Happy Weekend!

           Did i mention how much i LOVE the rain? As i was walking out of the school yesterday evening, a bunch of the high schoolers were playing red rover on the turf and water was splashing up everywhere. how cool are they?  I wanted to play SO badly.. and they said "Ms. Fisher! come join us!" and that made me want to play with them even more!! although, i think its kind of weird that they call me Ms. Fisher.. I wish they would just call me Lauren.. because they aren't even my students!! and im not even that old!  Darn those respectful teenagers! 

            But, that’s not the point!  I couldn’t play because I had to go home to meet the people I was going grocery shopping with!  Darn grown-up responsibilities!  I did actually stop to think for a minute if I could make it another week with the food I had.. but after remembering the rotten tomato incident, I decided I needed to go shopping. 

            As I was walking home, the fruit man who comes to our apartment on Saturday mornings was walking by and he said bonjour and then lots of French and I made the sorry face and he just said “tomorrow” and pointed in the direction of the apartment building.  I didn’t think I would be there because I had an appointment to get my medical certificate… but I just smiled and said okay!  And also did a thumbs up… I realized I have been doing that a lot lately.. and I wonder if they do that in Africa.. I don’t really think they do because no one seems to know why I’m putting my thumb up at them.  But I just do it anyway.. man, I really need to learn some French. 

            So I got home and was relieved to find that I had put away all of the papers that were on my desk beneath my bedroom window which I had left open.  Nothing was ruined…  I just had a very wet desk and floor. 

            Then we went to City Dia!  A very fancy grocery store.. fancy meaning there are FOUR whole aisles.. complete with a freezer section AND a refrigerated section.  And its always clean in there.  So we like it.  We got to drive through some pretty big water puddles!  And I learned that it’s best to drive REALLY fast through big puddles.. not just for fun but because that way your engine won’t flood.  You just have to make sure there’s no one around who you will splash.  Don’t worry, we didn’t splash anybody.

            I found these REALLY yummy ice cream bars that make up for the yucky ice cream I bought last week.. it was coffee ice cream with chocolate chunks and the package made it look SO good.  Right when I got it home, I put a huge spoonful in my mouth and it was all gritty and not creamy at all.. I was so disappointed.  Especially because ice cream is so expensive here!!  But, the good thing is I now have yummy “brownie” ice cream bars!

            All I had to do to get my medical certificate.. which I don’t even understand why I need it was weigh myself and get my blood pressure, that’s it! And I passed! Yahoo!  I went to my classroom after that to get some work done, and went back home for lunch. 

            I had some leftover Mafe (my favorite Senegalese dish so far!) which is this yummy peanut sauce with carrots and I think it usually has potatoes in it but Josephine (our house help) didn’t make it with potatoes and some kind of meat.. she put beef in it.  It is sooo yummy! And, I ran into Jon and Mary (our downstairs neighbors) on my way home for lunch and they said they made some the other night and saved some for me because they know I like it so much!  They are just too good to me!  So I will not be running out of mafe anytime soon, especially since Ruthanne doesn’t like it!  I get it allll to myself!

            Anyway, I decided I also wanted a mango (which, by the way, I was ripped off for.. I had given money to Josephine to get some mandarins and mangoes because there  is an “African” price and a “Toubab” price, AND things are supposed to be cheaper where she goes to shop anyway… so I thought if I had Josephine buy it, I would get a good deal!! Wrong, I’m pretty sure she lied about the price because it was more expensive than when I buy fruit on the street!  But, she does a good job of cleaning.. so I just won’t have her do my shopping anymore.)  So, I started cutting up a mango, but there was a bunch of black stuff in it.. so I decided to just cut around it.  By the time I had finished cutting all the black stuff out there was just a teeny tiny bit.  So I ate that, and then cut into another mango.  This one had some black stuff too, but not as much.  But THEN I noticed that the inside of it was MOVING.  There were two little worms inside!! Probably more than two actually, but I just saw two of them.  AND I had been eating little pieces while I was cutting it up.  Ugh, I wanted to barf and throw up and vomit all at the same time.  But, I still wanted a mango. So I cut into a third one, and this was finally a good one.  But I inspected each bite much more carefully than I have ever done.

            When I got back to school the fruit man was standing right in front of the gate to school.  He waved to me and I felt so guilty that I wasn’t there this morning so I went over and bought some fruit even though I didn’t need any!  But, he gave me a free mandarin right away.. so then I really felt like I had to buy a lot.  When I was safely inside school, I saw some high schoolers so I gave them some mandarins.. so now I’m all balanced out in my fruit stock again. Phew.

            Then I got to skype with Christa! And now I need to get back to work! : )