Do It Yourself: Curtains

Today I’m going to be fitting some curtains on some bare windows in my shack in Tala, Kenya. One window in particular, in the hallway leading to the bathroom, is quite scary to walk by at night when it’s light inside and dark outside; only God knows who is outside peeking in. I have nice bars on my windows, so I’m not afraid anyone’s going to break in, but it still creeps me out!

I went to the market and talked to a few fundis (“fundi” is the Swahili word for someone with a trade, like plumbing, tailoring, etc) about making some simple curtains. I don’t need anything special, as this place is pretty much a bachelor’s pad since Sara left (haha). I was quickly directed to the area of the market where all America’s old crap goes. After digging through the piles of old clothes, sheets, etc I found a large curtain that would fit the bill. I handed the lady 180 shillings ($2.50) and I was off!

As soon as I returned home I set to cutting up the fabric with my knife… yes, this is the knife I bought last summer after watching Man vs. Wild eat a zebra in the bush in Kenya. After having a hell of a time trying to use the knife I whipped out my hair cutting scissors and got the job done a lot quicker. By the way, if you’ve seen the pictures from my haircut last week you know those scissors are capable of doing some serious damage! Yes, mom, I know the curtains are crooked!

So in the end I took one good curtain and created three small, crooked “curtains.” At least the window in the hallway is covered because that one is scary as hell at night!

That’s all for now, but keep your eyes on this page because I will be doing more handyman work soon when I have to fix my shower (wires, electricity, ooooh!!). It is, after all, getting colder here and I’m getting sick of showering out of a bucket!

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