Porridge, Scares, and Spoiled Milk (Wednesday 7/8)

I woke up a little earlier today at around 7:15am and simply just laid in bed. If Joseph isn’t up, I’m not going to get up! Joseph told me last night that we needed to get up earlier to get to the office at the same time as Eli and Miraclin or earlier (maybe it’s a competition). I laid there in bed until it was 7:30am and decided to get up once I heard some shuffling outside of my room. I brushed my teeth, grabbed my things, and went to the office with Joseph. 

When I first got there, before I could even set up my stuff, a guy named Rapheali stopped me and told me about William Marrion Branham. Apparently Branham was an extremely popular preacher in the early to mid of the twentieth century and was “divinely” chosen by the Lord. Branham’s big thing was that God sent him a pillar of fire to guide his life similar to the pillar that led the Israelites to the promised land. Therefore, this divine power that Branham had made him special and his opinions on the word of God special and more valid. Rapheali also described a time when Branham went to the Sunset Mountains in Arizona and saw a circular cloud formation that moved up and down that further proved his “divine” selection. For some reason, Rapheali thought that since I’m from America that I would of course know this “amazing” man (I did not). 

Allegedly he did a lot of preaching in the Colorado-Arizona area! Raphaeli seemed to put this guy on a special pedestal and genuinely believe that he was a prophet of God. I of course was respectful and listened to what he had to say before leaving to go get work done. The moment the conversation ended, I looked Branham up and it definitely feels like a cult in some ways. Everything around Branham seems like a bunch of baloney and holds no weight whatsoever (he predicted that the Rapture would come in 1977 and of course that did not happen). The reason why Branham was so prominent, and how Rapheali even knows him, is that Branham was one of the first preachers to translate and spread his teachings all over the world. Therefore, many countries and their ministries were influenced by his teachings and believed that Branham was a genuine prophet sent from God! I pray that Rapheali can see the truth and understand that there are no modern day prophets!

Eli told me that Rapheali had the same conversation with him yesterday as well so perhaps he’s trying to show us so we convert or something!

I began working on my laptop, but soon came to a road block. All the organizing I needed to do on my Google Docs document was done and all of my video scripts produced, but there was no quiet place for me to record videos! Every room of the education department was being used and it’s hard to record any sort of video when there’s someone present (I don’t want to be disrupted and don’t want to disrupt them). To stay productive, or at least do something that wasn’t a waste of time, I worked on my blog! While I blogged, I sat by Magaka who was working on remaking an exam. Right now in the education department, everyone is working on making sure the exams for the students are absolutely perfect. This means fixing a lot of tiny mistakes and grammatical errors! The process looks kind of inefficient, but works just fine for them.

While I was typing fast, I noticed Andrew (the one who picked us up in May and lives in Bukimau), was fixing a massive poster printer that made a massive mess with the ink. The printing nozzle malfunctioned and began pouring sticky, black ink everywhere! It took a lot of rags but he was able to clean it up well enough and began to try to print more posters from it. As a quick aside, a week ago Andrew was texting me on WhatsApp asking me when we were coming back to Bukimau and told me he really missed us!

I “worked” until it was time for tea and went with Miraclin and Eli to Roza’s house at the usual time of 10:00am. I should note that the work culture seems to be very different here. Instead of working until the breaks have arrived, many people will simply sit outside and talk with others in the education department for hours on end. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re finished with reviewing their examinations and have no other work to do, but it comes off as lazy (let me be clear, I do not think they’re lazy). Of course that’s not the case, but at first glance it seems like more than half the people in the education department simply don’t do anything all day. I think it’s just the work culture out here and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. In America when it comes to work I think we at least try to look like we’re working or doing something productive (for example, I’ll at least look like I’m doing work on my computer when I take a small break).

At Roza’s house we have abandoned the table and now sit on the couches around a small coffee table and eat together. It’s more comfortable and makes it easier for conversation! For breakfast we had mandazi from last night and porridge. The porridge came out piping hot and was full of sugar, black pepper, and cinnamon. I never knew this, but porridge is simply flour added to water. I thought it was a lot more complicated than that! The black pepper in the porridge made it taste like gravy to me, but it was amazing nonetheless. I tore off pieces of my mandazi to dip into my porridge to make the mandazi softer and actually eat the hot porridge (it was taking forever to cool down). 

