At Natalie’s church there was a special event for the day that was supposed to start at 2pm. We arrived at 2:40pm, so we could be sure it would have already started. We were still the first to arrive. It began around 4pm, and it was a celebration of thanksgiving. A man named Dismus called the celebration to share his story. Last year, his throat and head were slit open, -SLIT OPEN!- and he was left for dead by thieves outside the gate to his house. His wife found him and there is no reason why he should be alive today. It’s his second chance at life, as he puts it, and from what we were told, he is truly a changed man who now burns with passion for Christ. After testimonies were given, a man preached a short message. And by preached I mean YELLED! But it was so continuous his yelling started to become soothing as we all kept nudging each other to fight off the sleep.
From the church, we headed over to Dismus’ house for a continued celebration. They had a D.J., a tent, and chairs, but we all just sat in the chairs facing forward. Once dinner arrived, we went through the line and had our plates piled with meat (a very rare treat in Nairobi). It was the most meat we’ve eaten thus far. I was slightly worried at first since I haven’t really enjoyed meat in Africa due to its bubble gum texture, but the food wasn’t bad. We had fish, goat, chicken, pork, potatoes and cassava. I like to support vegetables but cassava is gross even if you salt it and put butter on it. I’d lump it in the same category as lutefisk.
Other things to mention…
When I met a little boy, he knelt at my feet, and I very much wanted to pull him up. He proceeded to do this with the other four people I was speaking with. It is traditional here to bow before your elders. They explained to us how girls will always bow to older women and women will bow to their husbands. The whole time they kept speaking only of “girls” doing this and not children and then they kept referencing a group of boys that were playing soccer until we finally realized that all of these “boys” were actually girls. The girls here don’t wear braids but only wear their hair very short so unless they are wearing skirts or earrings it makes it pretty difficult to tell their gender. I just avoided saying “he/she” for the rest of the week.
The dresscode isn’t nearly as strict here as in Nairobi. Natalie wore a spaghetti strap dress yesterday around town and she didn’t stick out at all. (I finally got to bust out my knee length shorts and give my shins some sunlight- my legs were starting to look like Dad’s)
The toilet paper here is super strong. You have to work to rip it apart. Its also blue but I forget if that’s something I’ve seen before.
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