8/2/10 Simon Says, proposals, and mattresses

Today we returned to the primary schools. Over the weekend, we had a few of our friend judge the coloring pages that the kids colored on Friday and determined a winner for each grade. They were all girls and the prize was a net. We then gave 3 crayons to every student in the class. Melody and I originally wanted to leave the crayon with the teachers to be distributed, but quickly learned from our translators that anything left to teachers is usually stolen to bring back to their own families which is very sad. Melody and I also decided that since we thought it was horrible that some classes did not have teachers at all for hours, we played Simon says with the class in an attempt to teach the primary school kids basic English body parts. The kids loved it and we did too. I totally wish that I was staying longer and would love to teach a class.

In between visiting these primary schools to teach a bit of English and encourage mosquito net use, we went to the large Monday market. Pili, Enock, Melody, and I were ready to take piki pikis (motorcycles) to the Obwere market center, but we were randomly picked up by an old driver that brought us to the far village of Bwiri. This guy is funny, loud, and drives too fast. He also had his wife sitting in the front seat. That didn’t stop him from asking me in Luo to jokingly be his second wife…at least I think he was joking. I just told his wife “pole” which means I’m sorry for you haha. Once we were dropped off, I immediately bought 3 machetes for souveniors to take home. After finishing at the market, we wanted to take pikis back this time since the driver was not around. Usually taking a piki costs 500 Tsh but the drivers wanted 1,000 Tsh because apparently they had to take a longer back road to avoid the short main road since apparently traffic police was on this main road and the piki drivers do not have their licenses. Yes it makes a lot of sense for us to pay double so that we can take a longer route and use non-licensed drivers. So the four of us decided we could walk instead. Melody and I had Pili and Enock ask the bed and mattress shops along the way about how much a bed frame and mattress would cost for Babou. Mel and I stayed somewhere out of sight while our awesome translators bargained. We got pretty good deals but didn’t have enough money at the time so we headed out. As we were walking out, our driver from before picks us up.
So Killion, Melody, and I return to the school to complete our education and apparently the school was let out early today. Interestingly, all the girls in primary school were cleaning. They were sweeping the floors, taking out the trash, and washing the chalkboards including 1st-7th graders. The boys were sitting around talking. I couldn’t believe that the sexism starts so early. On a daily basis we see men just sitting around all day while women in town are carrying things heavier than their body weight on top of their heads and working very hard. Its unfortunate that not more girls go on to get a high education since they are so hard working and diligent.

After the brief school visit without any classes or education, we took Killion back to the mattress and bed shops. He gets us a great deal on a bed frame, half of what we were quoted at one point, after bargaining and making sure us mzungus were not in sight. Killion might have also reminded the shop owner about a favor Killion gave him once lol. We pick out a bed frame but since it wasn’t assembled, the store owner was going to assemble it. I guess he must have realized that it did not fit so he goes to construct new wooden panels. After 10 minutes of watching him trying to make it work, we decided it would be a better idea for him to take his time and we would return tomorrow. Well we got a mattress and pillow and backpack for Babou. Killion thought that it would be a better idea to take this on a piki or bicycle rather than asking for a car even thought we tried to protest. So the guy on the bicycle was going to charge us 3x’s the amount of a piki to bring this very light foldable mattress a few km down the road. We get the price down to a satisfactory level, but instead of taking the stuff on a bike, the guy walks all the way down. Then Killion decides to ask all of the people that he knows driving by if they would give us a ride. So we are riding in the car and we pass the guy carrying our stuff. Its quite funny since we probably could have brought the stuff in this car ride had we known we would be taking a car. So after this ordeal, we played some soccer with local kids and ate delicious mashed potatoes and cabbage.