Tasty Caterpillars!

April 23, 2006
We slept until 10:30! It was nice to actually see light when we woke
up. Unfortunately, Monica's stomach decided to revolt, and she ended
up staying at home entering data, while Scott went in after lunch.
Lunch was a typically frustrating affair. We suffered through the
requisite 30 minutes of chatting before eating, but the "one person
serves all" thing was one step too far. Scott grabbed the bowls from
the cupboard and tossed them on everyone's placemats, while Monica
started serving us our own food.

April 22, 2006
What a rainy day! We spent our day towards the south of the ruins
watching the monkeys and came back to the office at noon for lunch and
data entry. We ate at our favorite burger joint in Gede (we discovered
the real name is not the "Greenland Café", which is next door, but the
"Mobil Mart Café"), and Monica ventured out to the egg sandwich, which
she thoroughly enjoyed. The rains moved in shortly after we returned,
and we ended up doing data entry all day, since the rain did not stop
until 5. It was not a bad change of pace. The fries and the rain hit
Scott, and he could not stay awake. He kept dozing off while reading
log book entries to Monica. She thought that no one could possibly
fall asleep while typing at the computer, so we switched. It did not
work, and Monica had a great time laughing at him as he kept falling
asleep on the computer.

The best part of the day was going to Comeback Club. We had seen Bango
advertised for months and were very intrigued to hear it. We came on a
good night. The band playing was the family that originated the Bango
sound. The band's leader and patriarch, Mzee Ndala, was also there.
Mzee Ndala is considered to be the father of Bango, which has, over
the years, brought in many musicians who play with the band and then
splinter off to create Bango music fused with hip-hop, rap, and
reggae. Bango itself has a salsa beat and the lyrics are almost
exclusively addressing couples in love.

At midnight we toasted Salim's 27th birthday! We were impressed that
the band was still on when we left at 2. We grabbed a taxi and headed
home. It was nice to be able to sleep in the next morning on our half
day off.

April 20-21, 2006
Not much to say. The monkeys have been enjoying the tasty
caterpillars. They usually grab them greedily from the trees, squeeze
the juice out (sometimes precariously close to our heads), and then
munch the skin with bared teeth. The caterpillars are everywhere now,
and Monica is completely disgusted by them. It does not help that they
try to avoid the monkeys by descending on silk threads, which results
in them dropping right to eye level, so they can get on your face or
fall in your hair/down your shirt. It's great fun!

April 19, 2006
Today we brought back the hard-boiled eggs ( now miraculously
transformed into tasty deviled eggs) to the triumphant victors of the
Easter Egg Hunt. Everyone enjoyed them quite a bit!