Monday, December 15, 2008

A Day in the Life...

Well I'm in Kenya. Have been for about five weeks. I'm not sure exactly what to tell you, so maybe I'll run through a (sort of) typical day here in training.

The sun rises at 6 am year round since we're right on the equator. I get up soon after. I'm staying with a family of a mom, dad, and four boys ages 6, 13, 15, and 16. They're on break from school this month, so they're usually around outside somewhere. I spend some time writing in my journal or getting my language notes together while my bathwater heats on our kitchen fire (outside across from the house). I visit the pit latrine (translation: outhouse with a hole in the floor to serve as my "toilet") as our farmhand milks our three cows. When the water is hot, I take a bucket bath. Think camping without a shower house. My "mama" usually has breakfast waiting by the time I'm dressed, so I sit with my "dad" and eat bread with margerine and a banana and drink tea and fresh boiled milk. We usually have the tv on (yes, we have electricity, so we have lights, a tv, and an outlet to charge our cell phones, but we cook all our meals over a wood fire. Welcome to Kenya!) and I listen to the news in Kiswahili. I am starting to be able to pick out random words and phrases, but by no means can I follow what they're talking about.

By 8 I leave for language class. There are 40 volunteers in this training session, and we are broken up into four or five person groups for language classes. Our primary method of transportation is by foot, so I walk down our path and along the road to another volunteer's "house" for class. I used to feel like I'd accomplished something when I walked the two miles to and from my gym in Hawaii. Here, two miles is my short walk to class. Funny how your perspective changes! We study language for the rest of the morning, then head into town for lunch. We eat at one of the restaurants, usually beans and rice or an omelette with veggies mixed in. The food is not bad (except for the meat, which is tough and or fatty or full of cartilage and gristle), but it's pretty bland. There are a few places that serve fries, and that's a luxury to have once in a while.

After lunch we meet again at 2 for technical training. The 20 of us business volunteers meet with our trainer and talk about the projects we've been assigned. We each got partenered with a local business, so we have to meet with them to get a feel for what we may be doing at site. My group is an HIV/AIDS support group that sells beadwork for extra money (like about 20 other groups in town). I'm finding the work a little frustrating, but I think it's a good preview of what I may experience at site. When we're done meeting, we usually go back to a restaurant for more chai and to relax or to someone's house to play cards. We all need to be home by dark, which here means 6:45, so we have a limit to how much hanging out we get to do. When I get home I spend some time reading or studying until dinner, which here is served anywhere between 8 and 9:30 and then straight to bed.

This has become routine for training, but things will be turned upside down when we get sent out to our real assignments. I'm looking forward to settin up on my own and managing to take care of myself. I'm also looking forward to finding out what my assignment will be, but that won't happen until the first week of January. I miss the U.S. and everyone all the time, and am sad to be missing the holidays at home. Mom has my address if you want to send cards, letters, or surprises! I probably won't try to blog again until I'm at site (so after Jan 9), so don't expect to hear from me before then. I do check my email about once a week, so feel free to write!

love me.