Saturday April 19th 2008: Buying food at the market for the Amani center

I go to the market with Gladness, one of the girls living at the center. She is 20 years old and has been living there for 4 years. She is very dedicated and an incredible singer.
The market is very busy with people of all faiths and colors. I even see a Chinese lady with a very little baby, some Koreans and Japanese and some Muzungus (white people). We go there to buy in large quantities. We walk around and I am thoroughly enjoying all the food stands as I try not to walk deep into the mud like I did last time when I was at the same intersection. It rained heavily today and I am wearing only flip-flops, as almost everyone here does. We get sugar, cooking oil and wheat flour from the first shop. They are very friendly and offer me a seat “ Karibu kiti”. Then we walk deeper into the market and stop at a stand held by a Muslim black man and his small daughter. Gladness tries to negociate the price down for 25 kilos of rice (2 big bags) as the prices have gone up. We end up going to another stand and get the price we want. Then 2 boys who have been standing by us help us carry the bags. When we arrive at our final destination, they won’t leave the bags unless we pay for carrying them. We argue for maybe 20 minutes and end up giving in as they just won’t leave us alone and I can vaguely understand that they have been insulting me as hear “Muzungu” and can tell from the expression on their faces. Oh well! Next time I will just give them a bit straight away so we can just get rid of them. Still learning how different it is here.
We go back and I take a well needed shower after all the sweating at the market! I also do some reading as I plan on going traveling up north next week for the first time. I have never trekked alone before so I am a little nervous but very intent on doing it. There is a school break so it’s the perfect time for me to go.
At 4pm Dr Ken and Dr Anne arrive at the Amani center for a meeting with Mama Bakhita and I attend as the note taker. After that I have a quick dinner as they are still here but I don’t want to not get food as it is first come first serve here.
At night, I end up spending too much time on the internet fixing mail and bill problems that come up last minute and I go to bed frustrated that I spent so much time on the computer instead of going to evening assembly. The nice thing was though that I got to chat on skype messenger for a while with Ken. I love Skype!!