Random Potentially Interesting Info

A sneak peak inside the hostel. The top picture shows our toilet, sink and shower all in different little rooms at the back of the hostel. Very convenient when sharing the place with multiple girls. The bottom picture is of my room (this was taken the morning I got rid of the bed bugs..yes I did have a mattress, it was just outside at this moment). Very cozy, with all the basics.

We have running water in our homes and at the hospital, but occasionally we do run out. The water heater has to be manually turned on about an hour before you want to take a shower, but a hot shower was definitely way more than I was expecting and I am so thankful. The water out of the tap is not safe to drink. To purify it we fill up liter sized water bottles in the morning and lay them in the grass in the sunlight. They cook in the sun all day and then they are safe to drink...pretty simple, but very effective. The water still can have some grit in it so we do have an extra purifier to clean out the dirt if we want...but honestly, we don't always use it because it is really slow.

Sunning our water on the grass outside the hostel.

To wash veggies we have to use bleach. We soak our vegtables in bleach water and then rinse them in clean water. If you cook with enough spices you cannot taste the bleach so it is not a big deal, however it does make preparing meals take a little longer than they would normally.

My roommate Amber showing off her amazing cooking skills by making homemade tortillas in Kenya!

I went for a run the other evening on some of the dirt paths around town. Being on a hill makes just about everything either straight up or straight down, but nonetheless very good exercise. It is really pretty and green here with lots of trees which makes these runs even more enjoyable. What makes these runs interesting though is that they are shared by many other people. I was rounding a sharp corner the other day and almost ran completely into a cow that was sharing/hogging the road in front of me. Funny about the things you have to look out for. The children are fascinated with us Westerners and they like to run with me. Sadly, while running up hill and carrying jugs of water they can still go faster than me.

Can you believe this is Africa!?!

I learned that the natives here think our white skin is very strange. They say it resembles the look of a plucked chicken. The discription made me laugh because in some respects I think that is probably a really accurate description.

Anyway, I just thought I would add a few more random thoughts that some would find interesting....hope you enjoyed!