am, doing some laundry, trying to hammer out my personal statement and work on other residency application things (Scary!), another swahili lesson and generally relaxing on this absolutely gorgeous day.

Yesterday afternoon the girls went to the Matumba market on the far west side of town. This is a market that's mostly clothes, and it only happens on Fridays. Unfortunately it rained (poured, really) for a few hours yesterday afternoon, so we didn't get to go right after lunch like we'd wanted. I wish we had, because this market is absolutely MASSIVE, with piles and piles of clothes just laying on the ground. It's sort of Eldoret's version of Goodwill, I suppose. (Ironically enough, many of the clothes still had Goodwill tags on them!) So, we spent a lot of time digging, but I found a few good buys. As my only pair of non-work pants got totally ruined at Kakamega, I bought 2 pairs of running-around-town/weekend adventure pants. I'm sure I payed too much for them, but I wasn't in the mood to argue with the vendors and they were both less than $5 American. I also found an ADORABLE bright yellow skirt for only 100kSH (a little over $1). I might not wear it here -- I don't want it to get all muddy!

The clothes they had there were just crazy -- Priti got a really nice Banana Republic skirt for like 200kSH, and there were all of these random American t-shirts that were obviously not current. I want to find some really funny American t-shirts for Mike and Brant, just to say I bought random American clothing in Kenya. But, I didn't really see anything that grabbed my eye (and I didn't really think Mike or Brant would /wear/ an Eminem or Snoop Dog t-shirt anyway, no matter how cheap it was).

So, after the market was when I really started to feel unwell, so I didn't join the rest of the girls for dinner/dancing. I'm kinda glad I didn't, as Priti got robbed at Places, the club they went to. She had a backpack on, and it all of a sudden felt lighter. When she took it off to look at it, there was a giant gash in the bottom, like from a knife, and the only thing left were her tic-tacs! Her wallet was gone, thankfully with not too much cash in it, but it also had credit cards and ID and social security card in it. How terrible. Her parents were able to immediately cancel her cards, which is good. Her phone got stolen too, so we want to text the number and tell whoever stole her stuff what a not nice person they are! I guess it just goes to show you really can't be TOO careful. (And only wear your backpacks on the front of you, I suppose).

The plan is to go out to a different club tonight, and I suppose I'll tag along. I'm pretty much past the point in my life were "going out" is a regular part of my schedule (I'm an old, boring married person after all!), but it should be fun to go with my friends. I'm just not at all interested in being harassed by random men (which is VERY common here, regardless of marital status). Even if I was single -- you know, didn't really come to Kenya to find someone to date. Alas, I guess that's why we go in big groups, with our guy friends. And one of our Kenyan friends told us not to be afraid to tell the guys to "piss off." Not very nice, but maybe I just will.

Kwa heri!