Okay, I am outing a friend but she has been duly warned before hand!

I truly love my friend Sheila who is originally from Kenya. She is incredibly brilliant, funny, caring and as addicted to dancing as I am. And that is where this story begins.

You see, she and I find a way to dance almost every weekend. The last couple we haven’t for one reason or another. So it was a given that we just needed to dance this weekend. Thanks to our other dance co-conspirator, Erin we found out about a Dance Battle taking place at Alliance Francaise. After what had been an incredibly busy and stressful week for all of us we were eagerly looking forward to it.

Sheila and I had planned to meet for dinner before hand so we could have some time chatting and destressing before heading to Alliance Francaise for the main event.  After what was an enjoyable visit we decided to walk to the event from the News Cafe where we had eaten.  As it is not that far we decided to walk it instead.

Less than two minutes into the walk, Sheila fessed up. Like me, she is tends to carry a very large purse with a multitude of items within. So I really can’t be judgmental but in this case I definitely am, or at least highly amused.

As I mentioned before Sheila is from Kenya which is an African country like many others that has gone through tough economic times. In fact, Sheila through her employment is able to send significant sums of money home to assist her family. She is highly budget conscious and a genuinely caring person. Oh, can I also add as a tiny woman, she loves to eat. In fact, when she comes for lunch or dinner at my  place she almost always leaves with leftover for her to enjoy at a later time.

So as we were walking she started to complain about how heavy her purse was. Knowing that she had not gone home after work I suspected that her purse was full of work items. Oh, so not true!

Here is  a sample of what she was carrying in her purse:

• a couple cobbs of cooked sweet corn
• diphaphatha (flat cakes) 
• chocolate cookies which I had baked for her early in the week
• shower soap
• lotion

No wonder it was heavy! Needless to say that I abused her all evening by telling her that we need not have paid for supper we could have just eaten it from her purse 🙂 And if we got hungry during the dance battle and dancing afterward, no problem.  We had ready access to food.

So women, what do you carry in purse? I know that we all are guilty of carrying bizarre items in there at some time or other. But I am still giggling because I discovered my friend Sheila is always prepared with a meal in her’s!