Doing what Kenyans Do

Instead of embracing the chaco wearing, water bottle carrying, sweaty tourist look, I have decided to keep it real professional. Kenyan business casual(KBC). Starting today. Today, I sported some sweet Banana Republic pants that were never long enough for my “white stick legs” (mom’s description), a J Crew Tuxedo shirt that never quite fit either, and some Bata slip-ons. (I found slip-ons for 3 dollars. Rite-aid is out, Bata is in.) What socks did I wear? Why white ones of course, which you could definitely see because A) my pants are too short and B) slip-ons don’t really cover ankle socks.

Now my outfit may have looked ridiculous if I worked for Merrill Lynch or Citigroup, but in Kenya, business casual is a broad and all encompassing category. KBC allows men to buy their second hand shirts that are at least two sizes to big, tuck them into some linen pants, and wear some rubber sandals that look like Walmart meets 4 yr old adventure shoes.

I did it all real professional today though. I caught a matatu to work and continually checked my watch, cursing the rush hour traffic. We had a two hour meeting, which I had prepared an agenda for, and afterwards, Andrew and I joined Kenneth for our lunch break in town.

Kenneth has owed me an outrageous number of chocolate bars for all the meetings he had missed or come late to and it was time to get paid. He bought me a Bounty bar, which I ate in about 3 seconds, and then we followed him through the city to find some cheap Swahili food. We walked down Digo Ave and Andrew paid for us to be weighed. Why not? That’s perfectly normally right? Paying to be weighed? Andrew has been loving his life all afternoon. He lost 5 pounds. Me, 3- I think. Kenneth weighs twice as much as me.

For lunch we wandered down Digo Ave and turned down a side street, went up some random set of stairs that had a sign about a Cyber Café, and there was a room with tables which = restaurant. I had a spanish omelet and Andrew ate his beans, sikuma, and chapati while Kenneth, David, and James (the managers) had a drink and chatted with us. After lunch, we went for a brisk walk back to the office-those experts always stress how important daily exercise is.

I left the office a little early, 4:30 instead of 5:00, but I kept it professional by riding a matatu home. I said hello to the guards and “Good. How are you?” to all the kids that asked me “How are you” about fifty times as I walked past and finally got back to the apartment to ditch the professional look and put on the “after work outfit.”

Andrew and I prepared pasta salad and pineapple tonight and I had to run to the produce stand to grab some pasta and tomatoes. While I was walking, I looked down and noticed my “after work outfit.” A lady convinced me that I needed this bright purple, rainbow striped, spandex, Speedo brand skirt for 115 shillings= about 1.50 maybe 2 bucks. So I had that hot number on, plus a long sleeve Old Navy t-shirt, and dark blue, dirty slip-ons.

Now I'm sitting in a cyber cafe, same outfit, just finished a refrigerated snickers bar, eating a piece of trident, and I'm definitely loving the preachy gospel music that is accompanying the finished blog.

That being said,

I posted more pics in the same album:

http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6566&l=7e331&id=586037020

and Andrew would like you read his blog.

It is a dangerous thing...

My mom will say "what a brat" when she sees this picture. I guess that face probably reminds her of when I used to tell my brothers to clean their room.

Anyways, it is a dangerous thing that I have nothing to do while I'm waiting for a program to download. Because that means I go back to my ramble mode.

This is me in front of Fort Jeezy, as Andrew would refer to it. But, more respectfully it is Fort Jesus. Most Kenyan tourist attractions we have found to be the opposite of tourist. This one was tourist central. Cannons were placed in such ridiculous locations. Why would you have a canon facing your own door? or inside your castle facing your walls? Andrew conjured up a little explanation that included some sort of pinball effect down the ramp.

This fun suggestion box is one of my personal favorites. We have seen it almost all of the tourist attractions. I'd like to say that no there isn't corruption here. But there is. Like when Brady and Sam went on their road trip and the cops pulled them over because they didn't stop? They did in fact stop and the cop asked them to "give him something." They offered him some candy and joked around with him and he let them off.

I don't really feel like I would go to the police for help here. Maybe. There was quite a hullabaloo by our house today. A taxi rear ended a military truck. The street was blocked both ways and with "dead" cars on the sidewalks there wasn't really anywhere to walk. I walked through a big group of military men and for the first time in my entire time of living in Kenya, I felt uncomfortable.

