I'm Back!

Hi everyone,

       I am currently in Uganda, where my internet connection is infinitely better than the connection in Shikokho.  I went through three or four internet modems before I realized that the problem wasn't the modem; internet has just gotten significantly more difficult to come by in the village.  Case in point: to get anything on my phone I now must sit in my desk chair and hold my arm out at a very specific angle to get a signal.

       The first term of school is over, and we do not start again until May 7th.  I was in Uganda about a month ago and enjoyed it so much that I came back to spend the three-week break between terms.  Uganda is AWESOME.  Last month I went rafting on the Nile River!  More about that later, though.  For now, let me tell you about the riot I just escaped from:

       I arrived in Uganda's capital city, Kampala, last night and ventured out into the city for the first time this afternoon.  After a delicious meal at an Indian restaurant with a nice street view, I spent around an hour wandering aimlessly around the city.  I saw a few police vehicles speed by, sirens blaring, with several AK-47 wielding officers riding in the truck bed, but no one seemed in the least bit concerned so I kept walking.  Later, I thought I heard gunshots, but again, no one seemed phased.  A couple people glanced up towards the sky, which made me think maybe I was hearing construction somewhere...I mean, when was the last time you heard gunshots and people behaved as if this were totally normal?

       Probably the last time you were in Africa.

     Eventually I turn a corner and before I'm fifty yards down the road I hear what is unmistakably gunfire, and as if to confirm my suspicions, several people on the street turned tail and started jogging in the opposite direction.  Uh-oh.  I turned and jogged with them, stopping at the entrance to a small indoor shopping mall to ask the guard what was going on.  He answered that the Muslims were rioting, but he was not sure exactly why.  A woman on the street started gently pushing me inside the mall, saying "Get inside, they will grab you!"

Good Housekeeping

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***edit: this post was originally written a couple months ago.  Been having serious internet struggles!***

Hi everyone.  We’ve had some electrical/internet issues here in Shikokho, so this post is from about two weeks ago.  More coming soon!

            While my situation here in Kenya could definitely be worse, there are certain modern luxuries that I do miss.  For example, washing machines.  Doing laundry here takes a bit of planning ahead.  First, you must soak your clothes in a basin overnight to loosen up the dirt.  It is unwise to leave your clothes soaking for more than one night—I have found—because it leaves the fabric smelling foul.  It also attracts little flies that, for some reason, like to rest in the standing water.  I can only hope they are not laying eggs.  For these reasons, you must be sure that you will have the time and/or inclination to wash your clothes the next day, no matter how lazy you may be (but probably are) feeling.  The actual process of washing the clothes is not overly difficult or complicated; it just requires a lot of bending over and several trips to the sink (thank goodness this house has running water—however unreliable it may be).  After letting the laundry soak in a water/detergent mixture for 15 minutes or so, you are ready to start scrubbing.  At first I used a brush to scrub the fabric, but as the bristles pull too roughly at the threads I switched to simply rubbing the cloth hard against itself.  I’ve developed a pretty intense callous on the top knuckle of my right forefinger from the rubbing.  When the scrubbing is done, you must refill your basin three separate times to rinse the detergent out.  Then, all that’s left to do is to hang everything out on the line!  The great thing about laundry here is that I have no need to iron—the air is so dry and the sun so strong that my shirts and skirts dry too quickly to leave wrinkles.

            Last weekend was full of mundane tasks like this.  Since I have been here for over a month now, I decided that it was time to commit to my new home.  On Saturday morning I felt the strong urge to do something about my walls, which were covered in dirt (seriously, who got mud on their hands and then said, “Hmm, I think this wall is probably best place for me to wipe this off”??).  After hours of scrubbing the walls inch by inch—during which I listened to two separate movie commentaries from the Ocean’s 11 DVD—I was exhausted and only halfway done.  Sunday morning, due to the aforementioned incentives, I was forced to do my laundry.  This proved much more pleasant than usual, however, as Maxwell joined me out in the yard to wash the one shirt and one pair of shorts that he wears to school every day.  He is generally a quiet kid, so I was blown away when he began talking to me in terrific english (he made some mistakes, but never to the point where I could not understand his meaning).  He told me all about his old school and even showed me some pictures from a school field trip to nearby Kisumu—a city about one hour away on the shore of Lake Victoria.  It is also the area the Obama family comes from.  And here I’ve been thinking that he couldn’t understand me!  I showed him some pictures that I had brought from home and we chatted about other things like agriculture and the weather (both favorite conversation topics among Kenyans) while we did our washing.

Maxwell washing his school uniform