Two straight years with no fireworks.

Sigh... and I really really like fireworks.

I celebrated my 4th of July by going on rounds for two and a half hours this morning at the hospital and then closing up my used book stand in front of the hospital a bit early. I've been selling donated books to make money for the seminary, right in the middle of all of the fruit and soda and cell phone card vendors for the last week and enjoy it thoroughly. We are charging half of what books usually go for, and I've been able to generate some decent income for the seminary rather than having the books sit on the shelves at the bookstore they operate on campus. The lady who works at the bookshop absolutely refuses to leave the seminary to sell them, and so she probably sells about two books a month to the handfull of westerners who come and stay at the seminary. She is the daughter of the archbishop, so she doesn't have to do anything to make her paycheck. Nepotism is everywhere here and I'm beginning to get thuroughly disgusted by it, especially with how rampant it is within the church. So I will continue to do this woman's job for her on a volunteer basis until I return home. It really is a good time - I get to see a great variety of people and students from Maseno University, get to know what's happening at the hospital, and am really getting to know "the face of a corner" as the saying goes.

For further celebrations I plan to shower (although it hasn't quite been a week since my last one so there's no real rush in that department) and wash my underwear by hand in a plastic bucket. Exciting I know, but try not to let the extravagance of my celebrations detract from your own festivities!

How I spend my daytime hours...

So I didn't bother to haul out my 50lb box of books from Dr. Hardison's office just for the sake of this photo, but here is where I perch all day, getting premanent curb-butt and a stiff neck while half a dozen local chickens peck around my feet. I've been reading a book a day for free while I sit there, and get to talk to some pretty interesting people as they come and go, so it's a pretty great gig.

And here are the (mostly) angry produce sellers about five paces away from me across the street who all speak English but leave me out of the "in" crowd. I'm still nice though and warn them when the monkeys sneak up behind their stands to grab their avacados and run back into the trees. I've been warned to never take a camera out here because people are not impressed with mzungus taking pictures, so that is why I don't have a picture of me actually selling the books, and had to take these in stealth mode, even though they obviously caught me. The one sitting on the little stool is actually really friendly and came over as soon as I started setting up the first day to check things out. I buy bunches of miniature bananas from her (they are the size of a finger and oh so sweet - so much better than anything at home) and eat them throughout the day.

The little turn-off to the left is the hospital gate and where I sit for hours. In the distance you can see a group of Maseno University students heading back to their school's entrance gate, which is another half-block down.