Accidents are pretty common here though and people don't have the tact to avoid staring.
It is basically thus, you got in a car accident and to make you feel about 15 times worse the whole neighborhood comes out to see it. People come from their shops, they stop walking to work just to see how it possibly could've happened. Of course, I want to join in but we were taught to never stare. Or at least to not get caught.

Sam and I fought the maggots, while Blair fought a war of her own.

Last night, I came into the family room- I had just finished listening to Freakonomics and drinking a warm cup of Milo- to discover our new problem. Maggots. Maggots are probably one of my top ten biggest fears. I saw a movie when I was younger where there was some man that had maggots coming out of his ears. Maybe it was a nightmare, or both.

Sam bravely ventured onto the porch (he followed the trail) and found the source, a garbage can full of rotten fruit. Thanks for whoever did that. So he bravely, for lack of a better word, picked it up to take it downstairs and there was a big fat pile of maggots. (sorry if this blog is making you sick. It makes me sick thinking about it again.) After he ran it to the garbage pile downstairs (let me take a quick moment to emphasize that it literally is a pile. We throw it into this bushy/grassy area and some guy with a handcart picks it up twice a week), we discussed how we would battle these creatures.

This is when I became a 9 year old cub scout. My brothers would be so proud. All those days of burning worms on the way to school finally paid off. Not only were we fearless, but creative too. First, we used DOOM which kills flies and basically anything that lives. But not maggots. Then, we used all the bug spray we could find the house. I even soaked one of the maggots in windex. It just moved a little slower, but squeakily clean towards our apartment door. Oh and there was salt too. They seemed to like that.

That’s when Sam had an epiphany. Matches. Sam went out onto the porch equipped with his headlamp in hand and a dust pan to begin scraping them into a pile. I became the regulator. I used my Ribena bottle (just like Koolaid, black currant flavoring..soo good) to keep them in the pile. After many dramatic moments, the maggots blended in very well with our tile which caused a lot of gasps, we were ready to roast. We doused them with all sorts of bug spray, corn oil, DOOM, etc. You name it; we tried to soak them in it. Then we lit it on fire.

But I didn’t feel like a 9 year old cub scout yet. It was when we soaked the metal door frame with bug spray and lit it on fire that I felt like a cub scout because we had not only killed the bugs we saw but we attempted to kill those that could be.

Meanwhile, Blair, as previously stated, was fighting a battle of her own. We have turned into sugar obsessives here. She found a recipe for microwave brownies and as we burned the maggots we could smell the delicious scent of chocolate coming from the kitchen.

We finally rested after our fight with the maggots (which are still sitting in a bug repellent, corn oil covered pile on our porch) and chewed on the sadly burnt microwave brownies. It is also sad that I still loved them. They may have been burnt but they were so good and gave us courage to try again. And that’s all that matters.

Yes Dad, They Do have Wishbone in Africa

Well I don’t have much to say tonight. Just thought I’d write a word or two since I’m posting a bunch of pictures.

I was sitting at work, talking with Peter, the new marketing fella, and I could barely hear him over the singing church at the park. I decided that, yes, I needed to go experience some religion today.

Who knows who owns this park. Seriously. Whoever gets there first with a platform, generator, and religious mob gets it. I walked over there and stood next to the stragglers. Those that wished they had they courage to dance with the rest but sit on the curb and watch. Of course, I whipped out my camera, not very sneakily, but I told those stragglers that I thought it was interesting and that was a good enough reason.

After 2 bad pictures of people running in circles, throwing their hands in the air, and singing back at the preacher, I had a straggler come tell me that I should not take pictures of people worshipping Christ. That was fair. This regulator danced his way back to an empty spot on the asphalt and proceeded to pretend like he was playing the electric guitar while looking over at me periodically to make sure that I wasn’t taking pictures and trying to prove that he was one of the clan.

The rest of the walk was uneventful. I walked with a 7 year old that said he was 13 and was eating a lime sprinkled with some orange goodness. Because of our language barrier, after our 10 minute “conversation,” I still didn’t know what was on it.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to photograph how happy I felt about seeing Wishbone salad dressing. I wish I could say that I was loyal and bought it. Tonight’s dinner was warm pasta salad (we have to cook those veggies) which was prepared by me and pineapple chunks in passion flavored yogurt. While I prepared, I listened to Freakanomics and 5 kids sat on the balcony staring at me, singing alleluia, and roughing up the plants.