The porridge was served in coffee mugs and we ate out of them with a spoon. I had to make sure I got a second serving of porridge and was stuffed by the end of the meal. We all enjoyed the porridge and had fun blowing on it for many minutes! Roza’s younger sister, Dorris, who is in school at Bukimau Secondary School, often joins us for meals and is very quiet. I’m not sure if she’s actually related to Roza, but I know that Dorris does a lot to help our Roza with the meals. Hopefully in the future we will get to know her more! Breakfast concluded and I hope we eat porridge again!

We walked back to the office, and seeing that I didn’t have that much work to do, I sat outside in the sun on a bench with Miraclin (in order for me understand the work culture better I’ll start by living it and noticed no one asks you why you’re not working and simply assumes that you know what’s best). With the constant breeze, it can feel quite chilly out here and oftentimes it’s colder inside of the office than out! The sun provides such an amazing warmth that you never want to leave! 

We had a really great conversation about her experience out here and how it’s very different from mine. To be blunt, it’s difficult being a girl out here as you aren’t treated with the respect you deserve and are constantly being hit on. Miraclin is tough and does a good job at standing her ground and establishing boundaries, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Frankly, I didn’t realize how easy I have it out here being a guy as I haven’t had any issues or ever felt uncomfortable in that way (except for that one time at Paul’s house lol). If anything, being a guy out here means less responsibilities, but more domestic power. We also talked about how Paul wasn’t the best host ever and how the more I look back, he definitely was not fit enough to be a host. Regardless, I’m thankful for what he did provide and everything he did to make sure I was having a good time. Miraclin felt bad for me and I had to reassure her that it’s all water off a ducks back and that I enjoyed the situation as best I could! Towards the end of our conversation we even talked about our past relationships and what not, lots of fun!

We talked for over an hour until Andrew came out with a massive poster that Miraclin had designed on Canva! The poster was a teaching aid to put in a biology classroom and it turned out very well. Everything was easy to read and it looked aesthetically pleasing. Miraclin told me that when she showed it to the head of the education department, Justin, he was extremely impressed and exclaimed, “I want it in every school”! It’s good to see her project going well.

Miraclin went to work more on her posters and I went inside to blog a little more before lunch time came. When 12:30pm rolled around, it was time for lunch, or so we thought. Jordan told us that food would be ready in an hour and that we could stay at the office and continue working. I promptly stayed for the next hour to work on my blog and talk with Eli. When it was eventually time to leave, I left my computer plugged in and on to upload photos and videos to Google Photos (the 10 hour prediction is slowly chipping away). We picked up Miraclin from another room and went to Roza’s house to eat!

On the way to the house, several young village kids began to follow us. Only one of them we knew and that was Alfred’s son Alvin! Even though he’s only two months away from turning four years old he was riding a nice, small bicycle completely proficiently; we were impressed. The group of three followed us inside the house and played in Roza’s main room with us while we waited for lunch. The small children were so much fun, spoke no English, and were so incredibly loud. They messed with Eli for a bit before turning their attention towards me. In between the couch cushions there was a small space for them to poke their heads through. This quickly turned into a game where I became the scary monster trying to snatch them up! When the couch snatching got old, I got up and began to chase them out of the house. I’d jump out of a hiding spot and roar like a monster resulting in lots of screams and laughs as they ran away. When they all turned their backs, I would go hide in a different spot to scare them again! The game ended when I was in too good of a spot and scared the living daylight out of one of the kids named Sam. He immediately broke down into tears while Alvin was laughing maniacally and wanted me to continue the scaring game. Eli, Miraclin, and I began to console Sam immediately and I felt horrible! Thankfully Sam stopped crying and was back to laughing and smiling soon enough.

