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One of my kiddies
I lied...I do have one photo - this is K's though (with her sunglasses on) Jambo tena (Hello again),
Well I couldn’t decide between blog titles today, so I have gone with both of them. The first refers to a song we heard while we were out to dinner the other day. It was a terrible pop song which simply repeated over and over again: “What’s the matter with men today? There’s beautiful roses and nobody to plant them.” Tragic, but hilarious! The second is that we’ve learnt how to say the vital phrase, “Your mum’s a…” in Kiswahili. Examples of its usage:
“Mama yako ni baisikeli.” (Your mum’s a bicycle.)
“Mama yako ni tikitiki maji.” (Your mum’s a watermelon.)
I'm making a list of amusing phrases to learn in Swahili. So far I have:
- Tell him he's dreaming (actually i know how to say that)
- I'm loving myself sick right now.
- So hot right now.
- Fully sic
- I also need to look up the word troll (so I can say 'your mum's a troll')
Please feel free to add to this list!
Anyway, sup? Anything exciting happening back home? Well, a lot seems to happen in a week over here. We have moved house,
Knickers and the puppy
Klein being good for a few minutes. Note the rip in K's pants got a dog and had a local insist he call our mother in Australia to tell her he would look after us (will explain that in a minute).
Before I forget, as I did last blog, I’d like to direct you all to Justin’s comment to the blog entitled ‘You are very smart.’ (I think it was that one.) Not that I want to brag or anything, but I’m quite happy with that!! On the subject of comments, what’s with the lack of response to my last blog. If it wasn’t for Mama Joey and my other mother I would feel very neglected . (Emails don’t count.)
OK, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’ll tell you a bit about our new house. We will be living here until the end of July, when the owner (he’s in Germany for six months of the year) has some friends coming to stay. It’s a bit further out than what we were, on the other side of the creek, about 15-20 minute bike ride, but it’s worth it. The dirt road is pretty bumpy, though: you can feel your fadoobadas wobbling while you ride. Our house is
My circular room
The rain actually comes in the windows...perhaps i should close them. called Villa Rita (must be named after some special mothers) and has a rather large pool out the back and a beautiful view of the ocean. My circular room (yes, circular) looks out onto the backyard. Katherine seemed to manage to get the double bed again.
We also have a dog, my first pet ever. She is a Rottweiler named Klein and she was the runt of the litter (feel free to make jokes about that). She isn’t, however, particularly small and she is still very excited to see us each day, so is fairly jumpy. Have received a few nice scratches (and a hole in K’s pants - see picture) so far. She’d been getting better until a few nights ago when we discovered she has a weakness for chocolate biscuits. She got very upset when we wouldn’t share any with her.
Moving onto the subject of some young men we met the other day (don’t get excited, they definitely we’re marriage material, but they were very amusing) while we were having lunch at Titanic Bar. There were three of them - Nicholas, Festus and another one who didn’t talk the whole time, so we didn’t find
Our Backyard
Good for twilight swimming...life is tough! out his name. They were apparently impressed by our Swahili, so struck up a conversation with us. Here is the gist of it:
•They had had a rather large amount to drink. Nicholas seemed to go through two hip flasks of brandy while we were there.
•They decided that we needed to have a similar amount to drink and kept telling the bartender to get another drink for the ladies. Nicholas also told us all Australians are smart and we could probably read their minds.
•They told us that good girls and boys only get to go to heaven, whereas bad girls and boys get to go everywhere: They get to drink, smoke, drive fast cars and boogy boogy. Thus, we should be bad girls for the day.
•They pleaded with us to come to karaoke that night. We would have dominated, but didn’t think they’d be in a great state by that time, so declined their offer.
•We asked them how to say ‘my homies’ in Swahili, but all they could offer was the word for ‘my lovelies’. Doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it.
•Nicholas informed us that the message we should take from the story
View from our house
The little hut thingy is ours too. of the Titanic is “to be strong in love.”
•They wore wedding rings, despite the fact that they weren’t married, to keep the ladies away on the d-floor.
•Nicholas, after talking to us for a while, insisted we call Joey in Australia, from his mobile phone so that he could have a chat to her. When he got on the phone he said, “Hello Mummy!!! I will look after your beautiful daughters.” I think Jo-machine was fairly amused by this call.
It is quite common for people to call themselves by their surname over here. For this reason, Chjumba (owner of the lodge we were staying at), thought Katherine’s name was Owell (not sure what happened to the H). Another guy thought she said ‘One and a half’ instead of Katherine when she introduced herself. Therefore, I have been calling her One and a Half Owl, or Moja na nusu bundi in Swahili.
We also had a ride in the ‘Awsome Love of Jesus’ tuk tuk (yep, the spelling isn’t great over here). It was covered with biblical quotations and stickers such as, “I will make it in Jesus name.” The driver said, “God bless you,” to us
Non-busy end of main street
The colour has come out much nicer than it actually is: is fairly dusty and dirty looking. when we got out. Inspirational!
Apart from that, not much other news. There was a massive amount of wind and rain the other night and the power went out, and stayed out for most of the day. The rain has continued for the last few days. It has been bucketing!!...think we've hit the wet season. Katherine had to get a taxi to work this morning because it was so wet. I just got caught up in it and got absolutely saturated. I've seen more rain here in the last few days then I have in Oz for about the last five years.
We have some touristy things planned for the next three weekends. (Going to Mombasa, Gede Ruins and Lamu) Will tell you about them in the coming weeks. Last weekend we checked out the Mnarani Ruins, a 13th century mosque, which are about 10 minutes bike ride away. See pictures.
I’m just watching the lizards crawl around our walls and eat the insects flying around. Klein tries to jump up and eat the lizards. Another random fact is that I am really struggling without milk over here. Having to go from drinking litres of it per
Local supermarket and garage
Kilifi supermarket - pretty decent range. And garage - they can fix almost anything here with virtually no tools. Sorry it's a bit dark. day to none at all is quite (actually I lie. I have had some very warm, sour milk with the kids. Not very appealing). I have discovered that there's nutella in the fridge, though.
The kids are going well. They call me Brigi-Brig. One of them can't say my name properly, so he says Grigi-Grig. They've been back at school this week, so there's a bit more structure in the days. I have been teaching them some songs in English (they don't even seem to mind my horrendous singing) and in return they've been teaching me some Swahili. I promise I'll take some photos soon.
Anyway, that’s probably about enough. Hope you’re all well. Let me know any news.
Peace to your lovelies.
Love,
Brig
P.S. Stevie Wonder and Lee Lee coming over in July....WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!
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Justin
non-member comment
Important rules for first time pet owners...
Dogs and chocolate don't mix. (Good way to kill a dog if need be though). I am still scouring google to see what I can find that kills Nocholas'. Will let you know. Justin.