Here's for the PICS:

http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6566&l=7e331&id=586037020

The Bats and I did Laundry

The roof makes the apartment. Last night, I decided I didn’t want to endanger any of my clothes to the bleeding experience that happened last time. So after a 5 hour soak, I rinsed and hung my laundry at 10:30. Of course, I had to wear my sweet headlamp (thank you mama) and hose myself and my dress in bug spray. (Yes the horrible dress that bled all over my clothes last time)

I’ll be honest. I hate hand washing clothes, but I love the urban feel of hanging my clothes on the line. And the urban feel of everything. We have guards at our gates to greet us and there are kids riding their bikes inside the gate, playing hide and seek behind the cars. When I wake up in the morning, as I brush my teeth, I wave over to the next apartment whose kitchen window is 10 feet away from ours. It feels like we cook dinner with them every night.

There are babies crying all the time-but it will all of the sudden go completely quiet and you will hear a few women softly singing, harmonized and everything. The little kids all yell from balcony to balcony to see if someone wants to play or if it is time to go home for dinner. Sometimes I go up on the roof to sit and read and the little kids will hide behind the pillars around me whispering mzungu or just hiding until I chase them to the stairs. I also love the sound of cats fighting each other. That’s another class favorite.

So back to my thoughts on laundry in the dark on our apartment roof. It is great. I listened to some great tunes-you know some Postal Service, The Corrs, and Coldplay. And as I sat down on the cement, next to the laundry line, I saw a shooting star go all the way across the sky and watched the bats chase each other. Not a bad life.

African Chairs

After our ride from Ukunda today, I decided to let you all in on a little game we get to play everyday. It’s so fun to be a kid again and I thought hey my American friends would love this. Sorry it is so long- it needs some editing but Sam wanted to talk about it in his blog so it had to go up.

Set-up

1.Get a van. Preferably a 1980s-1990s Toyota 15-passenger van. Make sure it has 4 rows of seats and add another one. Perhaps a bench in the back that looks like it has 3 separate seats.

2.Find a friend that loves to drive. You may not love the way they drive, but make sure that they exaggerate every turn and lane change so that everyone in the car has to hold on for dear life.

3. Find another friend that loves to hassle people - someone who is very convincing and likes to push people around. Even someone who looks to organize people. They will be your “conductor”.

4. Make sure that the speedometer ,odometer, and gas gauge don’t work. It makes it more fun if the driver has to guess if they need to get gas.

5. Pick a very 90s or early 2000 rap selection full of those whiny rap love songs and “riding dirty” type songs.

6. Pick a time limit for the driver. If they beat the time limit, they win. If they don’t, they lose. All of your friends are there to keep the driver and conductor from winning.

7. No one in the van is allowed to wear deodorant. We call this African BO.

8. No air conditioning and all the windows open - That way people can’t talk to each other to conspire against the driver.

How to Play

At the beginning of the game, the driver and the conductor are sent off in the van to pick up friends. The friends need to be waiting in front of their house ready to go because this friend of yours, the driver, can’t wait. The conductor hangs his or her head out of the window and whistles, hisses, or yells to alert riders that they are coming. Make sure that new riders don’t climb all the way into the back. That would be too easy. They need to sit in the first available seat they see, even if it is the one next to the door. The driver should pick a route full of bikers, people walking, pot holes, and big puddles. Maybe a bike trail? Remember the more off-roading the driver can do the better.

Once your van is full, the game can officially begin. When a person would like to play, they just knock their knuckle against the metal side of the van. This indicates that they would like to get out of the van. Now everyone has to scramble to move out of the way because the driver is in a hurry to beat the clock. Some people will be in the way and will make people climb over them. If you are the driver, just start honking or driving. It makes people move faster. If you are a passenger, try to take as much time as possible. The driver wants to be able to pick up as may people as you can because each person is worth 5 points (15 shillings). So make sure you fill each seat.

The Real Deal

If you feel like you have mastered this game, think again. Add a few of these fun little numbers, but don’t add them all at once.

