A Typical Day in Kisumu, Kenya

6:30am: There's a rooster crowing and the sun is coming into my open air room. I hear pots and pans clanging as my host sisters prepare water over a fire for bathing and breakfast.

7am: I finally sit up in bed. My back usually hurts because Kenyan mattresses are often cheap, so they bend in the middle. When I actually get out of bed, I have to untuck my mosquito net - Kisumu has frighteningly high malaria rates. I go into the sitting room and greet my family:
"Good morning!" "Good morning to you!" "How was your night?" "Oh, mine was fine. How about yours?" "Very fine thank you."

7:15am: There is a bucket of heated water ready for me in the stall outside the house. I gather a khanga (printed cloth with African patterns and a Swahili proverb printed on the back) to use as a towel. I scrub off, although my feet never come clean from the "black cotton soil" that is present here. Back in the house I apply 100% deet and sunscreen each and every day, seeing as I live a few kilometers from the Equator - this is not the most forgiving climate.

7:45am: Breakfast. Banana stew, peanuts, or bread. Rarely anything else. Tea, of course.

8:30am: Caleb, my boda-boda driver, arrives. He can arrive anytime from 8:15-8:45 though because he doesn't have a phone or a clock of any sort. He doesn't know English and I don't know much Luo (yet) so our friendship, and our conversation, has hit a wall. I get on the back of his bike and we ride to work, which is farther out of town. I am, of course, greeted by call s of "mzungu!" and other various versions of hello.

9am: The office is supposed to open at 8 but in Kenya, time doesn't mean a whole lot. So if the office is locked, I go to the main house. Tea number two and possibly another margarine sandwich on cheap white bread. If I'm lucky there will be mandazi, which is deep-fried bread from scratch, sort of like a donut.

9:30am: Moses, my supervisor, arrives. We work (a whole other blog post on what I do and don't do at work).

2pm: Lunch! Finally! By this time I am usually starving. Same thing every day at work: ugali, kale, and often eggs. My co-workers have discovered that I can pray really well, so now I always pray for our food (I actually can't eat without praying now, it's become such an automatic reflex). A woman comes around with a bucket and a pitcher of water to wash our hands. No soap though, so I'm not sure how helpful it is.

5pm: The day of work is over and I call Duncan, another boda-boda driver. The same story as before: lots of greetings on the road, and lots of greetings in the house. If I get home quickly, I'll have two hours before it's totally dark. Usually I'll sit with my family, talk to Velma and Winnie, and watch the chickens and goats, and play with the dogs and cats. Easy entertainment.

7pm: It's dark so the mosquito army has invaded. Prime target, my ankles and feet. We tretreat inside to attempt to work by the light of parafin lamps. But it's dim and you've been sweating all day, so I get woozy quickly in the dark. Usually I'll help Winnie cook in the kitchen, which is another building next to the main house.

8:30pm: Dinner! The hand washing and praying commence again. The cooking in this house is good, but there is very little variety. The Menu:
Beans and Chapati
Beans and Rice
Ugali and Meat
Ugali and Fish
Ugali and Eggs

9pm: Everyone quickly heads to bed. By 9pm it is pitch black and I'm exhausted. I happily crawl into my dipped bed and thoroughly tuck in my mosquito net and get settled before I do it all again tomorrow.