Yesterday I was invited to go to the beach with Emanuel (my tutee), his mom (a teacher at Chumbageni), and six 7th grade students from the school. I was very excited to go, and wanting to contribute to the picnic, went over to their home at 10:00am to help cook.
When I arrived there were at least 8 girls crammed into the small apartment helping with the operation. I didn’t realize there would be so many hands involved in the process, but they were still happy to have me.
There was no electricity due to yet another power outage, but we were cooking on a charcoal stove so it wasn’t any inconvenience. We made French fries (called chips), meat, bananas, and hot sauce. The quantity of food was overwhelming, but they seemed to have everything under control. I helped with some occasional stirring and cutting, but mostly wound up just practicing my Swahili with the students.
I pulled out my camera and taught them how to take pictures, allowed them to play with my hair, and talked about life in America. After a few hours, I went home to get my things for the beach and have a quick rest.
When I returned to the apartment an hour later, the food was still cooking, but almost finished. Out of nowhere all of the girls started changing clothes and putting on makeup, leaving me feeling more than slightly underdressed. I asked them what they planned to swim in when we got the beach, but apparently their selection of nice clothes was suitable for swimming. They finished getting ready, and headed out to the beach, leaving me and the teacher to pack up the food and meet them there.
I wasn’t quite sure how we would transport all of the food, and was really surprised when the she pulled out a bunch of small, plastic, black bags used at the supermarkets. We filled each bag with individual sized portions of food, tied the tops closed, stuffed them in a big bag, and headed out to the beach.
For transportation we took a daladala, bursting at the seams with at least 30 passengers. I spilled juice on one of the passengers, making her very displeased with me, and smacked a lot of people in the face with my backpack. The daladala also didn’t complete its route for some reason, leaving us to walk the remaining third of a mile from our destination.
The items we were carrying were very heavy. The teacher and I each took one handle of the bag and started trekking. After five minutes, my hands were numb and my kanga was falling off, so the teacher decided to take carry the bag herself……on her head. I tried to convince her to let me help, but to no avail. I can only imagine how her neck must have felt.
When we arrived there were close to 20 students waiting for us. We all hopped in the ocean and had a great afternoon splashing around in the water.
The only negatives of the trip were that there was not enough food for everyone (although I really don’t know how that was possible), someone walked off with my football, and there were no daladalas running when we finished so we had to walk the whole way home.
On the positive side are all of those negative things, plus everything else about the experience. Everyone is really concerned about me if I have to walk or carry something, or don’t get enough food…..but for me it’s just all part of the fun!
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