Sunday, February 1, 2009

Monduli - The house

Jan 15 - 24
I was staying with my aunt in a house with 3 other volunteer teachers (2 American guys - Peter & Hunter and an Irish girl - Jane). These volunteers were great fun, and created quite a crazy household. The house, in a beautiful setting, was about a 15 minute walk up a hill (or an extremely bumpy drive) from the town centre and had a lovely view back down the valley. It was a bit weird getting used to no running water. There was a small tank out the back filled with local bought water that needed to be boiled before dinking. The first thing Peter taught me was "how to have a 'bucket shower", which I became quite efficient at. At the end of the day, we'd be covered in dirt and dust, especially our feet, so a rinse off was very needed! There were 2 outside squat toilets and 1 indoor - which we refrained from using as it was quite smelly. I must admit, squatting wasn't that bad, and actually seemed alot more natural!
Each bed had a big mosi net attached to the ceiling - malaria is a real problem.
Part of the household was the cook Mabillie - who was a delightful local girl with a huge smile and alot of joy. She spoke English quite well, but enjoyed teaching me Swahili. She had a beautiful baby daughter. I went for a few walks around the area of the house - which was mostly up hill. Lots of farm land around. There were always little kids about, and they would giggle as I walked past, and no matter what time of the day, they'd call out 'goodmorning'. Or they'd shout out 'Wasungu' which means 'white person' and laugh their heads off! A few times I would pull faces at them and do a little weird dance - and they thought it was hilarious. Another crazy wasungu.

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