Sunday 6-15-14

Sunday 6-15-14

                I slept horribly last night. It was okay until about midnight, and then I started waking up. I had really bad restless leg cramps in my left shoulder and bicep. It just made me toss and turn for hours. Then to top it off, for some odd reason I kept having half sleep dreams about doing spending money math with all of the school kids. I had to keep doing the math in my head in order to give them the correct answers. It was so annoying. The kids woke up at 6:30. I told them they could be up and play tablets quietly and find something to eat, but to please be quiet. I wasn’t so lucky. At 7:30 I finally gave up my attempts and made some coffee. They showed me their new rock collection that they had been working on. I went to take a look at the satellite dish and see if I could get it working, again, not so lucky. The internet is still not working.

                I decided to have my coffee out on the patio with my book and my soft blanket. The kids followed me out right away. They said they would be quiet, that they wanted to swing. As they got over there we found that someone had tied the swing all up at the high branch where we have it tied. I was so upset. I just got done buying a piece of rope to give these kids a swing of their own, but they have to mess with this one to make it so no one can play with it. I keep trying to be nice, but they keep giving me more reasons not to want be nice to them. I know they have had nothing in their lives and included in that is training, but come on!

                My quiet time to read didn’t last very long. Jove wanted to sweep the porch. He says that he is going to sweep every day so that Mom doesn’t have to sweep again. He really can be such a sweet boy when he wants to be. The then proceeded to sweep the back porch. Ayla claimed he was sweeping like he was a famous sweeper.  It was too funny. Ayla wanted her hair braided into a bunch of braids, and so while Jove swept I braided he hair up. They are trying to be so good, and I am trying my best not to get upset because I am tired and cranky. They really are being good; I am just a cranky old lady today.

                I got the kids set up with some Tinga Tinga Tales, then they put on Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I read my book a little more then decided to come inside to clean the kitchen, get some beans starting for dinner tonight, and work on lunch a little. Samweli came over and watched the movie with the kids. After Willy Wonka they put on Hook and within the first five minutes Ayla and Jove were fighting with each other, so I apologized to Samweli and told them they movie had to go off.

                For lunch I am giving the kids leftover marinara with some noodles. I decided to blend the marinara to make it more like prego consistency. It is not the prettiest color because of the greens and eggplant in there, but it tastes good. I still had the four ears of maize to think about. So I decided to try to roast them over flame on the stove. It didn’t work. So instead I am boiling them a little and will cover them in butter and salt for the kids. I don’t think they will like it, but I made the attempt. If they don’t eat them, there are plenty of chickens around that would be thrilled to have the corn, even if it is cooked.

                Farida came over and I showed her the rope I got for putting up a swing in the village. I asked her about the swing being tied up and she said it was the village kids. Go figure. They played with the rope up in the front yard; they used it as a jump rope and for some good old fashioned tug of war. I was glad to see them have so much fun with it.

                I had the kids come in for lunch. I gave one of the corns to Farida and one to Samweli since we had four all together. I put too much salt on them so I had to rinse them off a little, then gave them back to the kids. Ayla didn’t like it at all. Farida ate some of it, same with Samweli. Jove ate almost half of his. He said it was great. I have no idea why they grow this garbage here instead of sweet corn which is actually edible. The maize is just so tough and chewy.

                Bibi Hasani came by to ask if she could do the laundry tomorrow. Luckily I had Samweli still over at that point and I let her know it was fine, and that I would get soap since we were basically out.

                A few kids came over to play with Ayla and Jove. They played store, legos, and other random child games. After a while Leonard and whatever other children went home for a while. Ayla and Jove got sad. It didn’t last for long. I had told the kids I was going to go lay down and I told them they could put on a show. As I was in the room, Joan came over. She seemed nervous about coming in without me asking her in, but I heard Ayla “just come inside, it is okay. Come on, come in”. I came out to check on them. They were hungry so I got a plate of animal crackers and Nutella for the three of them (it is a must have stable in this house). I played around seeing if I could figure out what was wrong with the satellite dish, but so use. We will most likely have to have simba net come out and take a look. I decided to go up into the village to get some bananas and a beer. They had tangerines at the banana stand also, so I got 12 of each. I am pretty sure I got ripped off by about 2000 shillings, but I don’t have enough Swahili, so I couldn’t really ask the guy. It only works out to be about $1.50 anyways so I wasn’t too conserned. The closer of the two pubs was closed, so I had to walk over to ‘Washington D.C. Seattle Pub’. It is a little farther away and in what we consider the slums of the village. I ran into a few of our students on my walk over there. Many little sweet village kids also asking me to take their picture. I didn’t bring the camera this time so I had to tell them no. When I got to the pub and got my change I discovered that the beer is quite a bit cheaper at that place than the other. It was nice to find out, and it makes me about equal for the amount possibly lost when getting the fruit.

                I got back to the house and Ayla and Joan had discovered my phone and were taking pictures with it. I asked them not to use my phone but gave them my bloggie (mini hd camcorder and camera). Ayla had so much fun taking tons of pictures and videos, even though most of the time she hadn’t hit the button hard enough and it didn’t do anything. I put music on for the girls and Jove to dance to. They had a lot of fun.

                I worked on my midterms for a while. I got them all finished being written up and printed out. I started to scan and print them up so I could have them double sided to save paper, but even though Ruth told me that we had ink for the printer, we are out of ink. I was just in Morogoro and could have picked some up. I managed to get std2 math midterm printed, but some spots I will have to write in the number so they will be able to see it. I still need to print up another 316 pages before next Monday, so something will have to be done. Just like everything else, maintenance is ignored, it is only taken care of when it is broken or not working.

                Logan came by with my laundry soap. I asked him as a fee for bringing his laundry over to be washed if he could pick me up the soap so I didn’t have to go get it. Ayla thought she took a bunch of video of him dancing to her silly kid music. Farida thought it was the funniest thing that I was drinking a beer. She kept asking me if I was sleepy, or telling me that if I finish it I will be all like this, then she would make herself act like she was wasted. She told me it was the same as pombe once, and I told her no it wasn’t. Pombe is a homemade beer here that looks like fermented bubbling rotten eggs. It looks so gross I would never even try it, but that is what many of the people that want to drink her will drink because it is so much cheaper than the beer.

                The rest of the evening was spent just relaxing. The kids had eaten their beanie weenies very early. Then I let them eat fruit after that, as much as they wanted. So dinner was simple. I woke up today feeling like a grumpy lady, but even though things just don’t seem to want to work too well, and if it can go wrong, it seems to, I feel better at the end of the day than I did at the beginning.