The house where I live

January 4, 2011

The home where I’m living is a set in a park like setting. There are trees all around and a heage about 6 feet high with barbed wire running through it. Yes, you wouldn’t want to walk through it.  As you walk up the steps of the porch you turn right and walk into the enclosed veranda. Everyone takes off their shoes before entering inside the home. When you step into the front room or sitting room you see 2 couches and 2 chairs and a coffee table. There is a small TV in the corner of the room, but the reception isn’t really good so I seldom watch anything. From the sitting room you look directly into the dinning room, where the table sits 6. My bedroom is a good size and I sleep on a double bed that needs a new mattress which I plan to purchase this weekend along with a few other things. The toilet and shower are two seperate rooms (if you can call the water closet a room that is) and the flush the toilet you need to pump the handle several times to get the water flowing fast enough to send the stuff down the drain. Showering is a lot of fun. There is no running hot water, but plenty of running cold water. I have a bucket with hot water and I add cold water to it so I can use it to bath. Believe me it feels wonderful when the warm water runs down your back. I use the cold shower to wash my hair and rinse off for the most part. Somehow I’m getting used to the cold water, and thankfully it’s not as cold as it could be. Now the kitchen is a lot like how a kitchen should look, only most Kenyan kitchen’s are smaller. Sink, stove, fridgerator, countertops, and cabinets are a lot like the kitchens we have in America. There’s a back door in the kitchen where a lot of people come into the house.

The floors are all tile that is cleaned everyday. Yes, everyday the floors are mopped by hand, no mop is used by Edna at all. Even with our shoes off before we come into the house, the floors get dirty enough that Alice wants the floors cleaned.

I can’t wait to hear the rain on the rooftop which is made of metal. I’m guessing that it will be loud, but it will be wonderful at the same time. The sun rises at about 5:30am to 6am and sets about 6:30. It is totally dark here by 7pm

So far Kenya is proving to be a special place, but I think that this entire area is a lot different from the rest of the country. The weather is the best in Kitale, even though everyone says it is hot, it really isn’t hot at all. I consider hot weather like in Arizona around Phoenix, but Kitale is more like Seattle during the summer. It’s perfect! LOVE IT!