Home Stay

The home stay was really interesting. We just got dropped off in pairs at a house, briefly introduced and then we were left there to fend for ourselves.

Our family welcomed us in and introduced everyone. There was the mama of the house (the grandma), one of her daughters, and three kids. They all had English names so that was nice because they were a lot easier to remember.

After they had introduced themselves they had us go out to their kitchen (a separate building from their house). They had us sit on stools in the kitchen hut while they stirred up the fire by adding wood into the hole in the bottom and using a pipe to blow in the top. After the fire was they made chai tea for us. The tea was made by putting a metal bowl on a hole a cement wood-fueled stove. The tea that they make here is delicious: it is made with a mixture of tea, water, milk and sugar.

While we were drinking tea one of the neighbors, Jacqueline (who may or may not have been related) came over. I think they invited her over because she spoke some English so that was really nice of them. Jacqueline was my age and she had a five month old baby. She said she was currently applying to colleges so that when her baby was big enough to stay at home by itself it she could go to school and become a nurse.

The host family asked us all sorts of awkward questions. First they asked us how to old we were. The other girl who was with me, Kathrine, is only 17 and that really stumped them: they couldn't believe she was so young. Then they asked us if we wanted to have kids. I said yes, they asked how many, said that seemed typical for Americans, and moved on. The trouble started when Kathrine said she didn't want to have kids. They couldn't understand the fact that she didn't want kids! They kept asking if she wanted to have kids later or wanted just one kid. It was really funny because they just couldn't wrap their minds around it. They even asked us again later in the day just to make sure that they understood her right. The third awkward thing that they asked us about was what happens at American funerals. This came up because we asked them about hyenas and they were telling us about a hyena that killed a woman. We explained to them about how Americans can either be buried or cremated. They did not understand cremation. They thought that is sounded scary and said that it was like we were being cooked like chickens if we were cremated. The fourth awkward topic of discussion was religion. They asked if we went to church. I said sometimes and Kathrine said she was an atheist. Of course that meant that we had to explain how some people don't believe in God and how many people don't go to church. The best response to this was, "what do you do on Sundays? Sleep?" Haha. They thought that sleeping in on Sundays sounded crazy.

The whole time everyone kept staring at us, especially our hair. Even the adults were enthralled with our blond hair. They said that it was beautiful and they couldn't believe that it was naturally so straight and long. Jacqueline told us that when she was younger she asked her teacher why God had made white people so beautiful and brilliant and why had God not given Africans any special skills. It was kind of funny but really sad that many Africans think so poorly of themselves compared to whites.

Lunch was delicious. We tried to help them cook but we (Katerine especially) were not nearly as good as Jacqueline at chopping and cleaning foods so we weren't much help. And then the smoke got so bad in the kitchen hut that I started involuntarily crying so they had me sit outside and I couldn't help anymore. The food was really good and I'm really glad that they let me serve myself because they eat huge portions here. Luckily I ate much slower than Kathrine so they didn't keep adding more food to my plate like they did to hers.

After lunch the mama brought out a mat and we all laid down on the lawn for a nap. It was awkward but laying in the sun made me really tired so I ended up sleeping for about an hour. After the nap we just sat on the mat pretty much the rest of the afternoon. One of the kids went out and brought back some unidentified fruit that everyone ate. It looked kind of like a small lime, with approximately the inside color/consistency of water melon, filled with very hard whitish seeds, and kinda tasted like a mix of strawberries and raspberries.

The best part of the day was the children. They were incredibly cute and really amused by our skin and hair. Also, I gave one the boys my camera and they all absolutely loved that. He kept taking pictures of everyone and then yelling at them to look at the picture of them that he had just taken. It was so funny and amused everyone for a long time. Then I went through all of my pictures on my camera and the children named all of the items that they recognized in my pictures. They seemed to really enjoy that.

Overall the home stay was interesting but awkward. I was uncomfortable almost all afternoon (when we were just sitting there) but it was later explained to us that the people were just really trying to be respectful to their guests. When I first heard about all of the things that other people did and the connections that they made I was sad that we didn't get that close with our family but the more that I think about it the more I appreciate the experience. I'm really looking forward to using what I learned today in next session's home stay.

When we got back to camp after the home stay I walked down to the tailor. My dress was done and it's beautiful! I'm so happy about it. First thing when I stepped out of my banda one of the staff members called out "mzuri sana" (very beautiful) :] It's so exciting to see the fabric and pattern that I picked out turn into clothing that I actually like!

Time to do school work. Baadae (Later)!