Hujambo!

I have enjoyed cooking before so this should come as no surprise, but lately I have been breaking new ground in the kitchen! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I walked into a butchery in Tala market and ordered one quarter of a kilogram of beef. I wanted to cook pilau (a spiced rice dish, usually with beef) but I didn’t know where to start. The mamas in the market were happy to share their recipes, so I collected several opinions and went home to give it a try. Result: success! I had some problems cutting the meat, I never noticed how dull my knife is because all I ever chop is veggies!

I’ve also been cooking some pretty awesome fried rice. Lots of vegetables and spices; it’s pretty tasty. I only learned how to make non-mushy rice in the last few months, so that’s helped my fried rice dish immensely. So you can see savory dishes are covered, but I’ve also made a foray into sweet.
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I’ve been thinking about this for a while: my Spanish is gradually being replaced by Swahili. That’s pretty sad when you consider that I studied Spanish for five years in school, not to mention living in San Diego and traveling all over Mexico every year for most of my childhood. Not that I need or use Spanish here in Kenya, but I like to test myself every once in awhile. On a semi-related note, I did eat some beef tacos last week at a funny restaurant in Nairobi called “Taco Club.” My buddy ordered chicken fajitas. The salsa was fresca and the guacamole was delicious, but the rice was more like turmeric rice (Indian…?).

I think I know more Swahili than Spanish now. Maybe I’ll go walk around Mexico for a few weeks when I get back from Kenya in 2009 to refresh my skills. Any takers?

Kwaheri! Or, uh… Adios!

I think it’s pretty funny that the last three times I’ve paid my electricity bill there’s been no power in Tala.  Ironically it’s on days like that when I find the time to ride my bike into town and pay my bill.  Funny, eh?  We have pretty reliable power in Tala, but lately it’s been terrible.  Last week it was down for two days when someone stole a transformer (I guess they can get rich off the stuff inside), and this week it was down for another two days (around 36 hours) because someone apparently stole some power line poles.  Maybe they wanted the wood?  Who knows.

Yesterday I had no classes to teach, and there was no power so I couldn’t do any work on the computer systems.  This turned into the most boring day I’ve had in Kenya so far.  My laptop had no battery.  My iPod had no battery.  I read about 100 pages of the book Kristi sent me, It’s Not News, it’s FARK, so I was pretty sick of reading by the time dinner rolled around.  I was so bored that I started on dinner early, chopping the onions, garlic, pepper, sukuma wiki, cabbage, and tomatoes pole pole (slowly slowly).  I ate dinner by candle light, and listened to the Qur’an recitation on the local Islamic radio station.  I didn’t even drink any tea to pass the time because I felt guilty about the six cups I drank during the day.  I finally went to sleep around 8:30 or 9.  I think the power came back around 4 am.

Anyways, welcome to Africa!  Adios!

Everybody knows I’m a teacher, but there’s so much more to my every day life than teaching! Here’s what a typical day looks like:

• 7:00 AM: Wake up, make tea, revise notes for class (if I have one that day).
• 8:00 AM: Walk to school, stopping in the staff room to greet the secretary and drop my books off. After greetings I head to the computer lab to turn on the servers, routers, and computers. I usually don’t have class until 10:30, so I will check e-mail, catch up on news, and work in the computer lab until 10:00.
• 10:00 AM: Tea break. I’ll spend a half hour or so drinking tea and chatting with other teachers. Sometimes I bring a book and read that instead of chatting.
• 10:30 or 11:00 AM: Class for 1 or 2 hours, depending on how my mood is and how much material I have to cover.
• 12:30 PM: Lunch. On MWF it’s githeri (corn and beans, staple food around here) and TR it’s rice and potato stew (blah). We chat and eat until around 1:30 or 2:00. Sometimes I go home and do laundry at lunch too.
• 2:00 PM: Work in computer lab, either researching class notes or maintaining the lab computers and servers.
• 4:00 PM: Ride bike to Tala market (1.5 km).  I usually do shopping for vegetables on Tuesday and Friday, but there’s plenty of other things to buy in the market.  Drinking tea and eating a chapati is a must in Tala market, I do it almost every day without exception.  Other days I go visit the barber and have him clean up my beard.
• 6:00 or 7:00 PM: Ride my bike home and change out of my work clothes into my cultural dress (shorts, sandals, no t-shirt).  Only after I’ve done that can I start thinking about preparing dinner.
• 9:00 PM: Dinner is usually done by this time (sometimes I get a late start!) and then I can sit down to do any combination of the following: check e-mail, watch a few episodes of Arrested Development, read a book, prepare notes for the next day’s class.
• 11:00 PM: Bed time!

So there you have it, that’s my daily routine.  It’s nice that I’ve actually got a routine now… my little, lonely house is starting to feel like home to me now (though it’s a bit lonely!).  Post a comment if you have any questions!

I just read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.  I didn’t realize it until I had finished the first chapter, but the book is actually a collection of short stories.  At first I was upset because I had grown, in such a short amount of pages, to really feel the emotions being developed in the narrative.  I remember putting the book down to go make some tea, excited to pick up where I left off, only to find a new story being introduced.  I feel like an idiot now because on the cover of the book it says “stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.”  Haha!  The book was enjoyable nonetheless.
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