this is a long one! my apologies

A frog decided to climb into my net and jump onto my bare leg in the middle of Sunday (9/27) night, thoroughly scaring me and causing me to lose quite a bit of sleep, because after hitting it off my leg, I couldn’t find it and was certain in was lying in wait in the folds of my blanket. It didn’t rain for 5 days this week! After the crazy storm last Saturday, nothing! So strange! It finally started again on Friday…right after I watered the plants. Forgot to say in previous post, when I went to teach on Friday (9/25) a man was standing by the gate and greeted me and then told me he just had a little boy. I congratulated him and asked him how many children he had; this one was his seventh! Then he grabbed my hand and brought me in to see his baby and I met the mom, grandma and aunt. I thought it was really cute he wanted to show me his baby. I teach English Monday, Wednesday and Fridays now to class 2, for those who do not know ANY English. It’s been interesting… I have to go very slowly, we’ve done greetings every day repeating them over and over again. Then we did the alphabet Wednesday, so they could learn to pronounce correctly. Thursday a colleague from AIDS Relief came to work with the accountant and had to stay the night. So I invited him over for dinner and cooked him a box of mac and cheese from grandpa. He thought it was delicious (I also made a salad and omelette). Then we watched Horton Hears a Who. He had it on his computer and I hadn’t seen it yet. Friday we went into Kamembe and it was a huge debacle because they said we only had one moto and it could take one person and then return and take the other, but our friend was driving into town and just picking us up on the road, so we didn’t want to make him wait. We said both of us can go on the moto together and they said “no, no, no” and then after about 10 minutes of arguing, magically the other moto appeared. We had to go on the other road because we wouldn’t have made it on time to meet him in the town on the road. We got there with time to spare and we shopped, sent things from the post office, had some lunch and came home. When we got to the town on the road, only one moto was there and he told us both to jump on. He held emily’s bag in front of him and Emily jumped on behind him and I jumped onto the back part where we usually tie our bags down. I was afraid that it would be painful sitting on the metal part, but it actually wasn’t bad at all. We got about 15 minutes in when he asked someone something and we stopped and noticed that the back tire was flat. I don’t know if it was all the extra weight or if it popped, but we all got off and got surrounded by children and adults. The adults are pretty cool cause they stop, stare, maybe say something, and usually go on their way, but the kids linger. They just stare and whisper and stick around. They rarely get up the courage to talk to you or touch you. The kids in my friends village are awesome because they aren’t shy and immediately come up to you and grab onto your hand and will play with your hair and touch you. Its gross sometimes with their grimy fingers, but its nice! I rather have people touching me and playing with me than just staring at me. That’s how the kids in Malawi and Kenya are and I loved it. The kids in my village are scared of me and too shy. The other moto went to the town on the road also, but took a strange way and they passed each other without knowing, so we had to wait for him to drop off the lab tech and come get us. He got there and Emily got on the back and he took her and dropped her off, then came back and got me. I don’t know how the other driver and moto got back.
Saturday Emily and I woke up early and got our bikes out and decided to ride to our friends house. She lives about 20km east on the main road, so we had to go the 14km of our dirt road and then the 20km to get to her. Well, the downhill part was fun. The rest was death. I rode up very few hills. I walked my bike up a lot of them. The hills are HUGE and if they’re not huge they are never-ending. It was funny passing people because they were so shocked and intrigued by the two white people on bikes with backpacks. Guess there’s never been Mormons in Mwezi. It took us 3 ½ hours to get to her house. I think its pretty impressive considering it takes 3 hours to walk just my road alone. We got going pretty fast on the downhills and took a route through the tea fields that was pretty flat so we were able to bike all of that part, but there were a few points where we were both just gasping for air and had to get off the bikes and walk them up. Theres this one hill, the last one to tackle before reaching my friends town, that just goes on forever. I think it took us over an hour to walk up. Some kids came up to us while we were walking up it and grabbed onto our bikes, so I was like “heck yes! I am soo tired and sick of pushing this thing” they had fun pushing it and one kid took my backpack from me. They were so nice! I gave them a water bottle and banana when they had to turn back. It was so nice not to have to push that thing for those 15 minutes. Then right as we got into her town a bunch of other kids came and grabbed my bike from me and onto my hands. I walked up her hill to her house with three kids on me and two kids on my bike. I was dripping with sweat and my clothes were soaked through, so we decided to go over to the guys house because they have a nice shower with hot water. All three of us showered (my friend only has a bucket bath at her house). The guys were having a party that weekend and had invited some “friends” from the city to come visit, so I got to meet some prostitutes and talk and dance with them. One of the girls let me use her blue nail polish to paint my toenails. They were very nice and sweet. I didn’t have to see or experience any of the gritty stuff, so I really liked those girls! We had a dance party at the house and they roasted an entire pig. I made a salad. The PCVs went back to my friends house and we slept all 3 in her bed. We went back to the boys house the next day cause one of the girls told us to come for lunch and Emily and I decided that we weren’t going to be able to bike home. We were too sore and exhausted! So we ended up sleeping in the guest room at the guys house that night. We watched a LOT of E! and the style network. Theres not a TV in my village and the guys have a lot of channels! Monday morning, I took another hot shower and watched the news and got a ride back to my dirt road. We had to bike home from the dirt road and it wasn’t too bad. Right as we got into our village a boy was walking by me and I asked him if he wanted to ride my bike to my house (because from that point on it was straight uphill) and he said yes, so I let him take it and I walked with my backpack. The boy even started to wash my bike for me when we got to the house because he took it through quite a few mud puddles and it was covered! I told him he didn’t have to do that and thank you and gave him a glass of water. Went to work for a few minutes because I got a text from a colleague from AIDS Relief that he had a package for me. I could hear thunder and see huge clouds, but figured I could make it to the clinic and then I’d just stay and teach and come back afterwards. But when I got down there it still wasn’t raining, so I sat down and read my readers digest from dad and mary and decided to wait the 4 ½ hours until teaching. After about 45 minutes it still wasn’t raining, but the thunder was getting louder and the clouds were now overhead. I called Emily and asked if I should make a run for it because I was bored and didn’t have anything to do for the next 4 hours and she said yes. I made it back to the house with about one minute to spare. It started dumping before I even caught my breath. The nuns came over Monday night after I got a call from one of them telling me that we left the house wide open when we left. The nuns who came over told us that around 2am Sunday the guard came and rang to bell in their house and told them that none of our lights were on and that the door was open. Apparently, he came over to the house because the lights were out and tried the side door and saw that it wasnt locked and went and got the nuns. They were afraid and that that someone was in the house and so they all came in and saw that nothing was missing and no one was inside, so they just locked all the doors. We usually give them a key to turn on our lights when we're gone, but we left so early saturday that we forgot and i cant figure out how we left the door open! we ALWAYS are so conscious about locking the doors. I feel soo bad that they got woken up and found us gone and the door open. How scary. We apologized and promised to always tell them when we are leaving and give them a key.