1. Don’t attach the bench in the backseat and get a van that doesn’t have a working back door. This way, when the back back seat passengers go over a bump, the back window opens up. It scares them a little bit and makes them more compliant.
2. There is no limit on the number of people in the van. Squish people in wherever you can. They can sit where there is no seat or stand in the door well. Or both.
3. Add children. Lots of little children. In our game, we’ve seen 3 children sitting in the same seat. They are great for points because they take practically no space.
4. Talk to your friends. Get more vans and compete for the same friends. Make sure your conductor is the loudest and most obnoxious person you know-that’s how you will get the most passengers.
5. Have your friends bring sacks of whatever they can think of. Even gunny sacks full of produce anywhere you can fit them. When we play, passengers often have to put their feet on the gunny sacks or sit with a bag of coconuts.
6. Strap a mattress to the back
7. Play at night. But get black lights. Makes it livelier.
8. Stickers. Lots of stickers bought from a street vendor that doesn’t know how to spell.
9. Extra points for creative driving. Decide ahead of time how to award not crazy but “smart” driving. Use sidewalks, pass on the wrong side of the road, or cut people off.
10. The conductor can win points for the driver too. Points for lying about where the driver is going, where the stops are, and whether or not they will make the stops.
11. Points for dodging urban livestock or whatever obstacles are common in your town
12. The van should not have shocks or a padded ceiling. Passengers are more compliant if they are constantly smacking their head into the metal ceiling.
13. If there is a rear view window, hang some sort of religious manuscript or photo.
14. Lastly, find people with cameras. They will be classified as “tourists.” Tourists are like catching the golden snitch in Quidditch. They don’t know where they are going and you can easily convince them that the rough conditions are normal. Why would they know the difference.

Don’t worry, if you can’t get a van (the biggest expense of the game) my Mom has one.

RS and Other Church Thoughts

I’ve been thinking today, well I guess more the last couple of weeks, how would people react if the same questions that are asked or the same lessons that are taught in the Mombasa Branch were taught in my home ward. Would they fall away from the church or just laugh?

Today in Priesthood, Sam said that the teacher said “If anyone doesn’t like the person they home teach please raise your hand.” Priesthood is an interesting concept here. Lessons are often about the EQP urging people to tell their kids how much money they make. Andrew and Sam have both expressed delight about this repetitive lesson that goes over at least 10-15 minutes each week.

In RS, well it is just a whole horse of a different color. Today, our lesson was on nutrition. Well it was supposed to be on nutrition for mother and baby. During the nutrition portion of the lesson, we learned about the food groups: proteins, carbs, vitamins, and water. That makes sense. During the health portion, she wrote the word “bathe” on the board. Beatrice also expressed sorrow for the extra weight she was carrying after talking about exercise. She even jumped up and down to show us how she truly couldn’t jump anymore because of all the weight. The hygiene portion was very informative. People on the street can’t smile if they walk past you and you smell bad. We all need to wear deodorant. I agree.

I like RS though. (as Darlene refers to it.) Apart from the fact that you can’t hear over the children belting “mopping the floor is fun to do” as they play musical chairs in the next room, we all feel important in the society. New members and investigators are singled out and called upon for “contributions.” And at the end of every lessons, Karen, RS President, says “So who’d like to teach next week?”

Sacrament Meeting is easily the best part of church. I love being able to play the piano on the little electronic keyboard. Someone even stacked two chairs for me so that I can sit higher and not mess up so much. I think I’ve gotten past the finger shaking stage because the congregation is used to hymns without a melody and they carry on with or without you. The chorister sometimes picks a melody of her own. And everyone follows, Kenyan accents and all.

I’ll admit I laughed out loud when it had been about 15 seconds since someone went up and bore their testimony and the Branch President, from his seat, said that more people need to share testimonies.

I guess there is a lesson to learn from all of this. Our church is too awkward. At the Mombasa Branch, they tell it like it is. And they make everyone feel welcome. You have to shake every members hand at least 5 times before you can call it good and go home.

Kongowea Fashions

I have a few thoughts about shopping I would like to share. Shopping in Kenya is wonderful for many reasons. I discovered yesterday after living here for 30 days that I probably need more clothes. My hand washing failed me after some of my clothes bled on others. So on our way to work we stopped at the obnoxious, filthy Kongowea market.

There isn't a single clothing store in the United States that hires 40 year old men that give fashion advice. Immediately when I walked into the first "shop" I was evaluated. The old man that owned the shop saw what I was interested in and began offering other items that I obviously would've wanted. You know, Mervyn, Walmart, and ShopKo specials with fabulous tie dye, lacy, or flowery prints. Lots of flow in the arms and real low cut in the front. And this held true for every shop we went to. It was amazing to me that they all knew exactly what I was looking for.

