Today I spent the day with my younger brother, B.M. We went to Village Market, which might as well be located in America with its shops, movie theater, putt-putt and yes, water park. We walked around for most the afternoon and ran into various people he knew. I in turn learned a bunch of Shwen, a mix of English and Swahili, and the different stages of relationships between the youth. A good friend of the same sex is called a besti. A close friend of the opposite sex is a shintu, and a girl/boyfriend is mazuri, whereas an interest is a ramuru. It reminded me a lot of Latin American culture, and made me think our definitions in America are so crass.
We say Wedding Crashers later that evening, which reminded me of all the things in America I was trying to escape by coming here. Our older brother picked us up afterwards and we went with his girlfriend Joyce and cousin James to a local bar. I thought we were entering a shack as we approached the facility, whose walls were of lashed together bamboo. Needless to say (Allen), I forwent the toilet facilities.
An update on the toilet situation in Africa as relates to foreign nationals– apparently I’m not the only one breaking toilet seats. Andrea, a gal on our program who wants to be a dentist (highly relevant), had a toilet seat break and slide off when we were at our conference center. And another guy on my program, Brian Thomas, whose ID is checked thoroughly every time by airport security since a suspected terrorist has the same name, broke a bolt on his family’s toilet seat and barely caught himself from falling, thus preventing a serious injury. If these people weren’t so darn nice I’d suspect sabatoge…
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