Mmmm... pudding

Since today was Jackie's birthday, I had to try to figure out something a little special to do for her. It's pretty hard to think of exciting things to do for one's birthday in a place like this! So we took her out for dinner at a restaurant of her choice - a new one that we've never tried before. And it was actually quite good. Nice chips, and it was quite posh decor, as well. There was even A/C!

Including paying for Jackie's food between three of us, the bill came to about $15 each, so it wasn't even all that pricey! I think we'll be going back there - in fact, we'll probably stop there for lunch on our way to the airport on Sunday! Yup, I'm going on a trip! Whoo hoo! Two and a half weeks in Nairobi for some meetings. Should be interesting - I got a list of the participants for the conference today by email. Some of the folks are old friends of mine from other literacy courses that I've helped to facilitate in the past, and some are people who's names I've heard about or read about but have never met. And most of them are Africans who are in leadership positions in literacy programs in their respective countries. So I'm really looking forward to the meetings, and sharing info and ideas with them.

I'm always a little awestruck at conferences like this - I'll be right in the thick of things with people who are so much more experienced than me! Most of the people going are in real leadership positions in their countries; I just get to go basically because the two of us (me and Jackie!) make up the entire literacy department of our organization here in this country! But I am so thankful for all these opportunities that keep getting thrown my way to rub elbows with these highly experienced and respected people all the time; I know I'm going to learn a ton over the next few weeks.

Oh yeah, right, I was talking about Jackie's birthday. I didn't get any photos, but I managed to make a really nice chocolate pudding for dessert this evening. I was going to make a cake, but it ended up that we didn't have enough flour. Plus, it was 37C in the kitchen this afternoon, and turning on the oven didn't appeal to me, either. So I went through the "More with Less" cookbook (thanks, Carla!) and found an easy recipe for chocolate pudding. Yum yum! It was a great dessert, especially since Annamarie had the brilliant idea of spooning it over bananas.

So even though most of today was spent sweating and staring at the computer screen and trying to reformat a book in Word, which was a horrible mess of mixed styles, wrong page sizes and strange spacing, a nice dinner with friends and a good bowl of pudding has ensured a very happy ending!

And now I have to go turn off the generator. Goodnight.