Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday

Yesterday was Easter Monday, and although we had class, we finished after lunch, so a few of us headed into town to hang out before returning to our villages. Riding on the daladala is always interesting: I was the last one to fit into the tiny bus (more like a van, really), and I was pressed against another trainee and several strangers, standing practically in the sliding door well, hunched over with my neck bent because the ceilings in daladalas do lot allow for tall people to stand upright. Luckily, about halfway to our destination, one of the other trainees and I were summoned to go sit up front, so there we were sharing the slightly-wide seat, me in the middle, the driver bumping my knee every time he shifted gears. 

I bought more kitenge (fabric), this time because its pattern reminds me of the Camino. Once I get to site, I will find a fundi to make something out of it - maybe a skirt or shirt. We walked around in the heat, shopping languidly, and eventually making our way to the duka that has ice cream and cold soda and juice. 

I followed the trainees who knew a back way, slightly uphill, almost into the residential part of town: clay buildings, melting brick, thatched roofs. Palm and banana trees everywhere. Wooden boards bridge small ruts and ravines, and suddenly you see more vendors along the path, tucked in small corridors alongside buildings and among the tropical vegetation. It is a very strange juxtaposition of nature and the world of brightly-colored plastics, shortwave radios, and cheap clothing. We climbed some more and found ourselves at a corner of the bus stand. We got ice cream and found we still had time to kill, so we headed to a bar, where we got cold Safaris and relaxed in the shade, a football match playing on the tv several yards away with many young boys watching, sitting in plastic chairs they pulled up close. 

After long chats and relaxation, we headed back to our bus station, and were happily reunited with the daladala that drove us here and the sweet young boy who was manning its door and fares. We found seats and watched the outdoors fly by: row upon row of sisal, cows grazing by the road, teenage boys on motorcycles passing by us. The upper half of the daladala windows block out light, so you dip your head to see outside, then raise your head, losing vistas, and seeing only asphalt speeding by. 

Today is Easter Tuesday. I watched one of my language teachers kill and clean a chicken. Seeing someone take an animal's life capably, knowledgeably, and respectfully is a pretty amazing thing. Although I prefer not to eat animals, seeing him slaughter a chicken today instilled in me a lot of respect, maybe even awe, for people with this capability. 

Then I went home and ate potatoes. :)