Heather And Kris Ville: The Apartment

This afternoon I boiled eggs. Somewhere among the brown eggs bumping against each other in boiling water, there was a connection to home, where I learned how to boil a perfect egg just before we left. These eggs, 30 of them, we bought fresh for about three dollars. They are as brown and speckled as the farm eggs I had at my grandma’s growing up, but with pale yellow yolks.

It is almost two weeks since our arrival in Kenya, and I’d like to describe my first impressions, starting with our arrival at the orphanage.

We drove in from Nairobi in a cab with a nice driver. In our Kenyan experience thus far, there seems to be an inclination toward the name Francis among drivers. The scenery along the drive was beautiful, with fields of coffee plants and pineapples, and orchards of bananas and mangoes. After three hours, we turned onto a dirt road, slowly bumped our way down to the Riamakurwe Parish and pulled up to stop at a turquoise metal gate. The driver honked the horn, and the gate was opened by one of the Matrons of the home. Zack (the other American volunteer), the manager, and an assortment of other people greeted us warmly and helped us with our bags. Not knowing what to expect, we were happily surprised to see that the grounds of the orphanage are well kept and colorful, with solidly built structures and beautiful landscaping. We’ve come to learn that most of the landscaping is done by the children, with intermittent aid of other workers. After some minutes of greeting, with a variety of handshakes and much enthusiasm, we were led into our apartment, shown around and invited to the library for a welcome lunch.

We splashed water on our faces and headed into the library. A surprising amount of literature, though in disarray, stocked the shelves. The staff had prepared us a large meal, with a kind of beef and zucchini stew, rice, mashed potatoes, and chipati, a kind of oily tortilla. We dug into our first Kenyan meal, and I only had difficulty with one particularly gristly piece of meat. Not wanting to offend, since we were constantly under observation, I went for seconds and later took an opportunity to stash the impossible piece in a napkin and later, the trash. We were given the remainder of the meal to take into our apartment for later.

First and foremost, let me say that the apartment far and away exceeds our expectations. Kris and I had excpected our living quarters to be more third, but things are very nice. There are some nice quirks to it, though, like with any place. Upon entry of the living room, six large tiger-striped pillows lounge on the blue and gold striped and squared couch, love seat, and chair that dominate the living room. There is also a coffee table, dining table, and bookshelf, which I have quickly covered in art materials for the kids. The apartment has high ceilings, tall turquoise doors, four bedrooms and a kitchen, all with florescent lighting. I found one white light bulb in the pantry, and that has been moved to our bedroom.

We slept on the bed one night (wood frame with wooden slats) before I went to the other bedrooms and gathered the blankets to pile under our mattress. Mattresses here are made of foam that is covered in a sort of flowered pink panty hose material. Over time, they tend to compress in the middle, rolling the occupants into a sort of Kenyan sleeping taco.

It took us awhile to realize that we could enjoy more than tepid water from our shower. All of the outlets here have individual switches, and the shower requires two to be switched on, the light and the heater, which is located in the showerhead itself. Zack warned us not to touch the electric showerhead while the water is on – he’s been shocked once before. After about a week of cool showers, Kris was all soaped up in mid-shower when the water shut off, quickly going from full blast to a slow trickle. Our practice was to turn the water onto full blast immediately (blast here being defined as random spray from 16 of the unclogged shower holes). When the water shut off on him, he realized the water was becoming hotter. What a happy discovery he had made! Too bad he had to finish rinsing with a bottle full of cold water. What we still can’t figure out is how to make the shower stop dripping. We regularly fill and replace big bottles under the showerhead, saving them for the occasions when the water isn’t on.

The toilet closet doesn’t bear much description other than the lack of lid on the tank, which, when flushed, proceeds to spray and utter strange (and loud) noises.

Our kitchen is filled with the most pleasant natural light, as the windows are the only ones lined up with the outdoors. Our living room windows line up with the stairwell leading up to the girls’ dormitory, as a result, all day we hear amplified talking, laughing, stomping and singing. Our bedroom in the back of the building has windows that open over the wash area where kids scrub their clothes several times a day. We also hear the roosters crowing in the morning, and the neighboring dogs barking and yelping throughout the night. The kids tell me they’re just hungry.

Back to the kitchen … We have a nice big pantry, which already contained the leavings of prior mission trips. Sauces from 2006, old spices, half a bottle of soy sauce, and assorted leftovers litter the shelves. We hesitate to throw anything away, worried of looking wasteful in a place where people lack. A little boy presented us with another good reason to sneak it into the burn pile when we found him munching on three-year-old Skittles we’d thrown away. Zack is still not such where his two-week-old and moldy Clementine orange went.

Anyway, the kitchen is a good size, with a small fridge, table, and tiny stove. Thankfully, we now have a new stove, switched out from another apartment. It only has one burner that doesn’t work, where as the first one only has one burner that worked. Much improved. We have plenty of silver ware, stamped out of a single piece of thin metal (they just fold when you try to mash potatoes), one good knife that someone left (thank you) and several pots with rounded lumpy bottoms that we balance on the burners with coffee cups. So far we’ve eaten with the children at least two-thirds of the meals, but githerie lethargy has driven us to make pasta, boiled eggs, experimental leftover dishes, and flour tortillas.

hjk

Got a few pics for you, as well.