On Friday, we had our home-stay with a local Rhotian family. What an experience. Here's the breakdown:

8:00 A.M: Breakfast is finished. Erin and I are paired up with Petro, one of the gardeners. He walked us about a kilometer towards Moyo Hill to a small mud house. Inside there was on old man eating porridge, a wife, a son and a daughter. Erin and I were invited in and were told to take a seat on the bed. There was no electricity, paved floors or running water. We stared at each other with questions lingering on our mind about what the day to come would bring us. 

8:30 A.M.: The young girl, whose name is Yohanna, brings in Chai Tea. It is made with fresh milk and is extremely rich and filling. The taste is a bit heavy, but Erin and I drink without hesitation. 

9:00 A.M.: Erin is given a skirt and I an old pair of jeans. We are told to change into them since we will be out and about for the entire day. We are led outside and are given hoes. We will be weeding the field for a few hours. 

10:45 A.M.: We finish weeding the field. It is hot and exhausting. The fields are large and we have grown an appetite for some food. We leave the fields and make our way back to the house where we will be preparing our meal to come. We begin with cabbage, and then we have to cut up the chicken. There are no cutting boards so Yohanna takes part of the chicken, while I cut off small bite size pieces of meat and throw it into the pot. This takes us a good 45 minutes to complete and my hands feel awfully slimy after finishing. We wash our hands, put sanitizer on and then head into the outhouse to build the fire. 

11:30 A.M.: We build the fire and put the chicken over it. It sounds and begins to smell incredible. The next part is taking the chicken off and putting the cabbage on. We load it with butter, onions, carrots and tomato. The cabbage releases it's excess water and begins to simmer. It smells delicious. My mouth is watering, this is going to be an excellent meal. Last is the ugali, which is corn meal mixed with water. It is pure starch and not very delicious. It is the worst part of our meal, but we make it and eat it without complaint. 

12:15 P.M.: We eat our meal with Yohanna. The chicken is delicious and the cabbage is to die for, wish I could say the same about the ugali. There is no silverware and we eat with our hands. We finish our meal and wash our hands. We are told that we will be resting for the next hour before we start to do work.

12:35 P.M.: I lay down under a tree and close my eyes as the warm sun hits my feet and the breeze goes gently through my curly hair. I listen and hear the birds chirping, and life all around me moving the beat of nature. It is peaceful. I could lay here for hours....and surely we do. The work does not continue and I continue to lie there as the shade of the tree slowly recedes onto my body. Eventually my entire legs are exposed to the sun and Yohanna asks if we would like to go for a hike. 

2:00 P.M.: We go for a hike up to Moyo Hill. Erin and I talk a bit about the states and Yohanna tells us about her ambitions about becoming a nurse. She says that more than anything else, money is the problem. We ask her what she thinks about people from the U.S. and she answers with one word: rich. I think about this and realize that even those people working at the cash register of your local fast food restaurant are better off and make more money in an hour than many of these people here, yet as I have stated throughout this entire blog and will continue to state, they are happier. We walk back down to the house and hang out for another half an hour. I climb a tree and get to have a pretty cool view of the world around me. The clouds are slowly filling the sky and the wind is beginning to pick up. I wonder if it's going to rain, but I have my doubts. 

3:30 P.M.: We go into the barn and begin to shovel cow manure. We clean out the entire barn, put a fresh layer of dirt above it and empty all the manure with a small bucket. The work is not as bad as one might read and at times it is very zen like. There is a lot of activities in this world that most people would find repulsive, but hey, someones got to do them and we do it well and with a smile on our face.

4:00 P.M.: We play with the chickens and start up another fire to make some chai. The water goes to a boil. We clean the dishes and make our way into the main house where we will drink our chai before we leave. It is about a degree or two shy of boiling when it touches our tongues and we instinctively make faces of pain and shock. Everyone laughs and we slowly finish the tea. It is now 5:15 P.M. and it is time to head back to camp. 

