2.

(A brief note before this story; I HATE SPIDERS!)

As I was boiling my milk, a spider crawled out of the wall. I thought our spiders at home were hairy! This was the “Elvis Presley” of spiders; he had quite the ‘do. At first I was calm, and looked around for something to squish him with. I had an empty juice box and thought that that would keep my fingers a sufficient distance from him so that if I missed, the chance of him coming into contact with my skin would be minimal.

He moved. I missed. He jumped. I shrieked. No one came to rescue me…

He landed in my empty milk pitcher, so I quickly filled it up with water. He thought that he escaped but I reigned supreme… at least for now.

Now that I have finished with the milk, I am boiling some water “for 20 minutes to kill the amoeba.” I wanted to go to bed, but it is better to do this now so that if I need it tomorrow, it will be ready.

For supper, I had Ugali and beef and cabbage stew. Ugali is very similar to polenta except it is white and not quite as firm. It is made with cornmeal and water and boiled for 3 hours. The cabbage stew was fine, just very greasy. Lunch was corn and beans. The corn is reminiscent of hominy corn and run of the mill beans boiled together with some cabbage. Instead of cutting the corn off the cob like we do, they let it dry and then cook it for hours. It is still quite hard in the end but edible. I don’t like it much, but it is fine.

I have told Jane that she can teach me how to make all of the Kenyan dishes and I will show her some of ours. I discovered today that there are avocado trees in the complex. Perhaps I will make guacamole and tortilla chips or maybe French toast. There is no maple syrup but I do have a tin of strawberry jam.