We don't have a very strong pattern to our days, so there is a lot of variation, but this is generally how things might go. The rhythm of the day is very different from an American day, so it might be interesting.
The sun starts to brighten at 6:40, and I am generally awake somewhere within an hour of that time. I rarely set my alarm, which is pleasant! Emerson sleeps for a while yet, so this gives me some quiet time, which is a wonderful treat. I usually eat my breakfast and enjoy a calm cup of tea or two, and read or write. When I wake up I turn on the hot-water heater, and it takes an hour or so to get ready for a shower.
For breakfast, we usually have peanut butter and jelly toast; occasionally the neighbors have given us chapatis or I make pancakes. The bread is the white fluffy packaged kind, like I would never touch back home -- the peanut butter is to try and add some nutritional value! But there are not any other good options, so I figure white bread for a few months won't kill us. There is a variety of porridges available, from all different grains, but the Africans like them all ground up so the porridge is totally smooth -- that is, slimy and mushy. I made it once, and Emerson wouldn't touch it, and I could barely get it down myself. There is cold cereal in the grocery stores, but it is exorbitantly expensive (and there is no ordinary milk anyways). I was excited when I found a box of rolled oats, for making regular oatmeal, at one of the big groceries. But I haven't even made it yet, because after buying it I got to thinking about the price per serving -- especially since at home oatmeal is one of the cheapest meals -- and now I feel like I ought to save it for a special occasion! However, the tea is all local Ugandan tea, and very black and flavorful, and just wonderful to drink. The sugar is a coarse sugar, ground from local sugar cane, and it has a pleasant, subtle taste; not like regular white sugar, which is nothing but sweet.
When Emerson is up, I try to drag him through his morning routine. I take a shower every day, and tell Emerson to bathe every other day. I probably should make him do it daily, but it isn't worth the fuss! Our shower has a lower nozzle that is a sprayer on a long hose, and he enjoyed showering with that, but it is currently broken. So now he bathes like the Ugandan children, in a bucket, and I pour cups of water over him. Unfortunately for him, his hair is much more complicated than the local children's!
Sometimes we have somewhere to go, and we go there. When we have to be somewhere relatively early, I get everything done before I wake Emerson, and then with me hovering over him the whole time I can get him out the door in half an hour.
More often, after showering we do some household chores. It is a very small house, so sometimes that takes only a few minutes. Other times, I realize the little things have piled up and we spend a while. It is a constant battle with the ants. For the first while, I tried to keep clean enough that they wouldn't have reason to get in, and I swept and mopped after every meal and cleaned every speck I could see in the kitchen and took the trash out at night. They still constantly came in. I sighed and gave in to the African method, which is spraying them with poison whenever I see a large bunch of them. This works much better, but I still find them almost every day. Now they are in the kitchen where I don't want to spray, so perhaps I had better look for ant poison today.
We have a small sink and small number of dishes, which I wash and lay out on a towel (no dishdrainer). Our small kitchen counter is mostly taken up with bananas and keys and bottles of water so I hardly have anywhere to actually cook! For drinking water, the easiest thing is to boil it in the electric kettle, and then pour it into large re-purposed plastic jugs. I have to be careful to not pour it in too hot, or the jug warps, so over the course of the day I gradually keep adding water to a big jug. The next day, we drink that jug and make a new one.
For laundry, we have a washing machine (in the kitchen, obviously!) and then hang the clothes out on the side of our building. If I hang them out in the morning, when the sunshine hits it and the wind is blowing, the clothes are dry in an hour or so. It is a very rough washer, though, and already tore up one of my shirts with decoration, so I have to hand-wash anything remotely delicate. Everything gets dirty very fast here -- there is no wearing clothes twice, and even the towels get visible orange dirt on them every few days.
When I do a proper cleaning, it takes about an hour and a half to clean the whole apartment from top to toe, including bathroom and kitchen and dusting and everything! This is quite a treat, since that amount of cleaning at home barely even looks like I've started working. So I am enjoying our small-house living!
In the later morning, we are apt to go out and do a little shopping and go up to the orphanage for an hour or so. I usually get things at the supermarket as we pass on the way home, but sometimes we make a special trip to the fruit and vegetable stands. If we go to the bigger supermarket, that is a specific trip because it is in a different direction.
Some times we spend the whole morning at home because we are waiting for someone to come along and fix something, or they come in and get started and then leave to get a tool and come back again. That might be the case today, because I just heard that the plumber is coming to fix the shower. "Is coming" is a very general term here!
Many Ugandans go inside or nap during the afternoon, from about 1 to 4 or 5. The orphanage children are eating, bathing, and napping, so we cannot go there during that time. It is the hottest part of the day, so if we are around the Gaba area I aim to have us home and quiet during that time as well. If you go to the market, most of the women will be laying down and napping in their stalls! But if we are going out on a longer trip, shops still remain open, so it is still possible to do things during this "quiet time" of day.
If we have been out in the morning and come back home, we usually eat a lunch of leftovers. We have no microwave, so I have to turn something into a soup to heat it in a saucepan. Our stove has four gas burners, and the only adjustments to make are "high," "very high," and "burns food immediately."
If we go to downtown Kampala, it is best to leave in the morning. It takes about an hour to take the minibus into town, and then once we are there we mostly walk everywhere we need to go. This can take a while, but first of all, I don't want to take the boda-bodas (motorcycles) that are the common transport, and I like to see everything as I go by, and furthermore walking is the only exercise around here so I figure we might as well get some good walking in. I am finally starting to get a sense of where things are in downtown, and we are starting to go more or less directly to where we need to end up. I re-drew the guidebook maps in my own little notebook, which helped me learn the geography, but more importantly I feel more comfortable about stopping and checking the map when it does not look like a map from the outside.
If we are out for the day, we have lunch out. If we are just in Kampala, I try and find a reasonable place. I have gotten a couple local meals this way. If we have gone some place particular, the on-site restaurant usually serves "fast food," which is a fried meat and french fries.
The late afternoon, from 5-7 or so, is the best time of day to be out. It is still hot, but people are out and around, shops and markets are open, and it is generally a lively time of day. We often visit the orphanage during that time, too, and since Hibiscus is in school in the morning that is our chance to see her. That is why our nights have been getting later and later! We have often been getting in around 7; it gets dark precisely at 7:10. In the 7:00 hour, people are still out and about all over, so I still feel safe walking through our village area, although I don't particularly want to be on the quieter road from the orphanage and I really don't want to be in Kampala itself.
So around 7 I make dinner, or we go up to the neighbors' for dinner. I enjoy the company, but then tend to eat later and slower. We start bedtime routine around 8:45 or 9, and I just get ready at the same time as Emerson. We get into our bed, put on the fan, and tuck in the mosquito netting in all around. After I read to Emerson, I usually read for a few minutes myself, and then we go to sleep. The mattresses are all made of foam, which is not nearly as comfortable as a spring mattress at home, and I usually wake with different small night sounds. A couple of times there have been big parties down in the village or on the beach, and the sound carries easily up here, but usually it is pretty quiet. We can look down to the lake from the upper apartments in the building, and there are trees all around and birds calling from the trees. It is a very pleasant setting.
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