In which I learn that I know someone FAMOUS, and a cow steps on my toe. Also a list of foods i wish I had.

The Kenya Assemblies of God has this calendar it distributes en masse to its churches and apparently all its members, because I've seen it everywhere. Apparently calendars are considered essential and beautiful wall decorations, because everyone has at least one and many people have 3 or 4. Some are multiples of the current year from various organizations, and often there’s a couple from the last few years residually hanging there. I only just looked at it for April, (or, paid attention to it…) and I thought I recognized one of the people in one of them…the way he was standing was familiar. So I took a closer look and what do you know, there’s Pastor Gregg, giving a leadership award to the KAG General Superintendent Peter Njiri and his wife! Ha! So that was exciting to me, I felt like I had just made some huge connection between Kenya and home, like I'm not in an entiiiirely foreign place, since these people have heard of Pastor Gregg! Haha. So my pastor from home is displayed in the office and/or home of almost every member of the KAG until June, since they put 3 months/page. I told Nancy and she just thought it was the coolest thing ever too. J

Saturday, a 3-week old cow stepped on my toe. Despite being only 3 weeks old, its shoulder reaches my waist and it has hooves. Which are painful when they step on you. There's no padding on their feet like if a big dog stepped on you. It was of course an accident, and I was wearing flipflops, and now I have a cut on my toe where the nail meets the skin, but that’s all. But it was a good experience to say I've had, I guess. :-P

Also, I have a open cut on my foot from scratching too much, an old bite…I was using my heel of one foot to rub the top of the other foot and I ended up taking off a layer of skin, like a blister. This morning it looked funny so I put some Neosporin on it. This afternoon I realized the Neosporin I have with me expired in get this- 1999. Either that, or the 99^th day of March in an unknown year, or the 99^th month in the year 2003…but my best guess is march 1999. I wonder if it will me any good or I shouldn’t bother? It’s lost its consistency and is sort of liquidy now.

This morning in the clinic, I left to “take tea” like I’m supposed to do at 10am…even though I’m not thirsty or hungry yet…but you gotta choose your battles, and I’d rather have morning tea and small dinner than eat giant helpings for dinner and no tea in the afternoon. Anyway, I came back to the clinic and heard a kid screaming for her life. I came in the back door and this 3 year old girl was standing in the hallway outside the exam room door, screaming. The moment she saw me she visibly jumped and then started screaming even louder, then ran back into the exam room and threw herself at her mom. At first I thought my surprise entrance and then whiteness was what scared her, but I found out a little later that the doctor had (knowing I was coming back very soon) told her someone was going to come and give her an injection if she tried to run away, and she thought that’s what I was going to do. So I stood outside the door, out of sight for a few minutes until she calmed down, then when I found out why she was scared of me I went in and showed her I wasn’t holding any needles. By the end of the visit she had shaken my hand- twice…once with a very large amount of drool on it from playing with her gum (I immediately washed my hands, Sue! :-P) and when she left she waved and said “bye!”
Little kids are always so happy when they leave a doctor’s office. Once the possibility of getting a shot is gone, they really let go of all their anxiety.

Saturday was an interesting day. I went to the pastor’s house with Nancy, they were having a loooot of guests over (the many children and grandchildren of the pastor’s wife’s brother, who died about a month ago) and wanted her to help cook for them all. Around lunch time I joined them. I was given lunch and watched the women cook, took a video of them making chapati, and helped them bring all the food out into the living room for the guests (which caused a little spectacle, because none of them expected a mzungu to come out carrying a tray full of chapati) I’d already eaten so I just sat with them while they ate and watched a video of clips from the funeral. Then they brought out two big trays of half-bananas for everyone…except I got handed a bowl with 3. I took one and put the bowl on the table, but was told “those are yours” I said “All of them?” (yes) “I don’t need three, everyone else is eating only 1!” and left it there, so others ate it. Then I helped them bring this 5-gallon bucket full of extra mugs down for tea, and was given the job of wiping them all off so they could be used. During that time they were cutting up watermelon in the kitchen. Everyone on the kitchen was grabbing a piece as they wanted it. The watermelon were brought out on big trays to the people in the living room. I was given a plate with a piece cut in half for me. Instead of waiting for me to finish the mugs they put the plate right next to me where I was sitting…on the floor. I laughed. I was allowed to help clear the used mugs off the living room table, but not to wash anything.
So the day was a really weird mix of being treated like someone who lived there and was allowed to help, and someone who was even more of a guest than the guests were. So that was kind of frustrating…once again, I hate being treated special. I don’t sitting around doing nothing when there’s stuff to do(thanks Mom for that gene), especially with people I don’t know who are speaking a language I know exactly one word in, while the people I sort of know are doing the something I want to help with.
I’ve never liked washing dishes so much as when I do it for the first time after 2.5 weeks of not being allowed to. The lure of the forbidden I guess. Cuz at home I would rather do most things than wash dishes. (but not laundry. Though after this trip, the availability of a machine might make me appreciate it enough to not mind laundry)

