fourteen

So one of my favourite people in the whole wide world said to me, “Colleen, you’re always saying how much you love, but I want you to prove it.” What the heck? How am I supposed to do such a thing? I thought long and hard about this, and settled on writing the world’s best poem. It’s pretty much a masterpiece; so much so that I am unwilling to share it. I will say that it contains the phrase, “Your sweetness was revealed/I began to watch you at meals. I am a creep.

After graduation, tragedy struck Banani. That’s right. There was a huge bout of food-poisoning. It was awful. Everyone was vomiting and basically just dying. Luckily, I was spared. I think it’s probably because I love to eat sketchy food. I have trained my stomach to be made of iron, nothing can upset it. Watch, I’m going to get ridiculous food poisoning soon.

Back in October, Heather, Mei and I had bought chitenjes so that we could have dresses made. We took them to the tailor in Liteta and got measured and told her what we wanted. Well, a few weeks later we went to go and pick them up. Guess what? They didn’t fit. They were so baggy on top, they were unwearable. So we had to take them back and get re-measured. We went back a couple of weeks ago to try them on again. Mine was good this time, but Heather’s was still poorly fitting. So we waited for her to fix them. Now, though, we have beautiful chitenje dresses. I am so excited to wear mine. I love it a lot.

My girls left me on November 27. It was a horrible, horrible day and I almost cried. The night before, I was thinking about how much I would miss them, and especially Mutinta, and it made me sad. So I decided that the most logical step to take would be to make a playlist of all the sad songs I have and listen to them. What the heck, Colleen? Why do you do this? I told Krista and she sympathized with me, so I didn’t feel as strange. On Friday, I sat with them until they were gone. When Mutinta’s father came to get her, I was so sad. I walked with her to her card and hugged her sooo much. But you know what? She called me later that day and I was so happy. SO HAPPY!

That same night that my girls left, we had our cinema with the junior youth. Now, I was pretty pessimistic about this whole thing. They chose a movie that I did not approve of: Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squekual. WHAT! But, I was proved wrong. We made twice what we spent, K140 000. I was so happy for them.

A week after my girls left, all the girls left. It was a sad event, but not as sad as when my girls left. That same day, we had an end of year thing for the children’s class and junior youth. Two jy groups from Liteta came as well. It was actually really good. There was some training going on at the Institute, so we performed for them. Heather’s and my group performed “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent. Again, I was kind of dreading this. They hadn’t really been taking it seriously, and when we practiced they sometimes sounded awful. But, they pulled out all the stops for the performance and it was amazing. I was so proud of all of them!

LYLT