Lunch was ready and Alvin ate with us. Here I learned that children eat on the floor and the everyone else eat at the table. I could be wrong but I think it’s mix of keeping the messy child on the floor for easy clean up and the fact it requires a certain level of maturity to eat at a table in the first place. Eli and Miraclin already knew this from their families, but it was new information to me! During the meal, Eli wanted Alvin to call me a silly name and was telling him that my name was “mdudu” which means “bug” in Swahili. Thankfully, Eli’s Swahili was so bad that Alvin never caught on. For lunch we ate rice, beans, and bananas. To my surprise, the banana made an amazing combo with the rice. When mixed together, it tasted like you had banana bread in your mouth, yum! If you’re looking for a sweet and savory snack, I’d recommend mixing the two together to see for yourself!

Alvin saw how much we were having fun at the table so Roza let him come sit with us. Of course he made an incredible mess, but was a lot of fun as well. Since he can’t speak English well enough to talk with us, Roza translated his Swahili for us. It’s amazing how fluent he is and how well the impossible to pronounce words flow perfectly off his tongue. Most of his comments were about us or that he wanted more food.

Eventually Alvin left and we soon followed when we were finished too. Walking back to the office, Sam accompanied us and ended up tripping and falling pretty hard on the side of the road. The kids here are simply tougher so there were no tears, only laughs! When we got to the office, we passed by some trees that had some weird bugs on them. The bugs camouflaged onto the bark and were affixed in a way that made them extremely hard to pull off. Eli made sure to point at them and say my new name “mdudu”. 

At this point of the day it was 2:30pm which meant it was time for me to go and teach. My class has since expanded in size and is larger than my original team (12 people instead of 8). I think a lot of people don’t have much to do so they might as well sit in on my lesson. Today we went over how Kolibri works and what it’s like to a user at different levels. When you’re on the Kolibri server website you can either be a learner (student), a coach (teacher), or an admin. I demonstrated and had everyone experience what it was like to be each type of account! Since Kolibri is its own server and doesn’t rely on the horribly slow WiFI, my teaching was seamless (except when I tripped on the extension cable and unplugged the entire system). In general it’s hard to keep everyone’s attention when we’re all waiting for a page to load! Today was a success and everyone seemed to enjoy the content. 

With the meeting finished, I sat with Eli and used his hotspot to do some things for college on my phone. Without his fast hotpost, I couldn’t load in important web pages that I needed to see and fill out for the upcoming college year! With my college stuff done, it was close to 5:00pm and time to go play volleyball. Eli and I walked to my house where I found the keys to the front door missing! We usually leave the keys on a ledge above the door, but they were nowhere to be found (we unfortunately only have one set). Joseph must’ve forgotten he had a guest that needed to access the house and took them with him to church! Defeated, we decided to go to the nearby shop to grab a snack to lift our spirits. I spent 1200 shillings on some banana creme crackers that were fantastic! Once more I took all of the change the shop had even though I used a small 2000 shilling bill (more coins for me)!

From the shop, we walked back to Eli’s house while we ate the crackers. Our plan was for him to change and to set our things down, but instead were invited to play piano in Jordan’s room. Jordan and Rapheali wanted us to play a song for them so we sat down and played “Heart Soul” many times over. All of my keys worked for the low part, but one of Eli’s did not make the high part sound a little funky. The two were very happy to hear our song! Rapheali wanted us to play chords for him to sing over so we obliged and played what we knew. I played the lower chords and Eli played the higher melody notes. Rapheali hated Eli’s high playing and only wanted my low chords! At one point we changed the voice of the keyboard to a horn sound and started yelling out gospel music that made all of us laugh.

We played for around thirty minutes, but ultimately wanted to get to volleyball sooner than later and left. Since I didn’t want to play in my full workday garb (collared shirt and dress pants), Eli loaned me a t-shirt, and we went to the grounds to play. Volleyball today was a ton of fun! There was no ball hogging and a ton of team work. I played a lot better today and even had some good blocks and spikes. Joseph and some others were at church which reinforced my theory that we play better when there isn’t someone there to disrupt the teamwork of the game… During the games, I was in a hitter position that was close to the referee who kept score and I couldn’t believe how inaccurate it was! Sometimes the other team’s score would go up when we scored, sometimes the score would jump several points in one serve. The previous days I was confused how the score works and now I know why! We’re supposed to play to 15, but with how the score is kept it seems like each side is always close to each other to make it more competitive. We played until it was dark and noticed that for the last game we played to 20, not 21! Once it got too hard to see, we had our quick meeting, and were on our way home. Miraclin happened to be at an adjacent field playing with some younger kids and joined us when we were leaving as well.

