Move In Day

Brajec Pub where we Ate dinner with our host families

Our driveway

Our House

Well, well, well. This host family situation is definitely going to be interesting.   I moved in this morning during break and got to see the house for the first time.  You walk into the living room area which is a very long narrow room that seems to go on forever.  They have an endless coffee table and both walls are lined with chairs.  Our bedroom is off to the right and is fairly big.  Lauren and I each get our own double beds!  The kitchen is to the left and even has a stove.  The rest of the house is not connected to our portion, but contains Mama Frida’s room, Diana’s room, Faham’s room and Ingara’s room.  Faham (19 yrs old) and Ingara (17 years old) are Frida’s niece and nephew and Diana is an orphan who works for the family but has pretty much been adopted into the family.  She now works for the family and in exchange, they send her to school.  Curiously enough, I feel like I am stuck in an airport terminal.  While Lauren and I have been given free reign of our portion of the house, we still have not seen the rest of the house (even though we have requested to have a tour).  And plus, we have no idea where our host mom is about 90% of the time.  There has been very little “welcoming” by the family.  Basically, we just hang out in the living room with everyone else bustling about around us.  And our host mom disappears to her room most of the time.  But, it will be great, and the kids here are really nice.  They made us dinner last night.  It was the usual: rice, beans, beef, and spinach.  It was great to actually dish up our own food and take tons of veggies!  They refused to let us help them clean up afterward but promised that they would let us help tomorrow.  Tomorrow they even said they would teach us how to cook!  Our host family has a couple of dogs, which are fun to play with.  One of them has 3 little mangy puppies, which would be cute if they weren’t so dirty and diseased.  Lauren and I tried desperately to organize our things last night.  It was difficult to try and decide what we will need in the field.  I can’t believe we leave for the field on Saturday! Oh how time flies.  I was kind of hoping that there would be internet here at my host family’s house, but there isn’t and am planning on either going to hall 3 or the big tree on campus to use the wireless.  Last night, after Lauren and I found out that they have no water pressure for showers (and that we get to take bucket showers), Lauren called the Godde’s and asked to use their shower.  Both Lauren and I looked at each other last night and said “we miss Hall three with its ants and rats and no running water”.  Surprisingly, we are considering going back to hall three just to use the showers since I never really feel clean when taking a bucket shower.  We went to bed and it felt really weird to sleep in such a big bed.  There were definitely some mosquitoes in my mosquito net last night.  And I found out why this morning: there are a bunch of gigantic holes in it!  Oh well, what can you do.  I didn’t actually sleep very well even though it was quiet most of the night.  I think it’s just being in a new place.  And the dogs were barking obnoxiously.  It brought back memories of the howling dogs in Ecuador. 

So I’m writing this now the following morning.  Diana got up and made us breakfast.  I decided to eat some cereal instead because I finally had cold milk!  Breakfast consisted of toast with butter, jam, or peanut butter, mango juice, coffee, and tea.  Fairly soon I think I am going to head over to hall three to get some internet so I can post this!

I just want internet!  I went to hall three and then to the big tree and there is still no internet today!  It will connect, but then says that there is no internet access.  Ergghhh. 

Swahili Word of the Day: Nyumba (nnn-yoom-bah) - House