mambopoasafihabarinzuri

hi!
i don't even know if you read this anymore because i write less frequently and have been here for a while now... but let's see. there must be something that i can tell you.

i had a good weekend. friends with s again and his friends. spent time with all of them this weekend. a slept at my place this weekend. i think it's because s's cousin ro is staying with him for the month, and i bet she's scared to sleep there when a boy has to sleep in the room with her, since the bad thing happened. ro's really nice though and i'm sure there's nothing for her to worry about, but i understand why she'd be uncomfortable...

went and played pool/mostly watched her and ro play pool on saturday afternoon and then we went out with others after hanging out at s's apt for a little bit. one kind of weird thing happened that ended up being joke. i was talking to ro's twin brother for a little bit, then basically they all started lying and saying that one person had aids, and then that person would say another person has aids. then ro's brother pulled out a piece of paper that was his hiv test results that said negative. that surprised me a little bit. but maybe he had just gotten tested so happened to have it with him. i don't know if what i just wrote sounds confusing, but i don't really feel like explaining- anyways, it all turned out to be joke and they were all lying to see who could be more convincing or something. it wasn't a funny joke- more confusing than anything else.

one thing i realize but don't like about being friends with people from here is this assumption of money and sometimes i feel put in a funny position. with friends, i don't mind and i feel comfortable explaining how i feel...but i don't like it when friends of friends just openly ask for money. one of a's friends texted me yesterday implying that she had to ask me a favor, but we're not friends at all and have spoken almost never. i'll have to learn how to say no i guess, but i know that i'm going to hate it.

it's a totally different attitude about money here..it's common for girls to go out with people etc. all because of the money (having things paid for or actually getting money)...it's kind of sad but people really don't have money so i guess those things seem relatively harmless. ro showed me pictures of him and his twin brother as guides for mt. kilimanjaro with two women. and one of them was his 43 year old girlfriend from finland and she paid for 2 years of his university... he was kind of laughing about it but it was true. and i guess the brother was the boyfriend of the other woman who was 38. ro and his brother are both one year younger than me.

so i think i'll be in cleveland for the next four years... social work and law..should be pretty exciting. i hope i can do it- i'm bad at staying in the same place for long time, and i'm bad at realizing the importance of things that i should...

there's a new person from canada that'll be coming to live in our house next month and he'll be working here too, so we'll overlap one month.

going to zanzibar mid next week for that conference and then will come back thursday night so that i can make it to j and sg's wedding next friday.

housemate a was sick with amoebas last week..now she's better.

hope everyone's doing well! love, ganga