0720 (this is 1:20 AM in Swahili time): Alarm goes off. Mara and I lie in bed and stare up at the mosquito net. No, we do not want to get up.
0730: Mara and I get up. Tie up the mosquito net. I check to see how many bites I received during the night and the day before. The probability of me getting malaria has increased exponentially since arriving in the homestay. I don't know why the mosquitos like me so much more here.
0735: Greet our family. "Shikamoo, mama." Get our hot water for bathing. We alternate who goes first. I usually receive a few more mosquito bites here. There's nothing I can do about it since I'm washing all the bug spray off. I wash my hair with shampoo every other Sunday or Monday. I occasionally get it wet in between to make it curlier and to get the dust out. Mara and I often drop our soap on the ground and have to go back later with our knives and dig it out. Without fail, someone in our family will use the choo to do #2 while we are showering. Yes, we can hear it. Yes, we can smell it. (The choo and the bathing room are in the same area and share a wall.)
0800: Breakfast. The first day in our homestay this seemed like a positive experience because we had chapati and delicious chai. We still have delicious chai, but now our mama gives us ever increasing amounts of what is called vitumbua (or however it's spelled). Loosely translated, these are saucer-shaped fried dough things that are so greasy we can feel our insides wince when our eyes see them. At first we hated the flavor. They grow on you. They have to since it's all we eat for breakfast. The burned ones are the best. We've slowly been eating fewer and fewer so our mama gives us less. It's hard because that's all we have to eat for breakfast. But we're trying.
0830-1230: What we do here depends on the day. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we now teach at an English Medium school. So we leave at 0830 and walk for about thirty minutes to a school way out of our districts and split up into groups of two and teach about HIV in English. It's actually nice to teach in English instead of translating into Swahili. On days when we don't have teachings in the morning, we usually hang out and read or go to the market/tailor or come to the internet cafe. Sometimes we schedule other teachings. We had one scheduled today but then Raymundi canceled. Both Mara and I are not at all sad he canceled (this is the guy who treats us like we don't exist).
1230-1300: We usually have lunch around here. The meal varies. If we get speans, we usually know we're having that for dinner. The same goes if we get potatoes or the potato/banana mixture in the lovely pink sauce. We don't mind for those. We mind for the speans.
1300-1330/1500: We do different things depending on the day. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, we have a teaching at 1400. So we rest for a bit then head over at 1330. Other days we don't teach until 1500, right by our house. Rachel and Frank and Jarrod have lunch later than we do, so Mara and I often nap. I think we get the most sleep out of our entire group. Sometimes we read, but mostly we've eaten too much to do anything but go comatose. We're also working on getting our mama to feed us less food. I was losing weight when we got here, and now I'm gaining weight. Plus we eat a lot of carbs, which hold onto all the water we're drinking. Not a fun feeling. So we sleep it off.
1400-1700: We are teaching during these times. Sometimes teachings are good. Sometimes not so good. By the end of the week we are all really tired and burnt out. But we try to have good lessons.
1700-2000: We do a variety of things during this time. Sometimes we stop at the market to pick up ingredients for guacamole. Other times we stop at the tailor. We often meet up with people at the internet cafe. Once it starts getting dark, we usually head to Frank and Jarrod's for cassava. Their mama makes it outside to sell to people, so we buy a bunch, put some pilipili (pepper/sauce) on it, and eat and hang out. You can always find us there at that time of day. It's loads of fun. We play with the kids and just have a good time. Last night was so fantastic because many of the SIC employees were there and a few different groups came to hang out. There were tons of us and we were all having a good time. Frank and Jarrod's baba said he was really happy that we were all there; he really enjoys having us over. At about 1940, Mara and I head home for dinner.
2000: We usually eat dinner around this time. We have chai again (it's super sugary and delicious, but pretty sure we're all getting cavities drinking it). I have to limit myself to one cup anymore because it's too much liquid to have in your system. We hang out with our family for a little bit. We made the mistake of teaching them the thumb war the other day and now the kids always want to play when they see us! Leila is the friendliest and always excited to see us. She likes to teach us to read Swahili in the evenings and show us what she did in school.
2030: Mara and I head to our room. We've said goodnight to our family because we rarely do anything after this point. We hang in our room and read for a bit while our stomachs settle all the food and chai.
2130: We get ready for bed: go to the choo, brush our teeth, etc. Then we pull down the mosquito net and call it a night. This is also when the house comes alive and people are filling buckets with water from the tap outside our room. The random cousins and nephews that live with us do their laundry.
0200: The house is silent for a few hours. This is usually when Mara wakes up and has to pee really badly. Today, I woke up then and had to pee really badly. We try not to use the choo in the middle of the night. But sometimes you can't help but go. The nice thing about going at this time of night is that we don't have to cover our knees or our shoulders (both scandalous parts of the body). Usually we have to put in t-shirts and wrap khongas around us when we get up to go to the choo. But at night, no one's awake to see. It's a really liberating feeling to look at your knees anymore. You look down and say, "Who is this person?"
0430: The house wakes up again. If we're lucky, we don't hear it and we can sleep peacefully until 0730. If we're not, it wakes us up and we have to pull out our iPods to cover the noise.
0730: Start the day over again.
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