Life As I Know It: Homestays

Day 1: Friday April 25, 2014

Today was a day that I was both dreading and excited for. We started our homestays today. I was dreading this because I knew that it would be a little awkward. However, I was excited for it because I knew it would be a very unique experience. Our homestay families came to pick us up around 3:45. It was weird to say goodbye to Renee and Julia because we have experienced everything together so far and we are never apart for more than a few hours. Its going to be a really weird 48 hours without them!

When I arrived at my homestay house, my Baba (dad) gave me a tour of the house. I have my own room (which our director made sure of beforehand). Afterwards, we sat on the couch for a moment while he asked me questions like “What food do you like to eat?”. We then walked together to the store to get sodas and cookies. When we came back Mama was home. I asked her if she needed any help with cooking or anything and we ended up walking to another house. I’m still not completely sure why we went there. We sat there for a little and had another soda. I was so full that I did not want to drink it, but they made me. We walked back after and I ended up helping wash the dishes with my sister Uzia. I have 5 sisters and 1 brother. In order they are Emma, Abia, Uzia, Faraja, Shamila, and John. While I was washing the dishes, people kept walking by and staring at me. It really can be annoying sometimes to always be stared at. Also, while doing dishes, Uzia was washing the dishes with dirt. It was very interesting for me to see this. She was using the dirt as something that would be able to scrape off the food. I thought it was a good idea, but at the same time I was taken back by it because that is not something we would ever even think of doing in the United States. Also while I was outside, I saw Kulwa (one of the students we did a day in the life with) outside his house, which was right across the street. He waved and this made me feel more comfortable. I also saw Harry (a Form V student who is staying there during his break and working at the Montessori school with me) outside and he came over and talked to me a little bit.

After doing the dishes, I moved into the kitchen to help Mama and my 5 sisters cook dinner. They were all singing songs while we were cooking which I thought was really cool. I got to help cut some vegetables and even got a turn at stirring the ugali, which is a lot tougher than you would think! We had ugali, beans, vegetables, and meat for dinner. It was very good. This was only the second time I’ve had meat in Mufindi (Easter was the first). After dinner, I was so tired, but I didn’t want to be the first one to go to bed so I stayed up. We ended up watching some Tinkerbell movie on Emma’s laptop. I was a little disappointed when we started it because I was so tired and didn’t think I could make it through a whole movie. However, luckily we ended up watching only around 15 minutes of it. Once we turned off the movie, Mama brought out a container of like Vaseline and all the kids dug right in and started rubbing it all over their bodies. It was quite interesting to see. Right after, that, I headed straight to bed.

Day 2: April 26, 2014

I slept horrible the first night. I kept waking up because there was a rooster that would not stop making noise. I also kept waking up because I knew we had to go to church that day and I had forgotten to ask what time I needed to be up. I was secretly hoping that church would have been really early and they would have already left without waking me up. However, this was not the case. I ended up getting out of bed and getting ready at around 7:15. So early for a Saturday in America! However, they are up early everyday here! For breakfast, we had mandazi, chapatti, and chai. Once again, I was very full, but there was one chapatti left and Baba said “Kula chapatti”, which is the command for “eat the chapatti”. So, I ended up eating it although I was already full.

We left at 9:15 for church. I hadn’t realized that some of my sisters had already left. I walked to church with my brother, John though. The walk sucked. Although it was only about 15 minutes, it was all straight uphill! I was so tired by the time we got here. My asthma really does not do me good in the high elevation here. Church was horrible. I’m only glad that I at least couldn’t understand what they were saying, because if I could have understood then it would have been even worse. It was super boring, super uncomfortable, and unnecessarily long. In the beginning, after singing a few songs all the children left to go to their own church. So, when the children came back in, I thought that church was almost over. This was not the case though. I kept thinking it was almost over and it just kept going on and on. It ended around 12:30 and we walked back to the house for lunch. For lunch we had rice, beans, and vegetables. I was thinking that we would just get to rest for the rest of the day, but not long after eating I was asked if I would be going to church again with them. They told me it was very far, but I said I would go because I didn’t want to be the only one sitting at home. At around 2:30, we began the walk to church. We ended up walking so far that we passed Renee and Julia’s houses. I yelled at Renee’s house from outside and then I heard Julia laugh and realized they were together! This made me a little sad because I was all-alone at my house and they had each other. We ended up dragging them along to church with us again. This church was even more boring than the first one. I did end up falling asleep for a little but I was too tired to even care at that point.