At one point I went to visit a friend with a couple of the girls, when we got back I heard singing coming from the living room…everyone was gathered around the coffee table holding a couple of coffee mugs or a box of them, and singing in Kikuyu. I poked my head in to see what was going on, and got dragged into the group. The relatives had bought a giant set of mugs, and the singing was some sort of “thank you we accept the gift, hooray for the blessings of God” song. Theeeen someone brought a goat, so we all went outside to take pictures of it. For some reason the pastor wanted a picture of me and the goat, so we did that, even though I had nothing to do with the goat. Then I took a picture of the whole family with the goat. I took 2, just to be sure, then I said “okay, everyone make a funny face!” because that’s what you do in the US at the end of a group picture, ya know? Well they don’t do that usually here, so they all looked at me kind of confused-ly, so I demonstrated “make a face like thiiiis or stand funny like thiiiis, or something funny!” So they all laughed and a few of them did it. Later I was told that everyone thought that was really funny, and an 8-year old kid told his dad he wanted to marry an American.
I am THAT funny. Baaaahahahahaha.

Also, next week my cousins from Ohio are going to visit my family in New York. If it were possible to put into words how jealous I am of my NY family, or even the Ohio family because I want to see the NY people too, I would do it. Or how much I wish I could just teleport on home for the week to hang out with them and come back. Ma non è possibile.

I’ve decided to keep a list of foods I’ve had a sudden giant craving for since I’ve been here. Some have come and gone, others have stayed with me for a long time, some are constantly poking at the back of my head. Here’s what I’ve wanted, randomly, in the past 3 months:

• Wendy’s Chicken nuggets (all the time)
  
• Honey barbecue boneless wings (frequently)
• Vanilla frosted dunkin donuts doughnut (evey time I see coffee and think of dunkin donuts)
• Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies (after every meal)
• Entenmann’s vanilla doughnuts with chocolate shell (only got this one yesterday, we’ll see how it turns out)
• graham crackers (only once, since I drank tea that had something in it that made it taste like a graham cracker)
• Cheese. Preferably mozzarella (frequently)
• Pizza. I’ve had pizza….but just not any good ones (whenever I eat a bad pizza, or sometimes when I want something that doesn’t seem 100% like dinner, for lunch…since there’s no distinction between the kinds of foods they eat for dinner vs lunch here, the way we reserve “light” things and sandwiches for lunch in the US, and pizza counts as a “light” lunch because you just go get a slice and it doesn’t require any cooking. :-P )
• Steak (or any larger-than-bite-size piece of non-overcooked (aka actin denatured by myosin still intact) cow meat (every time I eat meat, or realize I haven’t eaten meat in 2 weeks)

I would ask you to mail me some, but most of those are quite perishable and the rest probably would get stolen in the mail because thats what happens when you send things to Kenya from the US. ("There MUST be something good inside, lets steal it!!") So just please have all of these things ready for me to consume as soon as I step out of the baggage claim area, and I'll be very grateful. But first I want a giant hug from everyone in my family and several other people. And if Thomas doesn't want to squeeze me back I will use the giant knife I'm going to buy him to threaten his life. :-p