oh. my. god.

I've been sitting here for 20 minutes, waiting for this page to open so i could post. Sometimes I think I should just not check my email again or post a blog til i get home.

Thursday my class was cancelled AGAIN. That’s 0/3 this week in terms of actual University classes (Swahili is taught by a language institute). Luckily I knew about class being cancelled beforehand, so I slept in and hung out at home until about 12, then took a matatu into “town”. I had Swahili at 2:30, then met Olungah who brought Whitney and I to a place called Lilian Towers (a very fancy place) where they were having a Gender Forum (my life is full of these lately). I didn’t stay long, but the man who was speaking was making some interesting points. He was saying that you can pass by a house with a nice car and with two parents and kids and smell good things cooking and assume that this is a happy family who are well off. He said though, that the nice car might only be driven by the man, and the woman has to carry everything on her head and walk to where she needs to go, only coming near the car when she has to wash it. He said the men in the family could be eating the meat that you smell cooking, while the women eat soup. The boys could be going to good schools, and then on to University, while the girls go to poorer schools and then there isn’t money for them to go to University. His summarizing point was that we cannot assume anything. I am amazed lately when I hear men speaking for gender equality.
I had to leave the forum after about 15 minutes to go to Nakumatt (the grocery store) to get things to make dinner! I came home and made Chicken Massaman Curry. I am not the most amazing cook without supervision, and unfortunately no one was home, but it turned out great. It was a little harder than at home because I had one cutting board, two burners, one dull knife, no vegetable peeler, and I had to sort the good rice from the bad rice and the tiny rocks, but everything turned out well. Unfortunately Chipa wasn’t home because he isn’t feeling well and had to stay in the hospital, but Monica said she really liked it, and there are some leftovers for Chipa : ) I hope she wasn’t just being polite. Also, the sweet potatoes here are not orange. They are white! I spent about 10 minutes in the grocery store looking for sweet potatoes, even after I saw the little sign for them. I didn’t know they could be the color of regular potatoes. I learn something new every day. Or ten things : )