I thoroughly enjoyed when I put on a shirt and then found out that the only mirror they had was in the dressing room. Someone was in the dressing room but the shop owner yelled into the dressing room insisting that they get out so I could see myself. I guess it is really important that I see what I look like. Obviously more important than any other person. But I declined and Andrew took a picture instead..look to the left (and yes I did figure out that posting pictures is easy. I'm just not so smart.)

People say that Americans and Europeans are ruining the clothing industry in Kenya because they send over old clothes that can be sold for so cheap that a Kenyan based clothing company would not be able to compete. I can now say I agree. Not only are they ruining the clothing industry, they are promoting terrible fashions. The clothing here makes me feel a little like living in the 90s, but not in a good way.

Don't worry though, I did get a couple great shirts. What a bummer that they were 4 bucks a piece. Sometimes, well a lot of times I hate being a tourist.

The Hots

I thought I would type while my body temperature is still over 100 degrees. Tonight, we were invited to the Msafari household for dinner. They live in Bombolulu which is a matatu or two away. So keep in mind that the temperature today was around 75 degrees, maybe hotter-and very humid. I’m sweatin by the time we get to their apartment and we sit down with President Msafiri (he is the previous branch president) and talk to him about his work in Sudan. After about an hour of sitting there, sweating, we are served hot chocolate. Yes, hot chocolate. Of course, it was delicious but it was hard to enjoy because all of my taste buds fell off and I felt like someone lit my body on fire.

But dinner was great. I really can’t complain. Patience Msafiri (pronounced mmmsafeeree) cooked for at least 2 hours (not including the time before we came) to prepare for the meal. We tried to help and Blair and I did help pick off the leaves of the mchicha, but she insisted on cooking it herself-over a charcoal stove set up. We arrived at 6 and did not eat until about 8 or 8:30. Patience sure cooked us a buffet though. We had pilau-meat and seasoned rice, mchica-basically spinach, chapatti-african tortillas, bananas and potatoes cooked in a really good sauce, mango smoothies, and oh ya the hot chocolate-which she made on her stove and then we added sugar (it tasted a lot like the Mexican hot chocolate).

The night ended with the Msafiris sharing their experience in joining the church, and all of us doing the same. I couldn’t believe all the effort that went into the dinner, and they wouldn’t even let us help with the dishes. Next time they are coming to our apartment for some American food. After recalling that we don’t have an oven, we are going to go for our world-class spaghetti (we really have made it award winning) and try to figure out 5 dishes that go with that. Oh goodie.

Oh and here's more pics:

http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5765&l=aad4f&id=586037020

No Power Day

I thought I'd let you all in on the fun day I had yesterday. We got to work around 10:00, only to find that the power was out. So I sat there for awhile, waiting for it turn back on. After 20 minutes of nothing, I left Andrew on his computer that has a battery that actually works and went for a walk in Tudor (pronounced "chooda" by the locals). I love to visit the Polytechnic which is a local college/technical school. I think it goes University, college, junior college, then polytechnic (as Joseph described). On the way there I saw a bunch of guys hanging from the electrical poles and playing with wires-that was a good sign. They always make me sign a visitor log when I go through the gate because I obviously don't blend in. We've been there a few times and I've always wanted to see the library so I asked about 5 people for directions and found it. Everywhere I go people stare at me. The library was pretty sweet though. Very ghetto. They had more books than I expected but it seemed like they were all donated by the UK and all from around 1989. I had fun looking though-especially when I opened up some of their financial books and saw the CAPM model. haha.

So I toured the library for awhile and when I was leaving this guy came up to me and asked me what I was doing in there. He made me come into his office, sit down, and tell him why he was there. I thought I was in trouble, and I think I was a little bit-but he was just so excited to talk to me. He told me I had to pay 100 shillings a day to be at their library (rip off). But then he started asking me all these questions about my university and even dragged me in to meet the head librarian. I don't know why they thought I was so important. Everyone was very excited. Walking back from the Polytechnic I saw an electrician wearing Van slip-ons-the checkered ones. I told him I liked his shoes and he offered to give them to me..hahaha.

I got back to the office and we found out at our favorite "chips" place that the power was cut for the day. They announced on the news this morning. So we ditched and went to town to find a safari. We were dragged all over the place by these guys that were hustling people into safari offices. I think we found a good one though, at the Tourist Office.

