Mid homestay

I step into my room in the late afternoon and see my bats chasing each other silently. I move very slowly to the center of my room and they continue to fly around me, circling and darting, flying under my bed and back out again. They fly so close but do not even brush against me.

In the growing dark my mama sends me with pots of food to mama Fatuma's house. It's one of the houses across the way- I'd only actually been there once, on the first or second day. I stand outside what must be her house and call her name. There is a dim light inside and I hear people chatting. After a minute I call her name again, and her daughter, also Fatuma, appears behind me, with a bucket balanced on her head. She "shikamoo"s me and takes the pots, smiling. I see Ijumaa and then mama in the front doorway. She thanks me and I walk back to our backyard a stone's throw away.

My mama bought me and a bunch of the young village boys ice cream from the ice cream bicycle man this afternoon. I have been warned about the quality of his products, but in the heat of Africa and the moment, I couldn't turn it down.

Raining a little more each day.