First, I’m going to tell you about the dream I had last
night/very early this morning. The
reason I thought about this is because this one girl in my group is taking
Melofloquin (a type of malaria prophylaxis) which can give you
hallucinations. She hasn’t had any
hallucinations, but she has been having weird dreams. Last night I had a weird dream, so I’m going
to share it with you… It was slope day at Cornell. The slope was covered in trees and at the
bottom of the slope were a bunch of hot tubs and pools. I was in one of the hot tubs with some of my
friends, but mostly random people.
Someone called me on the phone (I’m not exactly sure who) and they asked
me to leave the slope. However, it was
midday on slope day… why would I leave?
Randomly, all the trees on the slope started to blow up one-by-one. Every time a tree blew up, a fire took its
place. Then, there was hail coming from
the sky. Or so we all thought. But really, they were giant ice cubes being
shot out of cannons…by the professors.
It was actually really scary and everyone started to panic and get out
of the hot tubs and pools. The only way
to escape was to run up the slope, which was difficult because the professors
would just aim those ice ball cannons at us.
I was running up the slope with my friend Alex Kelly who doesn’t even go
to Cornell, and finally we got to the top.
We held onto railings (the slope doesn’t even have railings) and we
somehow managed to avoid the ice cubes.
When we arrived at the top of the slope, Willard Straight was the only
building in site. We thought we would be
safe in there, but really it was a place where the professors held everyone
hostage. So, I was held hostage in
Willard Straight. I thought I was going
to die, and then realized it was all a dream and forced myself to wake up. The end.
Then I looked to my left and Adrienne was also awake. It was 7:30am. That’s what I call sleeping in on a Friday
morning. We have been getting up before
7am every day this week.
Almost the whole class!
We got to
school around 8:45 and had thirty minutes of wi-fi before class started (class
starts at 9:15 on Wednesdays and Fridays).
Today, the remaining 3 groups gave their case-study presentations. The presentations were all really good, and again
I learned a lot. After the
presentations, we went to Jacob’s Well Canteen for lunch. Grace and I shared rice with vegetables. It was just Grace, Becca, and me at a table
for lunch and it was really nice to get to know the two of them a little better. After lunch, we went back to the classroom
for some internet and to check in with Becca (a different Becca--our TA who
just arrived last night) and let her know how everything has been going. Then, everyone went home to drop our stuff
off real quickly and we walked to Dr. Stacey Langwick’s house as a group. Every Friday is reflection Friday. Dr. Langwick had a very nice house, and it
was great to hear everyone’s thoughts on the week so far.
My case study group minus Masuma
I’ll
touch on a few things that I had to say.
Firstly, I absolutely love my homestay.
Mama and Delke are both so nice.
Mama is really funny too. She
likes to refer to herself in third person a lot and it cracks me up—“Mama likes
beer.” “Beer makes mama warm. Mama like
food. Food make mama fat. Mama gonna
make her daughters fat.” (Adrienne and I
are her daughters). It’s hilarious. One day she was showing us pictures in an
album—“This is mama. Here mama on her
birthday. Last year daughters give mama
cake.” Second, everyone else in the
compound is very welcoming and friendly.
Whenever we get home from school, all the little kids run up to us and
give us hugs. Then they hold our hands
and walk us into the house. All the moms in the compound say hi to us too. It’s not just mama who greets us, but
everyone else does. And it’s more than
just a greeting. They seem like they
genuinely care how our day is going and what we are up to. I’ve noticed a strong sense of unity that we
don’t have back in the states. An
example that I used during the reflection session: back at Cornell, not
everyone says hi to you. In fact, hardly
anyone says hi. You can be walking past
someone who you recognize and have definitely seen out at parties, and have
maybe even talked to before. But
sometimes those people will look down at their phone when they’re passing by
you, or look down at the ground if their phone isn’t handy. People will do anything to avoid eye contact,
and avoid any awkward hello’s. Here,
that is totally unheard of. Almost every
stranger says hi to you, and absolutely no one looks away. I haven’t said hi to everyone I’ve walked by,
but I’ve definitely at least smiled at everyone. So, that’s something that is very
different. Lastly, I shared one thing
that I learned this week. Yesterday,
when I was talking to Mesha, I asked him which tribe he was. He told me his mother was a part of the
Chaaga tribe and his father was a part of the Sumaki (that’s definitely not
right… but something like that) tribe.
Therefore, he was part of the Sumaki tribe. He told me that if your parents are a part of
different tribes, the children always take the tribe of their father. New fact!
Lodoe, Henry, Grace, Ume, Me (Fun fact: Ume means penis in Swahili)
Yeah... when she introduced herself, all the KCMC students started laughing. Apparently it means something very peaceful in Nigeria. But definitely not here.
After our
reflection session, we got picked up by cabs and taken to Moshi Club. We met all the KCMC students there and had
food and drinks. It was a lot of fun and
everyone got to know each other better.
I think we tried all the popular beers.
We had Kilimanjaro, Tusker, Castle, and Safari. In order from favorite to least favorite for
me: Kilimanjaro, Castle, Safari, Tusker.
It was def a good time!
Highlight of my day:
Getting to know all the KCMC students in a setting outside of the
classroom!
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