“Life as a Kenyan” - Part I - 1 June 2007

A little help to get the aggregate and sand to site

The drill/welding shop in Homabay

(above and below)

Homabay

The supermarket (Homabay)

1 June 2007

Oh the joy of the Kenyan countryside. Today began much as the days before. Wake up at 7am. Spanish omelet, toast, generic English sausage (if you’ve never had English sausage before, don’t lose sleep over it), pineapple, and tea; a very KENYAN meal—and I mean that with absolute sincerity. I also mean it when I say that I just completely lied to you; I just had tea – Kenyan fine dining at Margaret’s was starting to effect me in ways that I prefer to not discuss on a public blog.

The bus is scheduled to pick us up arrive promptly at 8am.

8:40am, Linos drives up and we all hop onto the bus.

Jason and Duan are already in town. They headed down to the welder at 630am to meet with the town’s welder when he opened—so that they could get everything finished by the time the bus got there.

Yeah, there was a power outage in Homabay. Even though village is hooked up to the grid that by no means guarantees anything, and this certainly was not the first outage this week.

No worries though, it eventually came back on and the welding was finished promptly (about 11:30am).

It makes me feel so safe when I see the cord run across the street, through the mud, with the end stripped, as it was in the Nairobi shop, so to fit directly into the three prong outlet. Not to mention their plastic sunglasses for eye protection...um…yeah…

While we waited for the welding to finish, Mark and I headed over to the internet café to let our parents know we were still alive. Hi mom! Then, I took my first solo venture through Homabay to get buckets to finish up the foundation. “Where is the best place to look for them?” I asked Khanjan. Go to the supermarket next to Platel’s. Yes, we are on a first name basis with shop-keepers in Homabay…

Granted, Homabay is pretty much a square, so you really have to try to get lost, but I was still impressed at my ability to get to the store without any problems. I’ve even gotten used to the way that everyone blatantly stares at you as you walk past; apparently my tan isn’t helping me blend in… So I got the buckets, no problem. On the way back, I passed the butcher stand to see that most of the full cow from the day before was still hanging out in the window, raw as ever. My thought on the cow continued as I strolled along street, so you can imagine how caught off guard when an abrupt stench stopped me in my tracks as I held back a gag. Oh god, before I even looked up to where the vomit like smell was coming from I knew… there was no where else in the village that could possibly reciprocate this odar...the chicken coop. I’m in Kenya…