Bicylce Riding

Today I had two interesting experiences biking.

This morning I was biking from the slum to school, and when I passed this man he started running after my bike and trying to hop on the back. The bike is already very wobbly, the road is very bumpy, and so naturally, I screamed. I didn't mean to, it just slipped out, but he stopped running after me then and once I knew I wouldn't be eating a second breakfast of gravel, I was able to laugh it off.

Later in the day Beatrice, the cook at school, needed a scale to weigh beans so she sent me back down to the slum on the bike to meet up with a woman who had it. She asked me if I knew where the barber shop was? No. The tailor? No. The bike shop? No. So she told me just to bike to the end of the slum and I would find her. When you bike through the slum, you usually have a bunch of kids calling out to you and lots of people just watching you, so while I was busy smiling and looking around I biked right past the woman with the scale and just waved at her. I think she must have thought I was completely out-of-it. She called to people ahead of me in Swahili to tell me to turn around, and then a group started calling to me in English and told me she wanted me. I apologized for biking right past her, and then took the scale back to school. About 40 minutes later, there was quite a hardy laugh at school when she relayed the story to the teachers.

I almost had to take the bike to the slum for a third time because we ran out of salt, but luckily Sarah and Spencer came to my rescue and brought salt back with them from their trip to hang up posters.

And now, a quick weekend update:
Saturday we went to our host's sister's wedding. It was an interesting experience, but incredibly long--the ceremony lasted over 4 hours, plus there was an opening ceremony of traditional song and dance and a reception after the ceremony. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready, and we didn't get home until after 8 pm that night. The biggest issue was we all ate breakfast around 6:30, and didn't have lunch until after 4pm. We were all ravenous. The wedding was very beautiful though--it was held outdoors on a really pretty piece of property--and it was neat to see how so many people show up.

Sunday was very relaxed. We caught up on our sleep and then went to Lake Naivasha in the afternoon. We took a short motor boat ride out into the lake to see hippos. It was exciting--kind of scary, since I've heard they're the most dangerous animals on earth. We didn't get too close though.