Yesterday morning, Georges called me when I was with Yakham and Lamine, and when I hung up, Yakham was really upset... because he doesn't know Georges and doesn't trust him at all... says his intentions are unclear, etc, even though he's never met him and doesn't know my relationship with Georges. When I told him that.. and that I've known Georges longer than I've known them, he was pretty nearly offended, quoi. "You can't trust Kenyans. They only want your money. They do all they can to befriend you and then they get you in the end!" The interesting thing about the conversation is that I had nearly the exact same discussion with Georges the night before about Senegalese men. "You can't trust the Senegalese. All they want is your money. You think they're nice and then they turn on you." So who am I to trust? No one? Personally, I'd like to think that I'm a good enough judge of character to befriend who I want to befriend... and I think I'm strong enough to deal with the consequences. They all need to trust me to make my own decisions. I'm not as naive as they think I am... (A very frustrating conversation....)

I went to work to help out a bit, and one of my favorite talibés had /finally/ come back from Tabaski. It was soooo nice to see him!! Harouna. He's 18 and he's going to grow up into a really nice guy. He's gonna make some Senegalese chick really happy someday. Haha. We talked about Obama for awhile, how everyone was really happy... how I cried I was so happy. Haha. Fun conversation.

In the afternoon, I played guitar for quite awhile... I hadn't slept well the night before, so I needed to calm down and have some Stephanie time, and that it was really nice because I think people realized that, and they actually left me alone. No one came to listen or steal the guitar away from me (which is usually the case...). Then Lamine and I went to visit a friend of his, Ameth, another rapper, to burn a CD we'd gotten the other day. Ameth writes a lot of his own stuff and creates the instrumental lines behind it as well with software that he's downloaded. It's pretty cool. I don't really like the music, but I appreciate it for what it's worth. It's so fun to be around musicians!!!

Last night was the first night that I was with my family again since having moved into town. It was really nice to come home to them. They really do feel like my family here. The others are family because we're such good friends, but it feels more real with them... probably because I don't see them as much as the others... more like my real family in America, I guess. It's always great to come home. I also really like going on week nights. Everything is a bit more calm, they aren't running around cleaning the house; they're making dinner and relaxing after a long day at school... and I can join in on that (because they won't let me clean... I'm not orderly enough... haha).

Anyway, I talked a lot with Aida and Mami. It was really nice. They're so much fun. I also went over to talk to Adjou. Who knew that she'd become really quite a good friend? A confidante? I wasn't really expecting that. And then I got to talk to my real family on video chat!!! What?! How great was that?!

Okay, I'm out. Catch you all later.