Back at Eli’s house, I returned my shirt and hung out for a bit before Joseph came by to pick me up. I immediately gave him a hard time about not leaving the key and in between laughs was very sorry for taking it. We walked back to the house to bathe and on the way picked up the warm water for me to use. Outside of Roza’s house there is always a fire burning protected by wood walls and surrounded by a couple of women that have a large pot with boiling water. Joseph pours out a hot portion for me, adds in cool water until it's tolerable, and carries it back to the house. I took the water, enjoyed the warm bucket bath, got dressed, and sat in the front room with Joseph once more. I cleared out the storage on my phone while he talked on his phone with his wife. I deleted attachments from Messages which had photos from over five years ago! It was a walk down memory lane and it made me feel incredibly grateful for all of the amazing experiences I’ve had throughout the years! From high school cross country and track, to family trips, to random screenshots, I felt some good nostalgia!

Joseph finished talking so we went to Eli’s house to hang out for a while. We watched more gospel music videos that men at the house had made or were in. We messed with Leonard and pointed out “piskella” for him that could be his wife. He seemed a little smitten, but took all the jokes well. Eli didn’t show up for a bit, but also joined in watching the videos. 

Eventually it was time to go eat at Roza’s place! Before leaving, Eli grabbed a bottle of milk from his room that was gifted to him by Jordan. When the two were in the village, Jordan asked if Eli liked milk and soon enough Jordan had a bottle of it for him. The last time we had milk was during the first week here so we were all excited to drink it. With all of us sitting on the couches, Eli opened the bottle and it smelt weird... We gave the milk the benefit of the doubt and that it could just smell different here (after all, it’s probably a lot more natural than the milk we drink in America). To our dismay, when we began to pour the milk into a cup to drink, there were lots of chunks! 

Roza assured us that it was still good to drink so both Eli and I were up for the challenge. Eli drank the first sip and said it wasn’t that bad. I trustingly brought the cup to my lips and took a small sip leading me to almost throw up. It was definitely spoiled. Apparently Eli didn’t find it that bad, but he’s the type of person that really likes blue cheese so he’s used to that rotten dairy flavor! After seeing my reaction, no one wanted to drink it, but instead of throwing it out, Roza told us it would be fine for Dorris! 

With the spoiled milk behind us, it was time for a dinner of rice and beans. One thing that I unfortunately fell out of habit with Paul was praying before my meal (at his house we always just dive right into the food). Miraclin had to stop me from putting my spoon in my mouth to let us pray first and I was so embarrassed! We promptly prayed and it usually switches between the five of us every meal. Personally I love when Dorris or Roza prays as it’s so cool to listen to prayer in a different language. The two speak with such reverence and respect for God when praying! They also speak with such incredible speed! I of course can only understand a few words here and there, but as Mzee says, “God understands all languages”. 

The meal was wonderful, but Roza felt bad that she made the same meal as lunch. Her head was hurting and didn’t feel like making something new. We were very understanding and made sure that she felt appreciated for all of the work that she does for us! Dorris came in, and sure enough, drank some of the milk until also commenting that it was spoiled. Milk is a treat out here because it’s not easy to obtain, so it’s a shame this bottle was spoiled.

During our after meal conversation, Miraclin told us that she got a SIM card from Roza to communicate with her! Funny enough, Joseph wanted to do the same thing for me, but thought it would be against VST rules for me to get one from him (I also don’t have a spot on my phone for a physical SIM card so it wouldn’t work in the first place).

Soon enough, Joseph and Jordan showed up to take Eli and I home. I got up, walked with Joseph back to the house, successfully latched the door shut, got ready for bed, blogged, and fell asleep quickly!