To end our day, we went to Old Town which was crazy. Very tiny streets and lots of cool shops and people. I definitely lagged everywhere we went because i was taking so many pics and looking at the buildings. The funniest thing that happened was when I saw something I wanted to see and pointed to it and everyone was already walking and said we needed to go and this old guy got out of his chair and started calling me "foolish" for listening to them and not making my own decisions. He was insane. I think we are going to go back later and see Fort Jesus (built in 1593?).

Oh, and while we were waiting at the tourist office, we went into a restaurant for icecream. The owner and his son were so excited and ended up making me take pictures with them. I'll make sure to post them later. I think we're going to ditch the office and go to the beach since we've been here all morning.

I wish I could make this short, but there is too much to say. So, for those dedicated readers (Mom), here’s a novel.

This week has been gloomy because of the rain, but on Friday we finally saw a glimpse of the sun. I took a picture out our office window. It was a Kenyan holiday on Friday and we were planning some extravagant vacation to Shimba Hills but all plans were killed because of the rain. Friday night, we had dinner at a wonderful Indian restaurant and got some gelato from a Chinese place. Weird?

On Saturday, the sun finally came out and it was a great day. We decided to adventure to the Gede Ruins. We left around 11:00, walked to catch a matatu at “lights,” and got hassled by a bunch of guys to get on a bus. Andrew and Sam directly told them that we didn’t need any help, we knew where we were going. Ha, that didn’t stop them. They actually got in a little bit of a fist fight over who was right. One said take the express bus to Malindi, the other said take a matatu to Mtwapa…it was riot. Once we got onto the matatu one guy claimed that he had helped us and was trying to get into the car to get money or cigarettes from us. I thought he was trying to get in, but nah he just wanted payment. He finally “fell out” and get in an argument with another guy watching the whole thing.

So here we go on this rickety matatu. The country side was so green and beautiful. All my pictures of that didn’t quite turn out. But we passed by lots of cool mosques, goats, women carrying water on their heads, and children playing next to little huts. We also saw tons of these plants that look like aloe plants but are actually used to make rope. Since it has been raining, there was one spot where all the fields were flooded and we almost got stuck on the road that was flooded too. This matatu ride honestly felt like a rollercoaster. We were stuffed into the back seats, there was lots of clinking metal, and we were speeding up then slowing down and turning all at the same time. Pure insanity.

We got hassled again when we got off in Kilifi and somehow got hurdled onto a huge bus (where Sam and I had to stand for a fourth of the ride). When we got off at the Gede ruins, we were exhausted. It’s funny, a tourist attraction here is so different than one would be in the US. There weren’t big signs or a bus to take us there. We walked another couple of miles through this tiny town to get to the ruins.

Once we were there, of course they charged us 7 bucks but we walked in there free of a guide or tour group. It seemed deserted which was perfect. I wish I could have better captured how beautiful it was. The light through the trees made everything look haunted and sacred. I seriously felt like I had to whisper. There were these huge wells that went down who knows how far that had no sort of fence or caution sign. Sam read a little bit out of his guide book and we learned that no one knows too much about the Gede ruins. They’ve made some guesses but there is no record of these people. My favorite part of the whole area was the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. This beats our childhood tree house easily (sorry Dad). From the top platform, you could look down at the palace, one of the mosques, and a bunch of the small houses. Wandering through the place was a little creepy. Sam’s and Andrew’s feet got covered with ants and we kept walking through spider webs with these weird looking spiders. I pulled out my bag of peanuts for a snack and all of these monkeys appeared from nowhere. Haha, apparently they can be violent for food. It was definitely worth the 2 hours it took us to get there.

After walking from the ruins back to the main road, we waited for a bus again for about 30-40 mins. We fought our way onto a bus (the matatus and buses were all full because it’s bank day? Some one told us that) and were able to sit the whole time. This drive was sickening. We were flying all over the place in the bus. I was out of my seat half the time. I’m so glad I don’t get motion sickness; I would’ve died if I did.

A put up some randoms from Andrew’s camera as well. I just wrote some quick blurbs to explain. Today, we shopped at the Nakumatt for about an hour. I love grocery shopping, especially here. I spent an extra 5 bucks on candy and other stuff. Trying out their candy and drinks is one of my favorite things to do. Especially because most of the labels you can’t read, expect for a few words in English-the rest is in Arabic or something. We had some fabulous pad thai tonight and it is a miracle, my laundry dried. I’ve never appreciated dry clothes more. I haven’t had a towel for the past few days…

Here's the site:

http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5141&l=c0987&id=586037020