Tugende - Let's go!

The school year is going nearly full speed now, and life is getting a lil hectic. This past Friday was dorm night, Saturday was health fair and ice cream social, Sunday was AIC, and Monday night we had “the singles” over for a pot-luck dinner. We’ve had so many people in and out of our partment! I can’t even tell you how many dishes we’ve washed!!! It’s been worth it, though. :)

On dorm night, the ladies of Suswa were exceptionally good sports! We needed to provide treats for them… I tried to make up a way to make chocolate popcorn, which turned out pretty OK. They thought it was fantastic! We also made taco popcorn… but we ran out of popcorn! We had enough for maybe 6 or 8 girls – and there were 18 at dorm night!!! So we ran out to borrow popcorn and kept working… the girls wanted to make cookies, but no one had a recipe! So KoKo said she’d make them – but we only had one egg and couldn’t find any baking soda! She didn’t put enough flour in them, either, so they were kinda funny looking till I turned down the oven. They were good, though! We didn’t have chocolate chips, either, so the girls had to chop up chocolate bars. We were also planning on watching a movie, but we have no TV and no projector. I went out twice – into the COLD, windy, dark night – to find Courtney to borrow her projector, but no dice. She was at a different dorm night! Anyway… the girls graciously agreed to watch Lil Mermaid on a laptop, with fancy speakers. They had a good time. :) They have great attitudes!!!

Saturday Ashley were determined to be a lil more prepared… so we went down to the Dukas in the afternoon to try and get things together for ice cream social (health fair was fun, too – I got to help with titchies, and they were just all over the place!! And so excited about getting weighed and getting their eyes checked and whatever. :) ). We made chocolate syrup, cuz you can’t get it here, and someone randomly brought us Hershey’s (a RARE and valued commodity!) strawberry syrup, and we cut up some bananas and chopped some peanuts… and we crumbled some cookies and chopped up some chocolate…. Anyway, for the ice cream social, they try and mix up the kids. So we had 9 random students in our apartment! It was a lot of fun, though. :) We played mafia and zip-bong (a VERY silly game!) and signs. The kids – well, not kids… high school students… young adults – all said they had a blast. :) Ashley and I had a lot of fun, too.

I think my favorite, though, was the singles pot luck dinner. It turned out SOOO good! Erica, Courtney, and Sarah came, as well as Ryan, Aaron, John, Candace, Anita, Abigail, and Ru. We had chilli, homemade bread, salad, soup, chicken enchiladas, stir fry veggies… and then afterwards we had a “pineapple dump cake” that I had made and coffee n’ tea. Poor Ryan… he brought Pringles. Hahaha! I don’t have any idea where he got them, though….

One of the most recent additions to our singles group is an English guy named “Ru” (Rupert). He had coffee after dinner, at which I exclaimed “coffee?!” And he told me that coffee is more popular in Britain now than tea. “Sad times,” he said. He also said things like “hey, Ryan, could you shoot me my jumper?” Jumper = sweater, we found out. He also referred to “chicks” and “blokes,” and occasionally called one or another of us “mate.” :) At one point, he even said something about the “loo,” which excited me because then I found out that it’s not just an American stereotype; they really do call it that! :) (I kept my mouth shut, though, because I didn’t wanna sound like a stupid American.) We also heard some more RIDICULOUS stories from Aaron – about building 48 classrooms in Darfur, Sudan, and having 30 of them bombed… about the Sudanese airline and how, because there’s no bag/weight limit, people are stuffing their luggage into the plane… about having his passport completely filled up with places he’s been… about going to college in the US and selling a $5 spear to an American girl for $80… etc, etc. He tells stories like Charles does – like you’re waiting for him to laugh and say he’s just kidding, but he doesn’t cuz all his stories are true and at first, you’re not sure whether you believe him or not. Anyway, we had a blast together, and it was really nice to hang out with people around my age and just relax. :) It’s difficult, though, because everyone’s sooooo super-busy. We have to be intentional about keeping up with each other. We ARE discussing the possibility of going to the coast for midterm break, though… :-D

I taught a tenor sax lesson today… which was actually a lesson for me – in faking it. I’ve never played a tenor sax! But I used my knowledge of saxophone embouchure and musicality and… whatever else I could think up!... and we had a fairly successful lesson. :) I have two flute lessons tomorrow, which should be significantly easier for me. Wednesday I’ll start kindergarten music and flute choir. I’m pretty excited. :) Thursday I get to start working with the jazz band!! I’m a lil intimidated about that, but I think it’ll be fun.

Sunday was AIC Sunday, which meant we went to the local African church – all of RVA! I was walking with Mrs. Cook on Saturday afternoon, and she mentioned something about needing to come up with something for special music. I told her if she was really desperate and needed something last minute, I could play. She took me up on it! I didn’t really have any music with me, so we played around with “Amazing Grace,” which is simple enough… but… the exciting part is that I IMPROVISED in front of 800 people!!!! It was so much fun!!! But when I sat back down… well, first of all, I started shaking like crazy! My flute case almost fell off my lap! But also, I was sitting where most of the African children were… so when I sat back down, I had close to 30 pairs of little African eyes just staring at me! :) They were so cute! Mrs. Cook said, “I believe you have a new fan club!” And Mr. Taylor told me later that they had never seen a flute before. It was a pretty special experience. I’ll never forget it, for sure! One of my dorm girls told me later, “You were so awesome! You didn’t squeak ONCE!!!” :)

In other news, I’m becoming quite the accomplished fire builder! Even though it gets really cold here at night and in the mornings, there are no heaters. I think it’s because things that make heat require so much electricity, and electricity here is currently three times what it costs in the US – and it’s continually going up. Anyway, out of necessity, I’ve learned to build a fire. I’m kind of excited about my newfound skill, except that I have a few burns on my fingers. I’m also learning more and more how to improvise in the kitchen. What the dukas – and even Nakumatt – will have is unpredictable, so you learn to do without, borrow, or just make something up. The other night when I was having dinner at the Morrisons, Mr. Morrison asked what we were having, and Mrs. Morrison said, “I don’t know. It happened in the kitchen.” It was delicious, though! :-) The situation lends itself well to having a great attitude about things, though… Kind of like, “if you don’t have it… oh well. We’ll make do.” :-)