Things That Make You Miss a Swiffer

I was reading another volunteer's blog yesterday and laughed when she described mopping her house. Her bedroom flooded, so she used your every-day basic American mop she had bought to clean up the water. Her Kenyan mama neighbors couldn't figure out what she was doing with that funny thing and why she wasn't just using an old towel. See, the Kenyan way to mop a floor is to put some soapy (cold) water in a basin, grab an old t-shirt or clothing item, and proceed to bend at the waist and hand-wash the floor. It's one advantage to having such small houses, I guess, that it doesn't take as long to mop, but it's still a super labor-intensive activity. Just like 99% of the other things Kenyan women do every day. So today I was mopping my floor Kenyan style (because there's no way I would find a real mop in my town) and I flashed back to cleaning apartments in Hawaii. There I used a Swiffer I carried around in my bag. Some of the apartments had such small areas of floor to mop that I used to just do it by hand with a Swiffer cloth rather than use the whole mop thing. Here, I would appreciate the whole thing, but I do feel like I'm assimilating as I drag a rag across my floors in full view of my neighbors.

While at homestay during training I witnessed someone in my family (either mama or one of the boys) wash our floors every day. Here since I live alone and don't make a lot of mess (and it's not the muddy, rainy season) I think that would be overkill. It seems that once a week will suffice (I can do it on Saturdays and use the rinse water from my laundry). However, yesterday some men delivered a few pieces of furniture and tracked up my floor, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to wash it today. Yes, I have a little bit more furniture. I'm including some pictures to show it off. The first picture is my bedroom. Other than the bed I have no place to put things, so stuff is stacked in piles or still in my suitcases for now. I sleep with my mosquito net down every night like the dutiful volunteer that I am (the net plus malaria meds is a requirement for all PC volunteers). My area has very few mosquitos and is not a malaria-prone area, but the net has other benefits. Just about the only kind of bug I do have in my house is spiders and lots of them, of all sizes and shapes. I sleep a lot more peacefully with the net down knowing that none of them will be crawling on me in my sleep!
Next is the bathroom. You can kind of get an idea of the "toilet." It does flush, quite violently, so I generally only flush when I really need to. I keep a bucket next to it and the rest of the time I just dump some water from the bucket in and that flushes it adequately enough. The room also serves as my bathing area. There is a shower (that pipe on the right goes up to the shower head) but it's only cold water. I prefer bucket bathing with warm. I can splash around all I want while I bathe and when I'm finished the water goes down the toilet. It's a pretty decent system.
The kitchen is small but functions. I was thrilled when I saw the sink. Running water anywhere near the house is a luxury, so to have a tap and a sink is extravagance! I'm keeping everything on the shelves until a cabinet/counter is made, so for now things are kind of just piled. I can't reach the top shelf, however, so I'm trying to only put things up there I think I won't need.Last is my mostly empty living room. The table is new and a luxury so I don't have to sit on the floor anymore. We've commissioned a couch and I have a coffee table, but it's in the kitchen being used as a makeshift counter for now. As you can see, the floor is bright red, the walls blue, and the doors and trim aqua. It's a very lively house. I didn't take a picture of the empty second bedroom and it's too dark to get a shot of the outside. It's funny that these are the first photos I've managed to get up, especially considering I'm probably moving next month and this won't be my house for long. But I like to see other people's environments so I have a mental image, so here's your glimpse into mine. The power just went out, so I'm going to cut this short before the laptop dies. Miss you!

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