Thank you for the bread

Aaaah, today was so good for both of our mental states. Ursula picked us up to take us to Mbezi Chapel, which is a local Swahili church although a couple of white families go there. It is within walking distance of the compound, but we haven't been before so it was nice to get a lift. I've realised that I've been completely failing to give you any descriptive details to enable you to picture anything I'm talking about. Sorry. So, Mbezi Chapel was an area big enough to fit about eighty chairs (that's really not that many if you think about it), under a big thatched roof. Not really a building at all. I really enjoyed the atmosphere there, although the entire service was in Kiswahili. But I could recognise the occasional word, and picked up a few more while listening. Everyone was so friendly and greeted us afterwards and welcomed us and laughed in delight when we stumbled through our basic Swahili repertoire.

A whole group of us then went to Ruth's house (teacher at Hopac) for lunch. She has three kids, (possibly mentioned before), all absolutely gorgeous girls that I see around school a fair bit. Eliza aged five, Georgie aged seven, and Susie aged 10. The afternoon was fantastic - their house literally backs onto the beach, and Ruth set up a delicious buffet of well, food! What more could one want? After we'd eaten we all headed down onto the sand, where the other girls mainly stayed to lie there and chat, and I spent about the next three hours straight mucking round with Eliza, Suzy and Georgie. A couple of African girls that they apparently knew walked past at one point, and within two minutes we'd convinced them to join in. Ah. It was good to play with the kiddies for so long. Never gives you a chance to think about anything else when your constant attention is on them. Rick, Ruth's husband, was out windsurfing, and brought his board into the shallows to check on us after a little while. Somehow, I found myself bullied (by three kids who's combined ages only just beats my own!) into having a go. Ha. It was hilarious. I really don't have the weight to lift the sail, but despite my complete hopelessness it was a lot of fun. Found out afterwards that Zoe had been taking pictures. Luckily, being stills, they look like I'm actually doing ok, but in reality I spent more of that forty minutes in the water than on the board. Had to stop though because Eliza was waiting patiently this whole time, cheering me on but clearly wanting me to come back and keep playing with her. Lots of dogs - Tiger, Charlie, Spot, Poppy, etc...

At the end of the day Ursula dropped us off at the school so that Zoe could set up the classroom for Monday morning. Walking home we realised that not only did we still lack any cooking facilities, but it was now too late to disturb Marie and the others for the use of theirs. Ah well. We had some stale bread, tuna, a tomato and a small section of cucumber. What more could one need? The whole concept of putting together such makeshift sandwiches for dinner after the amazing lunch we'd had was in my eyes hilarious, and neither of us could stop laughing. In fact, in some strange way, it became one of most enjoyable meals we've had.

While washing the dishes I spiked myself on a knife that someone had carelessly dropped into the sink. I politely informed the only other member of the household that one shouldn't put sharp knives in amongst the general cutlery. I was blatantly ignored, so felt the need to repeat this wise piece of advice with slightly increased volume. I was no longer ignored, but rather laughed at. At this point Zoe would claim that I began brandishing the knife wildly. I must insist that I was merely showing the knife to her so as to bring to her attention the item in question.

We both congregated in my room and ended up spending the next couple of hours in the kind of blissful idleness that one needs every so often in life. Shared Zo's iPod while she read a book and I stitched a skirt. You don't need conversation at times like that.