Saturday was the day we escorted our African friends to WinCo for food shopping! What fun! There is a group of about 25 professionals from all over Africa spending a month in Boise as part of the Washington Mandela Fellowship program. The program was started by Barack O'Bama in 2010. They represent all different countries from the Dark Continent. Interestingly, they communicated with each other in English since they don't know each other's home language! I had "charge" of three people - Aziza Lendino, a medical doctor from Ehtiopia; Benedicte Bama, a communications consultant from Burkina Faso; and Hamza Wasim from Nigeria. Hazim was a polio survivor, bound to a wheel chair. He's an entrepreneur (owns a car wash) and works as an advocate for people with disabilities.
They're all living in suites on campus. Since they'll be here for several weeks, a run to the grocery store was essential. We opted for the downtown WinCo for its most reasonable prices. ( I figured a trip to the fancy new Albertsons would give them the wrong idea!). I didn't sense that they were overwhelmed by the store, but they were "confused" as to why you need so many choices! After shopping we drove around downtown for a bit although traffic was all tied up due to Saturday market and the Africa festival (they were going to work over there in the afternoon). At some point while sitting in traffic, Hasim said," Hm, no horns. You're all so calm!)
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