so i usually wake up around 7 AM to the sound of the cow - there is one who just moos her life away - and the pigs, maybe 20 of them, wiling out because they are being fed. i had no idea pigs are this loud. i would think the rooster would be the one i wake up cursing, but no, it's the pigs. the rooster just makes noise all day long, completely against anything i've ever thought of roosters. but hey, ive never lived on a farm before. so then i stumble out of my mosquito net, which i have carefully tucked into the mattress to keep creepy-crawlies out, grab a little bit of toilet paper and rush through the coffee bean trees to take my morning pee-pee. this is done in a hole in the ground that is called, in jest, "the hilton", which also includes the shower (the two are divided by some sheet metal). which is just the area designated for you to take your bucket into and wash up with. i've finally stopped saying "i'm taking a shower" because the word "shower" isn't exactly what i'm doing. anyhow, then i go to wash my hands out of the bucket of water - this one has a spigot though, thank goodness, though i have no idea where the water comes from - and look around on the ground for some soap. yep, i've found it and it's covered in mud. effective? i don't know, but i use it anyway.
the next task is walking the nursery school children to school. i don't know if they are supposed to be there at a specific time or what (highly doubtful), but we usually leave somewhere between 7:40 and 8:00, and arrive anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes after that, depending on how the children are acting. sometimes they walk incredibly slow, sometimes they have to pick up everything along the way. in the case of francis, sometimes he just feels like eating sticks, so that has to be thwarted. if it has rained and there are millions of those little frogs hopping about, the children have to throw rocks at them, and any chickens we see for that matter, and this can take awhile. afterward we sometimes have chai at margaret's hotel for 5 shillings, and maybe even mandazi (sweet puffy bread), also for 5 shillings. the hotel is two rooms, one with a bar that holds the case of mandazi and samosas and two tables to sit at, and the other where the magic of making this stuff happens. talking to her is nice, she has a daughter in university and it's interesting to learn about how loans work and how she finances putting a child through university.
if you skip margaret's, there is always the orphanage breakfast, which consists of bread and chai. i got smart and keep peanut butter stocked to eat because plain bread isn't that great. more recently there has been hard-boiled eggs too, but i don't know if that is a permanent deal. i eat the white for protein, even though there is a worm in my belly eating all my proteins (more on that later, when i get to 5'oclock fruit time) and give the yellow to whatever kid is running around. you might ask why we would pay for chai when it is offered for free at the orphanage, or maybe you already know the answer. there is a major difference in quality between orphanage chai and margaret's chai. i think they use powdered milk at the orphanage.
then it's usually time to get to work. this depends on what you have signed up to do for the day. for me it's typically field work with eric, which i have gone in detail many a time about previously. but sometimes is doing laundry, helping sort beans in the kitchen, cleaning the children's dorms, sweeping the dirt path, animal care and farming, going to the clinic, or going to the school. these activities typically wrap up between 1 and 3 when we eat lunch. lunch is always one of two things: beans and rice or gidtheri (beans and maize and whatever else is around, pumpkin, sometimes potatoes).
after whenever you eat lunch comes the lull in the day. the kids are still at school, so there isn't a lot going on. we can continue to help in the kitchen or with laundry, do our own laundry, bathe out of the basin, go to use the internet in kenol, go to makuyu and get fruits, take a nap, read, or whatever else we can find to do in essentially the middle of nowhere in kenya.
i've developed a creepy ritual which i like to call "5 o'clock fruit time". this is when i indulge myself in a fruit - i'll be honest, it's usually either a mango or a papaya. it's a long time to dinner and this is a good in-between snack. other snacks include, because there are millions here readily available for purchase at the nearest stall: samosas, mandazi, a million different types of sweet biscuits, all kind of nuts, suckers or other sweets. anyhow, five o clock fruit is what eventually has led to the sad state of affairs in my intestines called worms, though i don't regret one day of it.
around 5:30 someone rings a bell letting the kids know they need to wash their feet. this is something they do daily, wash their feet. bathing is necessary three times a week. anyhow, they have to be done by 6:30 (ring that bell again) to go to "school" where priscilla has some kind of lesson for them, or they are supposed to be doing their homework. then you know, you find something to do. i've really mastered the art of taking it easy and being patient.
dinner is somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30. so you go to ask grace if she wants help serving out the food sometime before 8:00. it all gets put into the bowls beforehand and laid out, so it can easily be distributed through the window from the kitchen to the dining (and everything else) hall when the kids are ready to eat. someone has to be sure they wash their hands before eating and also that they pray. this roar of a prayer is something that i will miss dearly when i'm gone. it also lets me know it's time to eat if i'm not helping serve. then we distribute the food and eat. it's either gidtheri, rice and beans, ugali and cabbage or beans, or, the best night, on friday it's chapati and green grams. the volunteers typically give a lot of their portion to the kids, who are incredible at sharing it, and also incredibly in that they are bottomless pits who can eat and eat and eat.
after dinner we have to make sure all the kids brush their teeth and are using their own toothbrush to do it. i'm sure there is nothing worse than grabbing your toothbrush off the wall where they hang only to find it's all wet, so this is an important job. this is also how we account for all the children, a sort of roll call. this can be quite a chore. sometimes the kids start dancing and singing for awhile, but in the end we always we hold hands and pray (the kids doing the lord's prayer is something else i will miss dearly), and then go to bed. i tuck myself tight in my mosquito net and dream sweet dreams until the pigs wake me up.
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