the guy who sold me five lemons and three limes for half a day's wage

19 October

Our kiswahili lessons are drawing to a close. I am able to conjugate reasonably fluent sentences in past present and future tenses, use all seven noun classes reasonably accurately and deploy a good variety of vocabulary – all in writing. However, I’m not sure I’m any closer to being able to negotiate a sensible price for five oranges down the market than I was ten days ago. I’ll find out later today as we need to practis e our language skills on real live people.

On matters of local culture and etiquette, we’ve learned quite a lot also. We know for instance that we ought not to blow our noses whilst eating, we should not put our feet on the table, we should show respect to older people and we should not sniff the food we are served. I know. My mum and dad told me all these things when I was young too!

What they didn’t tell us however, was not to wash our underwear and put it to dry in public. We, particularly the women amongst us, have been given detailed advice as to how and when and where we should wash our underwear. I wish someone had told the two African women on our corridor who insist on leaving their voluminous knickers on the towel rack right next to where I wash my face each morning. I’ve dried myself on them twice already.