5:30 P.M.: Everyone is back, I jump into the shower and take my time. It feels great and my clothes all smell of cow manure and smoke. When I finish, there is a ton of avocados that will be used for the guacamole making contest. It is delicious. 

7:00 P.M.: We eat and then I talk to Professor Yohanna who gave out a test yesterday, but I had a migrane and was advised to sleep instead. I take the test and felt good about it. I have successfully learned the different noun classes and I spend the rest of the night researching for my environmental policy paper before I pass out. It was a good day. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything in my journal. Almost a week. We went to Tangarie National Park on Friday and had an amazing time. We saw 237 Elephants and about 145 Impala! It was unreal. At one point there was a herd of elephants that was fifty strong and stained an entire hill earth brown. We had lunch at this incredible lodge and had a few beers. The group went swimming, but I really didn’t feel a huge desire to go so I kept drinking and taking pictures. We had been there for about two hours when we finally started getting concerned that one of the vehicles had not shown up and a quarter of our group was missing. The rest of the afternoon was spent in panic and worrying about their whereabouts. We were clueless, but eventually they showed up and had told us their car had stalled 16 times in the mud. They were completely filthy and by the time we finally found them, the sun was beginning to set.

The next day was an ordinary day. Will and I went for a run, and I ended up rolling my ankle about five times in the course of 100 meters. My legs and body were tired, but strong, but that wasn’t the worst. Later that night, I felt a sensation in my left knee like it was bloated and needed to pop. It refused to do so. I have had this experience before, but when I tried to squat to see the full extension of my leg, a sharp pain occurred. The next morning, the entire leg was swollen and felt as if I needed to go and get fluid drained from it. I reasoned that it must have been a sore tendon in my IbBand and that it would probably heal itself. To this day, I still haven’t run, but the swelling has subsided and the knee just feels stiff.

Monday was our day off and I stayed behind on the hike due to my knee. I have learned that pushing myself past my limit usually results in bad news bears. I met up with the group in the afternoon and we went to this upscale lodge. They had a crystal clear pool with a bar in the water. The charge to go swimming was 10 dollars and having no money, I wanted to use a card, but the man, whose name I eventually learned was Sammy, told me there as 50 dollar minimum on my card. Austin, Luke and I discussed the possibilities and agreed that I would put down a 50-dollar tab and we would split it between the three of us. It worked out quite nicely. We were hammering beers left and right and were feeling pretty good. The pool felt amazing and the strong Equatorial sun was clear in the sky. The SPF-15 that I had originally put on was no match for the sun and I quickly became lobster like, but didn’t notice until later that evening. We finished our pool rendez-vous and had a few more beers at Happy Days which was conveniently right next to the resort. At around 4:30 we made our way back to our campsite.

The past few days here have been pretty lackluster. We have had long days of class and the routine has been pretty typical. We finished our observations and am bombarded with work for Environmental Policy. Unlike school back in the states, where there are weeks of intensity and then weeks of dullness, there is a steady stream of work here. The six days of class are starting to feel long, and the need for a greasy American Food is starting to cloud the minds of everyone. For example, Courtney had a dream last night about being sent home by her mom to eat cheese and ice cream and to her surprise the entire group was with her.

In other news, I finished Solitude and really learned a lot from it. Bob’s harmony with nature is clearly evident by the end of the novel and has a new lens on the way he views the world. He is more acute about his actions and how they affect the bigger world and had a deeper understanding of the subconscious of nature. These are lessons I really feel any human can truly learn from. I am currently reading Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc and really love it. It reminds me a lot of the Agony and the Ecstasy except for there is an actual character following Joan of Arc around while Michelangelo’s novel had none.

In all, life here is pretty good. We are gelling together as a group quite nicely and despite a few instances, everyone gets along pretty well. No one is hooking up yet, but it is starting to make sense why. It’s a one and out to many of the people here and as a result, people are pacing themselves to make sure that when they hook up with someone, it is someone they want to be with for a few months and not a few nights.