Forgive My Absence

Hello all. Sorry I haven't written in so long. By the time I post this, I will have been at my site exactly three weeks. It's going great, though I have heaps of down time and it can get quite boring. I'll start with where I am.

My site is a bit of a pain to get to. Although it appears I'm right in the middle of the country on a map, in reality there are no paved roads that last few hours in either direction, which makes it quite bumpy. When you do get to my banking town, Katesh, you've still a bit of a ways to go to reach my school and you have a couple options. Option one: if you reach Katesh early enough, there are two dalas that go to my town (though they make a stop on the way, and sometimes wait there for several hours.) Option two: take a dala to the town where my two stop and wait, and walk for close to two hours. Its a great walk, up rolling hills with farmland all around and these gorgeous trees with purple flowers.

My school is about a 20 or 30 minute walk from my village, but it is great. I can get the basics in my village, and the school has a pretty stocked storeroom full of beans and unga wa mahindi (the flower for making ugali).

Im really happy with my house too. Its a duplex, so it can be noisy at times, but the neighbors are great. I have 3 rooms (2 bed rooms and 1 big room) and then in my courtyard are a storeroom, my kitchen, my choo, and bafu (room for taking bucket baths).

Right outside of my courtyard is a fair sized space for gardening too. I have not started yet because there is a bunch of mchicha (like spinach) there right now and I dont want to just dig it up. But in our last week of training we had a day of permaculture training and I really want to start my permagarden, or at least get my living fence growing before our longer, week long permaculture training in a couple months.

School doesn't start for a few more weeks and lot of the teachers are gone, so like I said, its a bit boring here. But I've been staying occupied with buying things I need for my house. Since this is a new site, my house was pretty bare. I've gotten most of the essentials for cooking and such but I still dont really have any furniture, which can be annoying, but Im going with my second master in a couple days to order some.

I know I havent written much, I havent used the internet sincee ive been here, and I probably wont write too frequently in the next month or two. But once I am more situated, I'll work out a routine to regularly use the internet and Ill try to make more frequent posts.

If anyone every feels like calling to say hello, your more than welcome. Its not that cheap, but there is a calling card you can get online that is the cheapest Ive heard of, called Pingo. If you want to call, send me an email and Ill give you my phone number, or you can ask my parents or brother for it if you dont want to wait for me to check my email again.

Thats all for now. In case I dont write again, merry christmas and happy new year.