August 18th

This is the view of the sunrise over the Indian Ocean from my dorm.

Alright, so now I think I'll say a little bit more about my every day situation here. The water usually works, but it's not safe to drink, so we usually boil water every day to drink. It takes almost all day to cool because it sits in the water boiler because we don't have any other container to put it in that won't melt. There is no hot water, so showers are always cold. If you ever want to save water, try taking cold showers all the time because you will not stay in there any longer than is absolutely necessary. I live on the 7th floor (the ground floor is floor zero), and there is no elevator, so I get a very nice leg workout every day. We have a little balcony, which is where we hang our laundry.

The sun rises at about 6:30am, and I usually wake up at about 7:00. I have a 1 kilogram tub of natural peanut butter, and a loaf of bread which I use to make my breakfast, and I also usually have a clementine that I got from the market. Kiswahili lessons start at 8:30 and go until 11:40. We're basically learning a semester's worth of a language in 4 weeks. Fun fun! After Kiswahili, we get lunch, and then I walk down to the Primary school, which is only about 1o min away. I usually hang out in the teachers' office for about 20 min, talking with other teachers and figuring out what I'm going to help teach that day. I help teach for 40 min (or like today, I teach by myself) and then I'm free for the rest of the day.

That time is usually spent relaxing, trading stories with the other people on my program, and doing homework. Sometimes I'll go to the market to get more fruit. It gets dark around 7, which is when we usually go to dinner, and I am completely exhausted by 8. I really think I could go to bed at 8:30 every day, but I always have to do my Kiswahili homework then.

Ok one story. Last week at the primary school, we had finished the lesson with a little extra time, so my teacher told the students that I was learning Kiswahili and that they should help me while he wrote their assignment on the board. Immediately, 60 kids started yelling Kiswahili words at me, and I couldn't pick anything out of the noise. I was just laughing, and my teacher was too. I picked up one thing a kid in the front row was saying, which was the equivalent of "give me five" but he had his fist out. So, I pounded his fist with mine, and immediately there were 30 other fists in the air. I started "air-pounding" their fists by just making eye contact and extending my fist in their general direction. Finally, at the end of the period, the teacher said goodbye and got out of the classroom ahead of me, but I didn't make it and was mobbed by another 20 fists. I looked like I was boxing or something because I was using both fists to get everyone, and I was just laughing the entire time.