What is normal?

7:30 pm
Things are starting to feel normal for me here, but it’s funny how strange they might have seemed two weeks ago.

When I got home an hour ago, I had late afternoon tea, which means chai and bread with margarine. Kenya is, after all, a former British colony! The half-water half-whole milk combo used for tea is boiled in the morning and kept in a thermos all day so that it’s still hot for afternoon tea.

I can smell the beef stew cooking in the kitchen... Mama Susan is making dinner from scratch like she, and the vast majority of other Kenyan wives do, every night, seven days a week. (I would not be a very good Kenyan wife.) On a side note, we have been having meat almost every night, which I was not expecting. Daniel, one of the other FSD volunteers, said that is definitely not the case with his host family.

Steve, who’s in 8th grade, just got home from school, after leaving this morning at 5 or something crazy. After seeing how hard these kids work, I will never have a shred of pity for American school kids again! :-)

My host dad is in the process of locking all the windows and closing the drapes, as we do ever night when it gets dark for, as they say here, “security.”

Before she started cooking, Mama Susan gave me my clean folded laundry, which a house-helper hand washed and line dried today. She comes once a week to help with laundry. In Kenya, it’s demeaning to wash another’s underwear, so I do that myself.

There’s a hose going from the kitchen sink going out the window, filling up a giant 50 gallon tank in the kitchen annex, to use when there’s no water. There are several of these jugs around, which made sense to me when Mama Susan says they went for four days without water one time.

I’m also saving this Word doc a lot, so that I don’t lose it if the power goes out. It went out for a half hour on Wednesday, when Mama Susan was right in the middle of making dinner on the electric portion of the stove (it has gas and electric burners, but we’re out of gas). When it didn’t look like the power would come back on after 10 minutes, she busted out the wood-burning stove (there’s a fireplace in the kitchen) and finished cooking on it. I was SO impressed.

I can hear the 7 o’clock news is in Kiswahili on the TV. I try to listen sometimes to catch words here and there, but have to wait for the 9 o’clock news in English if I actually want to understand anything.

Finally, the two kukus and jugo (chickens and one rooster) just came in for the evening – every night around dusk, they meander into the kitchen annex clucking away and wait for one of us to come and lift up the upside-down basket that constitutes their coop. Then, they head under it, with some flapping of wings and more clucking, to hit the proverbial hay after a long day of poking around the shimba (family garden.) This is probably my favorite part of the day as they crack me up every time. I took a video of the daily ritual last night so I can share when I get home. (I can’t imagine trying to upload video on a dial-up…)

Speaking of kukus, an interesting fact I just learned tonight: apparently, if you only have hens, they’ll take off and find a neighbor’s rooster to shack up with. If you only have a cock, he’ll leave, in search of hens. So you have to have both sexes for them to not run away. We will keep the chickens until they stop laying eggs, but the rooster’s not so lucky – he’ll hit the dinner table much earlier in life and be replaced. :-( Mama Susan says she herself doesn’t like to do the deed, but fortunately Steve and my host dad are experts.

On Tuesday, I knew we were having kuku for dinner, because Mama Susan said that she had ordered one from a guy on Monday (ours are too young to eat ). I was expecting to witness the slaughter, but el pollo had long since made it into the stew pot by the time I got home. The method (skip this if you’re squeamish) involves holing the wings down with your feet and cutting the head off with a knife, as quickly as possible to spare unnecessary pain. As soon as you de-head it (I can’t bring myself to say be-head), it goes straight into a pot of boiling water, which helps with the plucking/defeathering.

I was a little bit disappointed to have missed it, because I’m a big proponent of “If you can’t deal with killing it yourself, or at least seeing it being killed, you shouldn’t be eating it,” but at the same time, I think it’s probably better that I didn’t witness my dinner transitioning from animal to food, as I would have (a) passed out (b) cried or (c) intervened and tried to recue the chicken. And quite possibly would never eat chicken again – after all, Danielle doesn’t eat lamb as a result of seeing one slaughtered in China...

The chicken wasn’t bad – the meat is significantly darker, and MUCH tougher her than in the States, as a result of there being no such thing as a NON free-range chicken in Kenya. Once you get used to the extra chewing, it’s quite flavorful. The liver is a delicacy and goes to the head of the household, aka the father. It probably goes without saying, but the entire chicken, save the head and feet, went into the pot.

Mugo (moo-go), our Kiswahili teacher from orientation, also teaches life skills to Peace Corps trainees, which includes instructing them how to kill their poultry. You can’t get pre-packaged chicken here, so it’s do it yourself, or go without. (Skip again if you have a weak stomach.) He told us a story about one volunteer was eager to do try her hand at doing it, but mid-neck cut, freaked out and started crying (this would be me, btw). Mugo told her she had to finish the job, as the chicken was in pain, but she was in hysterics and refused. Finally, another volunteer intervened and put the poor bird out of its misery. I guess no kuku for her during her two years of service! As my stomach was churning and I was getting light-headed hearing all this, I was thanking God that the whole Peace Corps thing didn’t work out for me.

Time for dinner... I’ll send this after, as it takes a while for the dial up modem to do its thing.

Love from Afrika,
Katy

P.S. Yes, it's Friday night and I'm home on the computer. Rockin'! :)