Maji on my kichwa

Thought I would blog again today since I have had some down time and my CBT is so close to the Internet cafe. The past few days have gone well. Saturday I did laundry the "real" way for the first time. This consisted of putting my whites in a bucket (ndoo) with a disproportional amount of water to soap (about 1:3). After scrubbing, I kid you not in this order, the collar, armpits, waist and the rest of the shirt well, you then place it in water to rinse, ring it out and let it dry. If you try to stray from the order, you will be asked if you have actually washed the article of clothing. After all my whites were done I naturally progressed to washing my darks. (It would be good to note here that kangas will bleed the first time you wash them.) The whole washing process start to finish took me about an hour and consisted of me laughing at myself and my neighbors watching me.

Sunday was our first "day off" in a while and some of the volunteers met up in town for lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with my host family. They speak in Kiswahili to each other, so most of the bonding I do with them is listening and trying to follow their conversations. At one point during the afternoon I overheard them talking about the lack of water and the current drought that the area around here is experiencing. My host brother and sisters then rounded up some buckets and kangas and started to head for the door. I quickly inquired into where they were going, to which they responded, " you sit and rest, you must be tired". Not wanting to be left behind, I asked where my bucket was and said that I drank the same amount of water as a large camel everyday, so I should be helping to get some too. When we got to the well I realized that my family members had brought the kangas for the space between their heads and the buckets. So needless to say I walked home with water (maji) on my head (kichwa). The walk home was about 1/3 to 1/2 a mile and my host family members periodically asked me if I was tired (unachoka?). When I got home my host mom's little sister, Mam dogo (little mom), was actually shocked that I was able to carry the water, even though a lot of it ended up on me... still haven't figured out the graceful bucket-on-head swagger yet.

Yesterday in place of language class we had a cooking class. My CBT group members and I spent from about 10 am to 2:30 pm preparing a meal that consisted of chicken, rice, ugali, tomatoes & onions, pea medley, banana bread (our American dish) and a couple of other veggies. The only problem with the preparation of the meal is that it included the killing, plucking and dissembling of two chickens. The cooking also included a lot of fire lighting, since things are usually cooked on charcoal stoves, and tons of smoke. After the preparation of the meal I decided that when I move to my sight meals are going to have to be very very simple because even preparing rice can take about an hour (the rocks have to be taken out, the rice has to be soaked, the fire has to be made, the water has to boil and the rice has to cook).

Everything else seems to be going well and I feel like communicating with my host family seems to be getting easier everyday. I am looking forward to teaching in the school we have been studying at starting next week! Hope things are going well stateside. Will try to blog as often as I can! Miss you all! Oh...also Facebook message or email me if you would like my cell number here.