Still Adjusting

In some ways life in Africa is very different from life in the U.S. I am still adjusting to the changes. I thought I would write a blog entry about some changes I am still adjusting to:

* Washing my laundry by hand.
I never washed laundry by hand in the U.S. I even put hand-wash items in the delicate cycle. But now EVERYTHING is done by hand. It takes HOURS to wash what would equal one load of laundry. I usually stop washing when I am completely exhausted...Not when I finish with all my laundry. I always have dirty laundry because I don't have the energy to do it all in one day. :)

* Days without electricity
We have had three days this week without electricity...And one of those three days we also had no water. We use flashlights a lot and enjoying sitting in the dark eating our American snacks. :)

* Dirt everywhere
I always have dirty feet. My toenails are caked with dirt...Yes I do clean them. I spend so much time in the evenings trying to find my original skin under all the dirt. I have to be careful when washing my feet because there are also lots of bug bites I don't want to irritate and then have to scratch. :)

* Unpaved roads
Sometimes I think I am just about used to the roads here and then we'll be driving and hit a bump that sends me flying and I realize that once again I am not used to the roads. We ride our bikes on the dirt roads and even that experience is something like mountain biking with a little kick. :)

* Swahili Class
We had to fire our last tutor. She didn't show up to class on time. I am ok with a little late on occasion but she was late for EVERY class...Well she was late for every class she showed up for. The final straw was the day she was 2 hours and 45 minutes late...Usually she was only 45 minutes to and hour and a half late. But now we have a new Swahili teacher. She is a bit intense. We bought our own notebooks to take notes in class and she collected them and told us that our notes were very bad. She didn't like it when we crossed out our mistakes and she didn't like the way our previous teacher was teaching. She told Jodie her notes were "dead notes." I'm not sure what that means but she was very intense about it. She speaks in Swahili to us and wants us to tell her what she is saying. Most of the time we are clueless and make blind guesses because if we don't guess she gets really intense with us...Almost yelling but I don't want to call it that. Classes are for two hours three days a week and she takes up the full two hours and usually goes over by a half hour.

* Internet Cafe experience
They call it an internet cafe, but there is no cafe involved. Usually the power goes out during my visits and I loose everything I'm typing. Then I sit there...If I have the time to wait for the power to return. Most times I just leave. Sometimes we are at the internet cafe in the evenings and when the power goes out it's not just at the internet it's the whole area (that part of the city) so we are sitting there in complete darkness laughing about the whole experience and then one of us eventually says "we live in Africa now."
By the way as I am sitting here typing I noticed that a bird flew in. No one really did much in response to it so I just kept on typing. Upon closer observation I just realized that it isn't a bird but the largest butterfly I have ever seen. :)