House Tour

Hi friends! It just occurred to me that I’ve barely shared any pictures of my host home, so I figured I’d give you all a mini-tour today! Please your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, and please no flash photography.

First up: My house

This is the small, two-roomed house I share with a fellow trainee. My room is on the left! My room has a concrete-clay floor, a tin roof, two teeny (screened) windows, and is built from plastered-over mud bricks. It gets VERY hot inside during the day, but the walls hold in the heat nicely for our colder evenings and nights.

Moving right along to my room now:

Obviously, my bed is covered by a mosquito net to prevent malaria, as well as creepy-crawlers that inevitably end up in my room. Being inside my mosquito net almost feels like a sanctuary; nothing bad can happen as long as I’m tucked inside! I keep my bike indoors while at home, as it can make our compound a target for thieves if kept outside (even locked). Of course, keeping it inside tracks in lots of dust. I have a small table and stool (that I am sitting at right now as I type this), where I keep my water filter, notebooks, toiletries, and odds-and-ends. Beneath my table is my rucksack, which holds only occasionally-used gear (my two suitcases are kept in storage at our training center, because as you can see, there’s not exactly room for them here!) Next to my table is my bucket of water to be filtered, my “dresser” with some clothes inside, and my wash basin. This wash basin is used when I bathe (twice per day, as is usual in Zambia) and also for laundry. Tucked into the corner is my little broom, which gets used 2-3 times per day to sweep out the ever-accumulating dust.

The view from my doorway shows both of our cooking structures:

The fact that I somehow managed to take this picture without the menagerie of chickens (nkuku), goats (npongo), and kids (bana) running about is a miracle (My host mom is a grandmother, and as everybody knows, Grandma’s house is always the place to be). The chickens love the structure on the left, and is where many of them lay their eggs. Most of the cooking happens inside and just outside of the structure on the right, which holds the cooking supplies and all of our water.

I did manage to snap a picture of some of the chickens sniffing around by my stoop! (Note the makeshift threshold, which does an ok-job of preventing dust from swirling in to my room). I often sit out on this stoop to study or journal.

The yard:

The first picture shows the yard to the right of the right cook structure. Underneath those mango trees is where we for our laundry, as well as where we lay out the museme (reed mat) when its too hot to sit in the sun. In the back, you can see my Bamaama’s home. The second picture is taken behind my home, which from left to right shows: bricks for a soon-to-be-built house, the goat house, my brother Ba Patmore’s house, my bathing structure (cisambilo) (my roommate has her own, too), the laundry, our toilet (cimbuzi) (you can just see it’s thatched roof here), and my sister Ba Benita’s house nestled into a small grove of mango trees.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour! Please remember to tip your tour guide 😉

I’m doing my best to take pictures, but I’m spending most of my time in the present. I’ll leave you with this picture of one of the many beautiful sunsets from this week.