sunbathing in my compound

September 18th (part two)

On the 9th of September Lindsay left early in the morning for Isongole to pick up a package for me and for her. She planned on spending the rest of the weekend with two of the volunteers that live in Isongole. After Anwilile asked me to have sex with him at the end of the school day I went home alone and hid in my home. My neighbors, a group of females from school walked by and saw me reading and wanted to me to join them at their home so that I wouldn’t be lonely. I declined using the excuse that I was not feeling well. They invited me to a celebration on the next day and told me they would stop by to pick me up. I was not really in the mood to spend the day with them so while I was washing my clothes the next morning and they knocked I ignored them. After a few knocks though they just walked right into my house! Luckily, I was out back so they didn’t see me and left. A half an hour later there was another knock and I ignored it once again. This person was quite persistent though and I could not ignore them for the five minutes they kept on knocking! Eventually, I went to the door to find Noeli. He told me that his dad wanted me to go to some church celebration. I told him in a half an hour I would come and he left. I finished up my washing and eating before I dressed and then walked to the postmaster’s home. He was not home. No one was home. I walked to the church where I heard singing to find that it was just choir practice and Mr. Mbughi was not in the old woman’s choir, he was in the other choir. When I called him I found out the celebration was at the school and more confused I decided to walk up to school to check things out.

As I approached the school that afternoon I heard singing and saw decorations along one of the buildings that is used for assemblies at school. I caught one of the students who escorted me in and I took a seat at the front. Since the first knock on my door was around 10 AM I figure that was the start of the celebration. I didn’t arrive until 11:20 and so the celebration would soon be over. I was so wrong. I sat until 6 PM! The celebration (I came to find out) was the graduation of form 4 from the religious group on campus. Yet, I thought all the students are a part of this religious group so why is it a separate graduation? This extended church service was filled with skits, dances, prayers, sermons, drinking of soda, and the dropping of donations. At the end I became the DJ of the event by request of Mr. Mbughi where I sat and played the cassettes they handed me on the stereo. Around 6 PM I was relieved of these duties to go eat. After the meal I was told I needed to return but luckily the generator would not work so I ran home at 6:30. Before the sun went down I finished washing my clothing and exercised in the back of my house.

On Sunday I didn’t want to go to church again. I thought seven hours on Saturday were enough but one of my students told me she would see me there and I felt bad and went. The student didn’t show up but the service only lasted an hour and a half which is very manageable so I did not mind. After church I turned my back compound into a sun bathing area and laid out for much of the afternoon. At 4 I left to go to a gentleman’s house where he wants to teach me Kiswahili. The lesson was very basic and much of what I already know so I only got a little more vocabulary out of it. He wouldn’t just walk through one of the chapters of my book from orientation which I wanted!

Lindsay returned while I was away and we spent the night catching up with our weekend events. On her way to Isongole on Friday the bus broke down and she walked for an hour before a pikipiki (motorcycle) picked her up and drove her the rest of the way. On her return on Sunday the bus was going up a hill when the gears wouldn’t shift and started rolling backwards. She was petrified. She said everyone started screaming on the packed bus as they got closer and closer to the cliff. They drove through a trench where they gained speed on the way out of it. Something (maybe a tree, she does not know) stopped them before they toppled over the cliff. The bus was swaying when she climbed out. She was shaking quite badly. She said that there was one gentleman who spoke English well and tried to console her but she was pretty upset as I think anyone would be. Eventually a pikipiki drove by and she jumped on. There was no helmet available though and the gentleman drove quite frantic which didn’t help calm her nerves in the least. She hasn’t said that she is scared to go away again because of the transportation but she did stay here this weekend.

This past week we started back with classes and preparing for graduation. We also had a visit from Nicole, a volunteer from Isongole that I will write about in part three.

Love,

Gretchen