movie nights and market days

Last night was the viewing of Out of Africa up in the common room of my darling Josephine Tucker Hall. So much fun to just sit in with the girls and watch Meryl Streep being amazing at life in a movie taking place in the country next to where we currently reside--- in Kenya. There was chocolate. There was instant freeze-dried Arabica coffee with cinnamon. There were BBQ pringles. There was Robert Redford being a fox. There were tears. Classic movie night combo. After so many weekend trips and adventures all around this beautiful country, it was nice to just relax and have a sense of being "home" for the weekend. You know you have adjusted to a new place when Friday nights bring no desire to hit the town or jump in a bus to travel to some new place, but to just relax from the mundane bits of what is now familiar life and watch a movie. By the end of the film as Meryl precious is saying goodbye to her Kenyan friends and household helps we were all about gushing over at the realization that in just a couple months we too will be setting our compasses in new directions and walking away from all that we have come to love here- people, customs, habits, routines. I will miss peeling dead lizards off my doorframe, washing my laundry by hand (maybe I won't miss that one too much…), walking to the market to bargain for bananas and tangerines, and looking forward to walking up the small hill to Josephine and not being able to reach the top without someone yelling "Spartacus!" to get my attention.
But I still do have these two months :)

Today Lauren & I went into Kampala in desperate search of sweaters. Hannah- you'll be so proud: I refrained from old lady sweaters. It's been so cold here in the mornings and at nights and next week we head north for our rural homestays, where it will only be colder. We stumbled around the streets from the takisi to find Owino market--- a shanty town of bargains. It was a tight maze of dirt floors, vendors yelling "yes! Sister come and look!", and piles of clothes and shoes with paths only wide enough for one person to walk down and canopied completely by tin roofing and newspaper clippings. It was incredible. Previously to venturing into this dark little rat maze market, USP staff had advised us to go with a Ugandan and Ugandans had turned their noses up completely at the thought of going in there. Too crowded. Too much stuff. No organization. Too much haggling. You'll get mugged. So of course we went as just the two brainless Mzungu.
Plenty of people, all very nice.
SO much stuff.
Organized like a thrift store. Aka… you see it- it's there. Don’t see it- move on.
Haggling = cheaper prices :)
Didn't get mugged. DID get a phone number ;) ha ha ha
It was such a cool experience to go into this market and I'm hands down going back. It was an entirely other subculture hidden in this market. It was like the underground club of African market places. I fully intend to become a regular.