A Day in the Life...

Well, I am pretty sure that I should have written this blog a long time ago, considering I am just about to leave Tumaini. I want to give a description of my day-to-day life during my stay here. It may seem boring to some of you, but I really want to create a visual the best that I possibly can.

Every morning I wake up at about 6:45 AM either to the sound of Rose praying, the cows groaning, or the chickens cackling. It is unlike any other way I have ever started my day. Sometimes, if I wake up later at around 7:30 AM, I will be loudly awakened by the sound of the children singing or laughing in the classrooms. School doesn’t officially start until about 8:20 AM, but all the students are instructed to get there early. Getting to school late will earn the children a minor caning. Oh the joys of corporal punishment. Anyways, I can hear them because the classrooms are literally twenty feet from my bedroom window. I would much rather wake up to the sound of innocent children enjoying life than to an alarm clock or cars honking their horns outside. I will always start my day by walking out to the outhouse that has a window looking out at the giant hill/mini-mountain in our “backyard.” That is all I will share about my daily outhouse experience. Be thankful.

Every Kenyan morning, with no exceptions whatsoever, involves “taking tea.” There has never been a morning where I have not taken tea. I am not a tea fan, but this tea has so much milk and sugar that I cannot get enough of it. It is delicious. I usually don’t get any food for breakfast. Every once in a while there will be some bread on the table. I have been living off of granola bars that were sent to me from America for breakfast. After taking tea, I will walk the ten seconds it takes to get to my classroom: class four. The morning classes always include English and Math. Each period of school is 35 minutes, and there will usually be three or four English and Math periods a day. I always start by going into the teachers’ office to collect the books for my lesson and say hello to the teachers. Teacher Baraza, Alex, and Headmaster Hudson have been three huge friends for me here. From 10:55 to 11:25 AM, we always have a tea break in the office. The children spend this time playing out on the field. I like to join them whenever possible, but the heat encourages me to stay inside whenever I can. In between tea time and lunch time I always use a couple of class periods to take the children out to play basketball. I can only describe those periods as madness. I have done my best to teach them the game, but they will always have their own version of Kenyan basketball. It makes me so happy to watch them play. You can’t help but smile thinking about it.

Lunch starts at 12:35 PM and goes until 2:00 PM. This is where I want to explain my diet here in Kenya. The staple food here in Kenya is ugali. It is their national food. Almost all of them literally eat it every day. This part is so hard to describe. I will show you pictures when I get home. I have received these descriptions from the people that I asked to help me describe it: ugali has the consistency of play-dough, it is grainy, it is like dry, white stuffing, and it is quite pasty. I liken it to dry, hard, grainy, pasty dumplings. I know that sounds delicious. I use a ton of seasoned salt on it. It is usually served with sukumawiki—a vegetable that is kind of like spinach. It can also be served with warm cabbage. Everything here is cooked in a lot of oil and cooking fat. The other meal we have during lunch is beans and maize. This is simply beans and corn, but the maize here is much tougher than our corn at home. I do not know anything about agriculture so I am not sure of the name, but the beans are just like the beans we would use in our chili. I like the beans and maize, but I still put seasoned salt all over them.

During lunch, I will almost always have some discussion with the teachers about America or Kenya. We like to compare and contrast different things about our countries. Towards the end of lunch, I will usually go out and run around with the children and give them high fives and play with them. They could give high fives all day long. In the afternoon hours, the classes are usually free for me to teach as I please. They are scheduled to be reading classes or creative classes, but while I am here they are games, coloring, or singing classes that often involve giving them sweets. This is the fun teaching time for me. School ends at 4:00 PM. The children assemble and listen to the teachers and headmaster for a while, and then they run home. Depending on whether it rains hard or not, I will either stay home for the evening or go to the orphanage. I love going to the orphanage. As I have said, I am very close to the orphans at this point in my trip. It will be very hard to say goodbye to them.

At the orphanage, I usually just go play and goof around with them. A lot of the time they have a chore to do like washing their clothes or fetching water, so I will just joke with them, tickle them, or lay in the grass with baby Doro on my lap. She loves to give kisses, hugs, and high fives. I usually stay two hours at the orphanage until they are served dinner at 6:00. Sometimes, as I have written, I stay the night at the orphanage. You have already read about those nights. I love the fifteen-minute walk home from the orphanage to Rose’s house. Many times the sun is setting, and you know how I love the Kenya sunsets. Everywhere I walk, I am approached by little children wanting to touch my hand or ask for money or a sweet. I must say their asking for money wears on me a little bit, but they are just so precious and are living in extreme poverty. I usually get home at about 6:30 or so. At the beginning of my time in Kenya, this is when I would take a shower. Taking a shower involves fetching water from the well, boiling it in the kitchen, and then going outside to shower in a little stall next to the outhouse. At the beginning of the trip, I showered almost every day. Let’s just say that I have become a lot more Kenyan during the last couple of months. The showers are not nearly as frequent now. Those who know me will not be surprised by this at all. One of the big problems is that it is so hard to do anything in the dark, and it gets really cold at night. I am trying to come up with as many excuses as I can.

Supper is usually served at around 7:30. We either eat ugali, rice, or plain spaghetti noodles as the main entrée served with sukumawiki, cabbage, or green grams. Green grams taste and appear very similar to peas. On special occasions we will get to eat chapati or meat. Chapati looks just like flatbread, but it is very oily and tough on my stomach. When we have chicken, the whole thing is cooked and served. I love it when the chicken head is starting right at me. For the first month, after supper we would just sit around the lanterns and play UNO, chat, and tell stories. The last month we have been using Rose’s solar power to watch TV. The 7:30 show is usually a Swahili comedy that I can never understand. The 8:00 show is always Pasion—a Spanish soap opera that is dubbed in English. It is hilarious, and it is one of the most corny television shows I have ever seen. We usually go to bed at 9:00 because the solar power shuts off, but every once in a while we will watch the Citizen News which is in English and usually offers some international news.

In preparing for bed, I always start by filling my water bottle with water so I can brush my teeth. I brush my teeth outside in the yard. It is usually really cold and clear at this time, and I love just standing outside and staring at the sky. I love praying during these brushing sessions. After I brush my teeth, I will always use the outhouse one last time and head to bed. I listen to music until I get tired, and then I go to sleep. I don’t know if it is all the water and tea I drink or what, but I almost always get up and go to the outhouse a couple of times a night. This is an ordeal because the door is so loud that anyone in the house can hear it. I think they are all used to it by now.

So, this is how I live here at Tumaini. Those are the normal days, but there are always changes in the schedule. There are days that I don’t teach, and I go into Kakamega to do some shopping or emailing. I just recently went to the town of Malava’s market on Friday where they sell all kinds of clothes and trinkets, and you have to bargain with them. As you know, Sundays are occupied by Sunday School, hanging out at the orphanage, and coming to the office to update the blog. When the children don’t have school, which is very rare, I will spend much of the day at the orphanage. Each day is filled with Hesbon time where we will pray, sing, and talk with each other. As you can see, a lot happens here. It is hard to put it all onto one blog, but I have done my best. I hope this helps paint a picture about what life is like here. This has been my life for the last two and a half months. It is not a bad way to live at all! I love it!