Homestay

2/26

I think that I’m going to learn a lot from kids here. My little bro Mathias walked me around today pointed out all sorts of plants and there medical uses. In hindsight I realize that he lies a lot and tries to trick me so maybe I shouldn’t take his word that this plant in an anti-diarrhea. At least one of the things he told me is true, there is a grass here that you put into your tea and it makes it extra delicious. I love the tea here, but more importantly I love the way they take tea. Pretty much everybody here takes break tear around 10 30 am, they stop what they're doing and chat and drink tea for half an hour and then go back to work, love it. They love sugar here and after 3 spoonfuls of granulated sugar the tea is really more syrup than tea but yum so good. Anyway, Mathias is an amazing little athlete, a wizard with with a soccer ball (I brought him to play soccer with some other volunteers and it was the best soccer we've played yet, I thought we were ding pretty well. Afterward I asked him if he had fun and he shrugged and said it was slow and boring. Nice, come to the bar with me and ill buy you a soda for your honesty). But the little shit cheats at draft, a more complicated checkers, more complicated because every time he got in a tough spot a new rule was introduced. But I learned all his rules and started using them against him and destroyed him three games in a row. Yes I’m bragging about beating a 13 year old at checkers. No, I have no shame. So he walked me around and showed me the important stuff like the internet cafe and the cinema shack where drunkards hang out, and most importantly the short through the bush that cuts my walk to the conference center from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. My grandma (i knew her name the first day but she wont let me call her anything but grandma) is a little over-protective and so didn’t want Mathias taking me to the parts of town we naturally went to right away. How did you get those grass stains on your pants? Uh, I slipped in the garden. I definitely didn’t fall in some bushes when a brick wall collapsed while I was trying to climb it because I couldn’t slip though the crack that Mathias could,saying make your body smaller isn’t exactly the most helpful thing.

My host dad is pretty awesome, hes a security expert who specializes in disarming IED's, he worked in Baghdad for 2 years contracted by the US government. Around Lweza, he knows most people and everyone knows him. I felt pretty bad ass walking around with him when he took me buy a phone. He can clearly handle himself but hes still warm and sincere and very well read. We went from stand to stand shopping for a good price and found a dual sim unlocked phone with radio and a torch for 60,000 ush. It just so happened that that particular shop was one I had visited the prior week with a few mzungus and we were told that the cheapest phone they had for us was 100,000 ush, that's the mzungu tax for you. Earlier in the week I went looking for a rice sack to store some of my crap in and when I finally found a place that would sell me a single rice sack she wanted 2000 ush for it so I tried my hand at haggling, come on its a rice sack so I offered 1000ush. She just looked at me unamused and said you're a mzungu. Cant really argue with that, of course I can afford a 2000 ush rice sack, that’s not even a dollar. So I failed at haggling, but eventually I’m going to have to get good at it because I'm not getting paid in dollars.