Parents' Day

A few days ago the principal called all the teachers into her office to discuss plans for parents' day.

"On Friday, we had agreed to serve bread and soda to the parents. But now I am thinking we should cook pillau, chapati, stew, and salad instead."

I seemed to be the only one to find this to be a rather significant change in the plans, as everyone else was like, yeah, hey, why not? Then the sentiment was that we shouldn't ask other people for cooking help, because then they'd expect us to help with ties more numerous functions, so we should cook all the food ourselves. And that's how I came to find myself leaning over a giant pot of rice cooking over a fire, pleading it not to burn.

Earlier today I wrote a kind of bitter (and therefore hilarious) post about cooking with all the women. Sometimes I get tired of feeling like a novelty, and sometimes when people stop talking English and switch to mother tongue, I feel like they are talking about me. The furtive glances don't ease my suspicions, ladies. But the rest of the day was really good, so I'm now able to see in a more positive light that even though maybe I wasn't feeling the most included earlier today, it's probably only fair that they get a rise out of discussing me, since I go around taking pictures of perfectly normal piles of raw meat and for a good ten minutes tried to include the word billybillyhoho in every sentence. It is the Swahili word for a bell pepper. Billybillyhoho. I can't stop.

Anyway, the rest of the day was fun. The girls were all eager for ties parents to meet/see me. We had some good bonding time in which I learned that everybody thinks all muzungos eat snakes and slugs, and that a few girls believed so strongly that Canada is in Europe that they kind of didn't believe me. That's fair, since some North Americans still think Africa is a country. Also, I still don't have them convinced that I don't apply some sort of something to my hair to make it so soft. Soft is their word; my word is still nasty.

Also, there were two hours worth of speeches. The chairman was there and gave a rousing lecture to the parents about paying their fees, and and even more rousing one to the girls about reaching higher. He totally stole my thunder, right down to the Henry Ford bit. He also added a good bit about staying away from drugs and boys. Mom, you certainly would have enjoyed it. It was like, you can never trust boys! Wait until you are finished university! Boys are the worst! He employed some pretty hilarious euphemisms, too. I'm really just suprised rock and roll escaped his speech unscathed.

I'm back at the farm for the long weekend. In case you couldn't tell what the earlier picture was, it was a few fire pits and pots of rice.