This week has begun the start of some amount of normalcy. I am following a routine, and while each day brings new challenges (or, should I say, opportunities), there is a structure behind the madness. Here’s the basic breakdown:
I wake up every morning at 6:45, take a bucket shower and get myself ready, and go to the sitting room, where there is tea and bread already waiting for me. I take the food by myself before Momma Mary or I call my bodaboda driver, Steve. Steve works as a cook at Mahiakalo and on the side as a boda driver, so he takes me everywhere. The ride to work is a quick 3 minutes straight down the road. Definitely walking distance, but I’m still slowly building up the confidence my host mom has in my independence. I walked out the front gate all by myself yesterday. Maybe I’ll be walking to work next week.
Once I get to work, there is no sort of routine. We deal with issues as they arise, whether kids are sick and in the hospital or monthly monetary gifts from sponsors need to be sorted and spent. We take tea any time between 10 and 1 and lunch between 1 and 5. (Yes, one time I had my lunch break at 5 pm and went straight home afterwards.) We eat lunch when lunch is ready. A few things are consistent, though: gospel music blaring out of Mark’s office, 19 to 21 year-olds out of high school hanging around and helping out, rain in the late afternoon that requires us to stay until whenever it happens to clear up, the tiniest mouse I’ve ever seen always scurrying between and around the offices. I think Mahiakalo CDC needs a cat.
I usually get home around 5:30, when my host mom, host dad and I take coffee. The TV is on playing awful foreign soap operas with English dubbed over, and my host dad offers me Nation, the national Kenyan newspaper, to read. After coffee I have some time to relax, and I’ll stay in the living room and chat with my host dad, read from my Kindle, or entertain the 2-year old. Then I will help my host mom prepare dinner, which ALWAYS involves a few fresh tomatoes, an onion, and some garlic. (I’m starting to get good at cutting vegetables and spices! As for making chapati or ugali, that will take some more practice…) We eat dinner around 8:30, just in time to catch Soy Tu Duena- a soap favorite of all the interns. After dinner I have some time to myself, where I do my “work”: emails or blogging or facebook. By 10 I start getting myself ready for bed, and all the lights in the house are out by 10:45, leaving plenty of time for sleep The noises at night (and in the morning) don’t bother me anymore, so I sleep soundly. And then starts another day.
Having some sort of template for the day, having reasonable expectations, has been quite a relief. I feel like I’m settled in. And while I’m still the mzungu who is so often viewed as an outsider, I’m feeling less and less like a guest and starting to become a coworker/family member. I still have a lot to learn, and I’m still almost constantly pushed beyond my comfort zone, but it’s a process that’s making progress.
Here’s to a few things that have made this week unique:
I spent a good part of three days with the 19-21 year old kids getting certified in first aid.
I visited a public hospital (to check up on and pay the hospital bills for one of the children who had fallen sick) and was surprised to see beds lined up two feet apart from each other, two patients to a bed. The girl we came to see was terribly sick with malaria, sharing a bed with a non-responsive young girl, and six visitors crowded close to the bed with nowhere to sit.
I danced to African gospel music with Truphosa and Annette, two 19-year-old girls at Mahiakalo, for about 45 minutes before first aid lessons started. The rest of the kids sat around the classroom laughing and taking videos. I perhaps made a fool of myself.
In first aid lessons we have short breaks they like to call “energizers.” We played this game where you sing a short song called “Fishers of Men” and the Females sit down and the Males stand up when you say a word starting with F, and vice versa with a word with M. I had played this game the Saturday before without it being explained to me- now I understand why the primary school kids thought it was so hilarious when I was standing and sitting opposite of the two female teachers next to me. Oops.
The most common word I hear around home is “chapa.” What does it mean? “I’ll beat you.” Yes, as in beat you up. It’s always directed at the “naughty” two-year-old.
The 5 month old cat likes to follow me into my room (or meow outside of my window until it gets bored or I let it in) and cuddle. I was so close to saying it didn’t bother my allergies, as just being in the same room hasn’t given me any issues. But judging by the current redness of my eyes, I am very much still allergic. (Although that is my own fault for being ambitious and actually petting the cat. Then rubbing my eyes.)
The power has gone out almost every night since Monday for 20 minutes or so, except for tonight when it was out for 2 hours. Just makes me all the more glad that I have electricity most of the time!
3 of the past 4 nights my lunch menu has been identical to my dinner menu. Purely coincidental but I found it amusing. (Today I ate ugali and sukumawiki, a green leafy vegetable. Then I had more ugali and sukumawiki. Yesterday it was rice and beans. And rice and beans. You get the picture.)
Now that it’s just past 11 and way past my bed time, I will get some sleep. And happily get on with my routine tomorrow. J
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