I bless the rains down in Africa…

After a week of dry conditions it has rained everyday for the last four days. It mostly rains at night and in the morning. And it rains hard. I am not familiar with how the climate changes here in Eastern Africa but I would guess that I arrived in Maua during a change of seasons.

Saturday morning it poured so I just stayed in and tried to prepare myself a decent meal and then read a book. Joseph came to my door sometime in the afternoon and said “We go to the village,” or something along those lines. After a while I realized he wanted to take me to his family’s home. I agreed and we were on our way. I did not think this to be a big deal. I assumed his house was just down the road. I also thought that we would not be gone long because it was cloudy and looked as if it may rain again. Scouting out a good running route, I asked questions about every trail and path I saw.

We left the main road on a path that seemed to be perfect for running. But before long it turned rugged and muddy. We seemed to be walking in a dried up riverbed. We walked this way for a good hour. The scenery was beautiful. We were just in a small forest nearby but it was so lush and dense it had the feel of a large tropical rain forest. At any point throughout our forest adventure there were no less than a dozen children following us screaming “howru!?” Which took away from the silence of the forest.

The path eventually became nonexistent and I thought I was all alone. The kids had dispersed and I turned around to find Joseph up in a miraa tree gathering some of its branches. Miraa is a mild stimulant abundant in these parts of Africa (pretty sure its illegal in America, but I’m told the Somalians always find a way to get it there.) So I just stood there wondering how much longer it took to get to his house and admired the fact he walks this way back and forth to the school everyday. He came down with two handfuls of the stimulant and we continued on. After hopping a small creek and a barbed wire fence we finally arrived at his house.

I had no idea what to expect. I knew that he lived with his brothers and that they were all older than him, so in my head I expected to find a modest house and his brothers. Much to my surprise there were approximately eight children (his cousins), and his parents. His parents are in their 70s. They could not speak English but that didn’t stop them from speaking to me in the vernacular even though I had not the slightest idea what they were saying. I just stood there and smiled. Joseph was back up in a miraa tree and I was left in his parents company. His mother looked exactly as how an American grandmother would look, sitting on a stool, knitting. Her legs were covered in mud though, same as his father. They continued to talk to me as if I could understand them. They laughed at me several times probably because I was jumpy whenever a chicken approached me. That was another surprise. We were in the middle of a dense forest and they had several cows, chickens, goats and other farm animals. One of the cows kept mooing at me loudly, and I believed it to be a sign of distress because he was tied to a tree while standing in mud. I almost felt bad for him because he had no where to roam. What are cows doing in middle of the woods? Joseph was still up in the air, but this time he was in a tree more to my liking, a passion fruit tree. He came down and we shared some passion fruit and we were off again.

Not long after our departure we came upon an old abandoned building. There was a curtain draped over one of the entrances and someone was inside. Joseph motioned for me to follow him in. I was ready for anything. Inside there were two men, one on a stool the other on a bench. In the corner was a caged area for beer. It was the local drinking establishment. The room itself could not have been bigger than 10 by 8 feet. Joseph and I sat down in the tiny cramped booth while one of the men grabbed us drinks. I was immediately reminded by a warning from medical not to drink any home brewed beer. People will put anything in a beer. I’ve heard stories of volunteers coming back from a night out and experiencing temporary blindness. So sitting in a tiny building in the middle of a miraa forest I was prepared to turn down any drink offered to me. However, I was given a coke which I gladly accepted. One of the men was Joseph’s brother in law. I sat listening to them mumble to each other in the vernacular with their mouths full of miraa. Highlights of Obama’s election night speech came over the radio and I thought about how much I am looking forward to Inauguration Day. How cool is it that when our first African American President is inaugurated, I get to be in the country of his African roots? I’d rather be here than America that day.

We made it back to the school just before sundown and Joseph taught me how to milk a cow. Yeah, I’m from Wisconsin and I don’t know how to milk a cow, although it did bring back memories from a field trip in grade school.

Yesterday I did my laundry and finally cleaned up my house (so now I can have visitors.)

In other news, the teachers are on strike at all the primary schools in Kenya. Peace Corps obviously is not taking any sides during the strike so we just need to stay out of everyone’s way until the ordeal is resolved.