June 21, The big, scary buibui

I am afraid of buibui. SPIDERS. Today I found one in my room that reminded me of a scorpion due to its shape. It was pretty freaky and I chased it around for a long time, or maybe it chased me, I’m not sure. I kept screaming awkwardly when I got close enough to kill it, until my host family came in to find out what was happening. When they saw it, they all laughed and allegedly chased it out of my room. I remain unconvinced and keep feeling like something is on my leg. It was fairly disturbing. Also…there is something mysterious and yellow under my bed. I’m afraid to find out what.

Today we did some fun games and learned weird facts about one another. Another guy in my program also got run-over (when he was a kid), which is pretty crazy! We also did another microteaching lesson. I did mine on –‘s and “of”. Overall, microteaching is a pretty boring experience, but important.  We also talked about homosexuality and the importance of discretion—it’s illegal here and you will be jailed if the police suspects you are gay. Kinda crazy to think about. Apparently they aren’t suspicious, however, because of the law…they assume no one is homosexual unless stated otherwise. Men can hold hands with men, women can hold hands with women, but men and women can’t hold hands because it carries a sexual connotation. We aren’t really supposed to broach the topic, but they did say that we might be asked our opinion on gay marriage now that Obama came out in support of (They generally love Obama—there’s even Obama chewing gum sold at my school!) It will be interesting to see if anyone tries to talk to me about it once I actually speak Swahili. For now, we mostly can talk about food and daily routines. Dream big.

I had another HOT bucket bath this morning—it made me so, so happy. They picked us up with the  PC van this morning, but we did the usual walk-bus-walk route home. Less “wazungu” calls and more normal greetings today, which was nice. I helped make chipsi (fried potatoes) once I got home. I’m not very handy without a cutting board. Not that I’m all that handy with one anyway, but dull knives and no cutting boards make it even trickier. I’m still not sure how dinner here works and if my family just likes to eat at different times for no particular reason. I ate with my host brother, but everyone else ate later on…and at different intervals.  So excited to upload the photos I’ve been getting on my iPhone—SUNDAY CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH!!

Tuttaonana Kesho!