Up in flames...

So yesterday, I got up bright and early and went to church with my host brother Felix and Mama Happyness.  The music was greta, but I understood absolutely nothing.  There was the long sleep-filled sermon and then the entire congregation got up to give a donation.  After that they auctioned off kitangas (Tanzanian cloth) and a pair of shoes to raise money for building the church.  Right now, the church is basically just a cinderblock building with wooden benches.  Pretty much, the auction was like half-time entertainment.  I was actually pleasantly suprised when chuch only lasted an hour and 40 mintues considering my friend Doug's experience a couple weeks ago when church lasted 7 hours.  After church, Doug came over and ate breakfast with my family.  After we finished breakfast, we went to Veronica's and sat in the shade while she finished her laundry.  Then, we picked up our friend Eric and went to the local market.  Going to the market is definitely my favorite way to practice my Kiswahili.  You just feel so good about your skills because everyone is so excited that the whitie can speak Swahili at all.  I even ran into some of my students from my school and talked to them for a bit.  We then went back to Veronica's and Eric, Veronica, and I cooked lunch.  We made guacamole, chips, sauteed potatoes, and an omelet.  The chips we made were from plantains.  We sliced them and fried them in oil and they were pretty much the greatest thing ever.  The potatoes we sauteed with pepper, salt, and fresh ground cumin.  In the omelet we put onions, pili pili hoho (bell pepper), to tomato, and spinach.  Over everything, we poured pili pili sauce (just hot pepper sauce) that Veronica's host sister made.  Overall, I was pretty impressed with the way everything came out.  The most entertaining part of the day happened right before we cooked the omelet.  We washed a bowl and put it on the jiko (charcoal stove) to let the water sizzle off.  Well, there must have been grease or something on the bowl because all of a sudden, the entire pot went up in flames.  Veronica pulled it off the jiko and I was doubled over laughing.  The flames were huge, like almost as high as our heads at points.  She kicked to bowl and it skidded across the floor, coming to rest beside a wooden table with a tablecloth hanging off.  I grabbed the bowl and put it away from anything flammable.  We were looking for baking soda when Eric decided that flour would work-WRONG.  That just made the flames even bigger.  We then just decided to ignore the "don't use water to put out a grease fire" rule and problem solved.  The pot was pretty charred, but still usable and thankfully, Veronica's host sister had run to the store so we still had our pride.  By the time we ate and cleaned up, the process had taken 7 hours.  It had been a long day so Vero and I went to the bar with our friend Colin.  There, over beers, we had a long discussion about how Physics is far superior to Chemistry.  Essentially, they believe that Chemistry is the bastard child of Physics.  Overall, a good, but exhausting day.