How many cows are you worth?

So, the teachers and I went on a field trip to see the locations where the new vocational and secondary schools for the deaf will be built. As we were walking around the site for the secondary school, an elderly man came up to us. He kept staring at me and asking the teachers questions. He was speaking the local dialect, so of course I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He went over and greeted my headmaster. They hugged and did some sort of tribal greeting. Then they turned their attention to me. My counter part, the nun, came up behind me to interpret…or at least tried to with all of the laughing. The man kept pointing at me and then pointing to his land, which was right next to the school’s plot. Everything on that side was his, he said. The cows, trees and land. They had me go shake his hand and then the two started talking againi. My headmaster would stop to interpret a few sentences every now and then. He kept asking me where I was from. My counterpart stood behind me telling me what to say in Swahili. Strangely, it was only the word yes…say ndiyo, say ndiyo. After about15 minutes, I finally was able to escape and get back on the bus. I had to let the teachers have their 10 minutes of all out laughter before I could find out what I kept saying yes to.. Apparently he has 2 sons in America and wanted to know how many cows I was worth so he could marry me to one of them….Im disowning my counterpart.
Well, Im off to bed. Im heading into Kisumu tomorrow morning for an early birthday present. Ok, one of my early birthday presents since the puppy is the other, which I will be getting when I come back. : ) Kisumu is the 3rd largest city in Kenya. It has movie theaters, pizza, Chinese and is very westernized. I think I will end up going into culture shock, but this time for it being too westernized. I’ll blog all about it when I come home. Have a good weekend everyone.