We arrived back home at around 6:30 and I again helped with cooking dinner. All my sisters were singing songs again and they asked if I liked to sing. When I told them yes they asked if I would want to learn the song. So I said yes and they taught me it. They were all very happy when I was able to sing it by myself. I learned the Swahili part of the song before learning the English part. If I knew the English part, I would never have agreed to learn the song. It was about jesus and some stupid stuff about being happy because you were with jesus and he was taking away your sins. Yuck. I was no longer happy to be singing it. For dinner that night, we had potatoes, beans and vegetables. I swear I am not eating any beans for a very long time when I get home!

On a side note, while walking to and from church I got asked some strange questions from Emma and Abia. Some of the questions were:

- Which church do you pray to?

- In your country do you dig?

- In your country is there tea?

- In your country is there electricity like this? (Pointing to telephone wires)

- Do you like alcohol?

- Have you tried the bamboo alcohol?

- In your country do people grow beans?

- In your country does it look like this? (Pointing out to the scenery)

- In your country do people farm?

- What types of people pick the plants? White or black?

- If a black man and a white women reproduce, what will the child be?

Some of these questions were just hilarious. I told them that I don’t pray to any church and they were completely shocked. They had no idea what to think about that. They kept asking me if I really didn’t pray to any church and why not and all this stuff. I thought it was funny. Everyone is so religious here. When we went to Madisi Secondary School, one of the kids asked us all what our religions were. I hesitated for a minute, but I said that I was an atheist and they had no idea what that was so their teacher, who was a lady from America, told them to look it up in the dictionary. The next time I saw Justin after that, he walked into our house and gave me a high five and I asked what for and he said that it was for saying that I was an atheist at the school. He thought it was the funniest thing ever and gave me major props for doing it.

I ended up showering that night because my family kept asking me when I was going to shower, so I just decided to do it that one night. Right after my shower though, I went to bed because I was so tired even though it was only 9.

Day 3: April 27, 2014

When I woke up this morning I felt pretty good because I was feeling much more comfortable with my family. I did let myself sleep in a little later though and didn’t end up coming out until around 8. By then, breakfast was almost ready. For breakfast we had bread, a boiled egg, and chai. It was once again really good. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do for the rest of the day, but I soon learned that we would be going to the field. It was quite a long hike to the field. When we got there, they had already dug holes in the ground and we were going to be planting beans. I had to throw 2 beans into each hole with some of my siblings while Baba sprinkled fertilizer in all the holes. After completing all of that, we had to go through with our hoes and cover up all the holes; this was a lot of work. I was definitely ready to go by the time we ended up leaving.

When we got back we began cooking lunch, which consisted of ugali, beans, and vegetables. I was glad it was my last meal there. After lunch it was around 2:30 so we only had a little bit of time to kill before going to dinner at Jenny and Geoff’s. I sat in the front of my house with some of my sisters. Emma ended up braiding my ponytail and they all stood around watching. At around 3:15, all my siblings began to shower and get ready to leave. We left at around 3:40 to walk to Jenny and Geoff’s house. When we got there, we started off by playing charades. It was really fun. All the words were in Swahili so it was like a test for us as well. After that, we all introduced our families and said what we liked most about the weekend. We ate dinner all together when we were finished with the introductions and then it was time for everyone to leave. The homestay was definitely a unique and interesting experience, but I was definitely glad to be back at protea.