Excerpt
Kwale, May 31
Dear Hilary,
This business of having to write letters to keep up friendships definitely
separates the wheat from the chaff. You are the wheat. (That would be the good
part?)
Our new neighbor, Mwanamisi, came over last night to show me how to make coconut
rice, wali wa nazi. Kate, you say, but you already know how to make
coconut rice! Yes, I say, but I don't know how to make friends. So David and I
were rushing around trying to make reality match what we had probably said in
Kiswahili. (I think we said we'd 'already' cleaned the rice and we 'were doing'
laundry.) Mwanamisi arrived midway through the coconut-milk-making process and
was chatting with us about how to cook it really well, soft and sweet. As far as
I could tell, she was complimenting me on what I had done so far, except there
was one little part that I didn't catch, and her tone was less spunky, so I
figured I probably didn't put enough salt in or something. But, all in all, I
was pretty excited at not being totally incompetent at cooking.
Later, I checked on that verb to figure out what I'd d ... read full excerpt from: Dear Exile ebook
