One Month Anniversary

Well I have been at site now for four full weeks. The people in town seem to finally be understanding I may be sticking around for a while, not just passing through. This I can tell because they stare less overtly (though it's still pretty obvious) and the shopkeepers of the shops I like are starting to remember my purchases. Actually, yesterday one shopkeeper told me if I was staying for two years I should marry her son. That's completely logical: I chose to live in Kenya for two years to find a husband because there weren't enough choices in the US... I just laughed and told her I didn't want to get married yet, which is a completely foreign concept to people here.

Now that I've been doing this for a few weeks, I have fallen into a pretty set routine. Having a routine helps me to remember to do things like take my vitamin and it's comforting. Here's a typical weekday: I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 to use the toilet. I am super spoiled to have an indoor toilet, so I don't have to put on extra clothes to be decent like I would if I had to use an outdoor one. It's usually still dark at this point, so I go back to bed for a little bit. I don't usually sleep, just lay under my mosquito net and think about things. Since the malaria medicine I'm on induces such weird dreams, a lot of mornings I try to piece the ones from the night together and laugh at how strange they are. I get up sometime between 7 and 8, make my bed, and turn my computer on. I light my stove to heat water for coffee (yes, I got my hands on some fresh roasted and ground pure Kenyan coffee and it's delicious!) or hot chocolate and decide what I want for breakfast. This morning I made toast for the first time by buttering some bread and frying it in my sufaria (cooking pot), then scrambled some eggs. Other mornings I have Wheatabix, which starts out looking like mini-wheats and then I add warm milk and Rulison honey and it becomes similar to oatmeal. If I thought ahead to buy fruit the night before, I'll have pineapple or mango also. I check my email and write in my journal while I eat breakfast, then get dressed and pack the laptop to bring to work.

I leave my house around 9 and walk the 10 minutes through town to the office. Here is a picture of the front:


I say hello to Mary in the office next to mine as I unlock my door and unpack my things. This is my office:
I open the window to get some air, which means whatever music I listen to on my laptop competes with the blaring radio at the market stall outside. It reminds me, if I ever start to forget, that I'm in the middle of Kenya, but most of the time it's fine. It does serve a useful purpose: when the power goes out in town, the radio goes off, so I know to turn off my laptop, and when the power comes back on, so does the radio, so I know I can use my laptop again. Throughout the morning I do a mix of research for the co-op and personal stuff like writing and reading and memorizing. Most days there's not much work-related to do, so I'm trying to learn as much as I can and waiting for my boss to have time to give me things to do. I've visited several of our factories and the mill where our coffee is processed, sat through a couple meetings, read all of the reports and strategic plans, and brainstormed a lot, and still I'm not sure where to go from here. By 1:30 I'm starving, despite having chai and a snack mid-morning, and go to lunch, always to the same place, since restaurants in town are kind of limited. When I get back from lunch I study Kiswahili or read the news until 4:30. Then I pack up and go home.

I've started cooking dinner pretty regularly, but just about everything I make is two portions, so I am only cooking about every other night and having leftovers in between. If it's a night that I'm cooking, I usually stop at the market or a duka to pick up some produce for the meal. I was buying fresh milk (12 shillings/15 cents) for 1/2 kilo (about 2 cups), but I was saving the second cup til morning for breakfast and it kept going bad, so I finally gave up and just bought powdered milk. When I get home I put things away, change, and go for a walk. There is one road into town that splits on the other side, so that makes three choices for my walk. However, there is a dirt road across the street from me that I found about two weeks ago, and I love it. There are fewer people on it and it's beautiful because it winds through the countryside and past all these cool houses. It also gives a breathtaking view of Mt Kenya when it's clear. I don't usually bring my camera with me, so of course on the days I do the mountain is covered in clouds. The whole rest of the sky will be clear and bright blue, and the mountain will have a clump of clouds hiding it. So this is the mountain hiding:


Before I leave I will have a clear picture of it, I promise! At least I will try. I get home around 6 and cook and relax, so that I'm generally finished with dinner by a little after 7. I heat my water and take a bucket bath, then do a crossword puzzle and read and wind down until bed between 9 and 10. I just started reading Sense and Sensibility, so I read that until I can't keep my eyes open and then call it a night. It seems like I'm sleeping for a really long time, but I don't sleep here like I did at home, so there may be a lot of quantity, but it's not good quality. Then I wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

The weekends are my escape from routine. I usually go visiting other volunteers, which entails a lot of riding in matatus and eating and exploring new places, so I'm worn out by Sunday night. I spent this past weekend in Nairobi, which was an adventure.

I wish I had more entertaining things to tell you, but my mind is blank at the moment. Time is still passing in its funny longest-days-of-my-life-but-where-did-the-past-three-months-go? way. I still have way too much time to just think, which is leaving me emotionally exhausted. I'm used to being busy and physically and mentally exhausted, but this emotional stuff is new to me and something to get used to. I still think the other volunteers are probably the coolest people I've ever met and they help enormously to get through each week. I'm sorry that I don't get to spend more time with them, especially the ones out on the coast. My cell phone rate is 3 shillings per minute or 2 shillings per text message (outgoing only; incoming is free), and I went through 1,000 shillings in two weeks trying to keep in touch!

As I sit here wracking my brain trying to think what else to tell you, I see what time it is and think I should probably wrap this up. Miss you all!

love me