Yesterday was the type of day I needed. It started off the same as any day. We went to school with an extra passenger, my buddy Dale, who is in class 3 but just wanted to come hang out for the day. In the morning I had English lessons and the rest of the day I played football and some music with Dale.
The lessons were easy. More of the same exam style work. I’m a bit upset because yesterday I wanted to give my attention to Dale and had hoped Pius would teach the lessons. He said he would, but when I went to check during lesson time the classroom was empty of a teacher and a student was writing the questions on the board. It’s good to know that they can be independent, but I wasn’t going to leave the classroom empty.
The school day closed and all the kids were very excited to finally have the real holiday start. I was too, but I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do. I like always having a project to do at school.
We got home at 4:00 and I thought the day would wind down. But Abby called me to come down to the gate area where we leave the house and ushered me into a car. I thought I was just going to be grabbing some groceries and carrying them up, so I didn’t bring my phone and am upset that I couldn’t capture pictures of yesterday’s event.
I had no clue where we were going and I was worried it might be another situation like Ally’s wedding because Abby, Edith and another mama were all wearing their nice muslim attire. We drove for a while out into Maasai land and after about 30 minutes we found ourselves at the home of one of the school teachers.
I finally found out that my teacher friend, Julius, had just had a baby with his wife and we were celebrating with a kind of baby shower. There was a lot of food, a lot of Swahili talk I didn’t understand, and a lot of prayers. I really wish I brought my phone because Julius was telling me I needed to take pictures so I could show people his home and tell stories about how I visit a “modern Maasai”.
The environment around his home was interesting. On one side there was a quarry—I’m not quite sure what for—and then on the other sides, hills littered the plains that stretched on forever. There were a lot of other homes, but they were all very spaced out. Most of the homes were the brick and plaster structures, but there were a few manyattas—the Maasai dwellings built from wooden branches, and then sealed with a mix of mud, ash, and cow dung.
Julius’ home was the brick and plaster. He had one finished home, and then seemed to be in the process of building another structure for living. He is termed a modern Maasai because on his property he keeps many cattle and chickens.
We left from there around 8:00 I was happy to be going home. I was pretty tired and not up for much more adventuring. We had a second dinner at home and then I went straight to sleep. Today should be fun, I think we’re going to church, but I never can be quite sure about what the plans are surrounding that (or anything for that matter).