Alright. So. Breakfast. White bread and margarine. Fruit from the shamba (farm) also... usually bananas. Yum.

Monday through Friday I have language class from 8 until 11. Some days, me and three other volunteers in my village have class at the shamba accross the road; some days we wak to the next village (about 3-4km) so that we can have more time for language before technical session. From 11-1, we usually have a technical session with about 10 other volunteers from surrounding villages. We talk about... mmm... nutrition for PLWA (people living with AIDS), water purification, community entry techniques, etc... and then we usually walk to town (another 2-3km) for lunch. After lunch, we meet again for another hour or two of language and then I either go back to town (if I want to get groceries or check my email), meet other volunteers for a beer, or just go home. Anything I do after class in the afternoon must be completed by around 5:30 so that I can walk home before it's dark.

Usually when I get home, Mama and Baba are busy on the shamba (after having worked at their respective schools from around 8 in the morning until 4 or 5); I always jump right in and offer to help Mama cook dinner (which, when you're using a coal jiko, fire and sometimes gas, can take up to 4 hours). My Mama is incredible in the kitchen-- she sits on a tiny wooden stool about 6 inches off the ground and is so graceful, moving back and forth from pot to pot (on the floor), chopping things using her hand as a cutting board and not spilling or dropping a... drop. I've never seen her cut herself or burn herself, for that matter... but every night, she chops--tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions-- and picks up pots of boiling water, milk, stew, vegetables, WHATEVER with her bare hands. It blows my mind.

We usually sit down to dinner by 8 or 8:30... at that point, it's BLACK outside (though the sky lately has been beautifully painted with stars) and we are cooking by lamp light. My house has a few solar powered bulbs, so when it's been sunny, we can use those (only one at a time, though). We eat infront of the (solar battery powered) TV. We only get one channel-- KBC, Channel 1-- so... that is what we watch at, as I mentioned the other day, a ridiculous volume. Still don't know why.

Mamas in Kenya REALLY like to feed guests, so... whatever we eat, it is imperative that I eat at least two heaping bowls full... and I have to drink at least one cup of Chai afterwords. Baba keeps telling me that Chai is "just water", but... something about the whole milk (from our shamba's cow) and sugar makes it pretty heavy. Call me crazy :) The food in Kenya is "sweet" as we say ("delicious", "tasty", etc = "sweet" in Kenya); it's totally fresh and natural (before it is fried in vegetable oil and served with a pile of starch). Starch is HUGE here, and I'm understanding now that it kind of has to be, because everyone walks 10-20k a day.

Anyway, I usually go to sleep by 9:30 because, well.... that's what there is to do after dinner. Then I wake up, and do some version of it all over again.

I'm about to get booted off the i-net (again), so I have to wrap it up. I'm off to Nairobi tomorrow (wahoo!) and we find out our future sites on Monday (eek!). I will be back next week with a lot more information (hopefully) about what my life will be like for the next two years!

Love and miss,
H