And my given Swahili name is...

Mwendwa!  It means love.

When I met my host family for the first time, it was very touching.  Both sides knew the moment was magical with me travelling over 8000 miles and for them to have an American to share their home.  After introductions and laughing together, they decided to give me my Swahili name, Mwendwa.  Aw, they must have seen something in me, grins.

Me, Alice (10), Lafline (mama), and Anthony (baba)

Lafline loves to laugh (already obvious in picture, eh?) and Anthony gestures to me the most (make up signs but we manage to get along), and then Alice, who got over her shyness quickly (maybe with my help), and loves to write to me.  She writes to me for mama and baba (baba seem not to read/write as well).  Love this family.

Alice, Ephrim, Gloria, Tabitha, Mitheu, Nthambi

 As you can see in photo above, Alice carries the paper and pen for me.  They were so thrilled when we played Hangman together (seems their first time), and laughed and rolled around when I assigned them their name signs: Alice - Beautiful, Gloria - Curious, Nthambi - Laugh, Tabitha - Quiet, Mitheu - Tall, and Ephrim - Shy. Except for Alice, all other kids are neighbors I think. The family have two older daughter and son, but they are both out to college.

Me and my baba Anthony

Tea is the thing in Kenya.  I have not had a cup of coffee since I left the States, and I guess if I want to live the Kenyan way, I eat and drink their way as well.  There IS coffee here and is sometimes available, but tea is always available.  Often they serve hot milk, and you add tea, or you can have hot water.  I like hot water, but in my home stay, they seem to always serve them with hot milk, so I grin and say Asante! 

Poor picture at night time with my iPod.  My room at one end and...

the other side of the room.  The mosquito net is a mess, but then its not yet heavy mosquito season until the rain season starting in November.  Malaria is scary as we were introduced to them in our training.  We just took our self-test for malaria.  Poor Mack, she whitened-out when she poked a pin in her finger to draw the blood for the self-test.  But all is good, all of us were tested negative....so far.

My very own doorbell light.  Its powered by, yes, a car battery.  

Our kitchen.

Home of our several milking cows, a bull, and several calves.

Whatcha looking at?  You got a problem?

My home for the training period (three months), with few days once in a while away to Liotokitok (for secondary education training).

Our very own choo.  At night, the blue walls turn black with little flies.  I seem to manage to target the hole with my poop with no problem, but I seem to miss it while peeing -- I guess I have to readjust my manhood downward some more (unlike toilets in America, where you pretty much let it aim anywhere while you sit).  Bending down is no problem when you try it like 5 seconds, but it sure is a poop-challenged when you sit, waiting, and only farted, and still feel need to poop.  Your legs will shake and you bobble around.  I usually put one hand on a wall or anything that I can grasp (a pipe or electric wire).  But one thing I miss most, I no longer can read while poop.

The king of the hill.  There are several roosters, and two kinds of chickens -- those we eat, those we collect eggs from.  I asked my baba to let me know when its chicken time for dinner, I want to experience the life-death-life cycle (that is life-death for it, but life for me).

Those are the egg-laying kind.  It seems the family have about 200 of them in the hen house.  

Back yard toward the house.  Notice the well, and the big black tank on left and right sides (there are more of them around).  The tanks collect rain water from the gutters, and they use the water for pretty  much everything except drinking.  They drink from the well, I think.  I will drink from it when my water bottle supply ends, and start using water purification packets (Pur).  More on this in later posts.

Crop on the side of the house.

Pit used to burn trash.  They use everything first, before burning them.  For example all paper are used for kettle fire, etc.

Fresh, healthy, no chemicals.  Brown eggs.  

Baa.  The baby goat is kept in the shed during the night for its safety.

The organic house alarm system.  I have not seen the dog released or children pettting or playing with it.  In Kenyan culture, dogs (and cats) are not pets.  There are alot of stray dogs, and unlike in America, they do not bark and chase you, but rather run away out of your way at every opportunity.  They live as scavengers I guess.

Elizabeth (mama Lafline's sister)

Elizabeth lives with the family, and she has like tons of chores, and yet I always see her available to talk or laugh with.  She is very eager and wants to teach me about Kenyan life the most.

Ndunge

Ndunge lives with the family as House Technician (yeah nice respectful name than other names you could think of).  She is very shy and bashful, and very "root-Kenyan".  She takes care of pretty much everything around the house, children, and so forth.  She seems to be the first up and last down each day.

When I told my fellow PCT (peace corps trainees) that my family got a farm and being so resourceful and so forth.  Oops, my bad, it appears that pretty much all families have the same thing too.  Darn, not unique but back to common-ness.

Even a fancy hotel like where we stayed our first night, and for our training sessions during the week, they use the choo, but it has a flush.  

We visited our local Deaf school in Machakos.  It was finally a thrill for me meeting other Deaf folk, especially the children.  They are all wide-eyed when seeing us (I wonder why, maybe because we are white, ha).  The little toddlers all wanted to feel my hair.  Maybe its because its blonde?

Booster Card for the week.  Very nice.  Sorry about not rotating, but then I am in Kenya.

Its always amazing that Jesus didn't look darker in Africa.

Elizabeth milking the cow.  Ill ask to see if I actually had that in my boiling hot tea.  If so, I better make sure its pasteurized (boiled twice).

Ndunga, Alice and mama Lafline

All school kids wear uniforms.  

This guy (name?) is hired by the family to tend to the cows and goats (taking out to pasture, and bringing them back to their sheds).  Yeah he is "walking" the goats.  All animals including cows have rope tied to the front hoof.  Its funny to watch these poor animals trip.

I guess thats where "back-breaking labor" term came from.  She is able to bend all day long doing hard work.  I bend like 15 minutes then I complain my back hurts back home.

Sorry about the bad picture, blame Apple.  10 trainees in Deaf Education...

Tidbids:

• When they ask you to bathe, its not necessarily mean you smell, but with no running hot water, they boil water, and sort of sequence us, otherwise its wasted firewood and labor. 
• When I get home, by walking 30 minutes (each way, don't know how far it is but it seems like 3 miles maybe?), they ask me if I want to have my bath.  At first I said it was too early, I usually bathe at 9pm or  6am  Then I was hit with a realization, when it gets dark, and if there is no power (its so unreliable), I would end up bathing in the dark.  Dirt on me would win that way.  Also, they cannot simply fire up a kettle of water to get me hot water at my whim.  So, I guess I bathe at 7pm daily with the family.  When I am on my own, I guess its up to me when to bathe, depending on what is available for me.  
• Kenyans seem not to wear sunglasses, so I start to sneak it away and tough out the sun.  I do not want to stick out as the cool guy in the crowd with my shades, being White is enough.  
• In homes, you eat with either your hands or a tablespoon.  They do have forks, but its like "what for", it means more back bending for Ndunga. 

There is so much to say, and if only I had access to the Internet, I would make much more smaller posts or even put cool stuff on Facebook.  But the Internet Gods are not blessing me, so I hope you enjoy my posts, even when they are long.  

Hakuna Matata

Mwendwa