A week in the life

While this first week on site was not designed to be a lot of hands on work due to my need to re-acclimatize to ever present heat and life in the valley I thought you may want kind of a day by day account of what goes on here.

After a long weekend in Singida meeting up with friends in the area as mentioned in my previous blog, I headed out to the valley on Monday morning.

Monday, woke up at hotel around 6:30 am so I could cut the hot water heater on in time to get a warm shower before I needed to leave.  Spent about 45 minutes reading from one of my recently downloaded kindle books then went out to see if the ladies were at the hotel and I could get breakfast.  After breakfast I checked and the water was not completely warm yet but good enough for a shower to get the day started. 

8 am I had to head into town to get some more money to pay for both the motel and my trip out to the valley. In addition I needed to buy some food items that go bad quickly so I always like to get them the day I leave.  It takes about 30 minutes to walk into town and then another 30 to get everything taken care of since it is all on the main street then another 30 to walk back to the hotel.

9:45 am Ramadhan showed up early so we started loading up the minivan and getting ready to head out.  I had paid for the hotel room when I came back to the hotel from my walk.  I was using the taxi for this trip because I have my luggage from the trip home as well as bears for the orphanage I could not get to this weekend as well as a couple of bags of items for the site.

10am we are headed out to the valley which takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes.  We arrive just before noon and I start working on getting items distributed to the various parts of the site they need to go to and then start cleaning my house out of bat crap then go bout organizing what I need access to and what can wait into various suitcases and bags so that I can place them out of the way in the spacious 152 square foot home I occupy.

All of this takes the rest of the afternoon though I did take time to stop and talk to everyone as I dropped off various components around the site.  I also took a quick trip to the water well to fill up my new solar shower I got for Christmas.  Even though it only had a half day it was around 90 degrees when I went to take my shower.  I have to stand on a bench to hook up the strap over one of the roof truss beams (and I use that word “truss” tongue in cheek).  The shower actually has more water pressure than the shower at the hotel and was about as warm after it cooled on the 100 step walk over.

I decide to make supper easy tonight as I have not set up all the food stores yet.  So I simply open a can of tuna which was the big surprise when I got into town this time around.  Yes cans of tuna.  So tuna and crackers it is with a bottle of instant tea.

 

the kids on the bed-the dirty looking pillow is from sweat

The high temperature for the day was 96 degrees F and the humidity was around 30% at the time.  The bats are very active as I try to go to sleep and one does his business directly on my head as I set up the bed sheets.

When I go to bed it is still 88 degrees and I am sweating with no sheets on me.

Tuesday

Woke up on time just struggled to get out of bed that first day.  Spent most of the morning in the kitchen area trying to  create some type of organization and safety to my food supplies so various critters that can get into the house don’t eat them.  I also set up my sink and washbasin for cleaning dishes.  With no indoor plumbing this means an actual wash basin with a bucket that has a spigot on the side to dispense with water.

I actually went to work on site about 11 am having taken longer to get things set up in the kitchen than I thought it would.  First things first I deployed our bat countermeasures (both sonic and smelly) in my house and several of the site buildings that have bat infestations. I worked on the fascia repairs for a couple of hours until I got hungry and went back to the house for lunch.  Lunch today consisted of some of the beef jerky the Gordon clan bought me and some cashew nuts and lots of water.  The afternoon I went to see what supplies were left from the bath house and what of those were mine to use on my house (the contractor used part of my wood on the bath house is why there is confusion there).  I hooked the computer up to recharge and then went for an afternoon walk but not too far.  I returned after an hour of visiting as best I could with locals and met up with William to discuss staff changes on site.

 

repaired fascia board

repaired fascia board

the site is green again-grass is for soil erosion control

planted moringe tree seeds. this is the only one that survived insects but is doing well

By this time it is 6 pm and time to take my shower for the night.  The water today was 110 degrees and felt it coming out.  Tomorrow I need to remember to add a little cold to it before going to shower.  Tonights dinner is oatmeal with a little bit of sugar free honey, cinnamon and fake sugar.  Trust me it tastes better than it sounds.  It takes about 25 minutes to cook this dinner and then I settle in to do some reading noticing I am behind on my current bible reading plan and devotionals I downloaded.  Let me say here if you are looking for devotionals on a budget and have a device that can do kindle (any regular computer can do kindle) then search kindle ebooks for religious and then sort by price.  About 50 pop up for free as well as a couple bible translations. 

The high today was 95 degrees and the low was 66 degrees.  The relative humidity went from 34 to 83%.  At bedtime it is in the upper 80s again and the bats are not leaving because of the repellent devices but do seem very upset by them and are doing more business than usual.  Miles walked according to the pedometer were 5.5 including a light walk to the river and back.  (I brought a pedometer with me this time)

Wednesday morning

Get back on schedule this morning waking at 6:30 and start by cleaning the house up (this has to be done daily due to the bats and lack of area available.  I clean the dishes from last night because it was too dark after cooking to clean everything so I fill them with water and set them out overnight to keep critters from being attracted to the house.  I use the new dish cleaner I got from Alice Galloway and it does excellent job.  Last year Barbara Carpenter sent me all these great goodies from Tupperware which I still love and use today.  This year it is Alice and the Norwex products.  So far I have used the bath towel, dish scrubber, kitchen towel cloth and the small hand cleaner which has been excellent in town.  She can tell you all the wonderful parts of this product but so far I strongly recommend them and tonight I will be telling you about what may be my favorite of them all.

So today is about checking the grounds over, the fence and various other elements to determine if early rains have caused any issues with the site or our structures.  The only items were noted the end of the last year.

This takes the morning hours and afterwards I settle in to finish off that bag of beef jerky from the Gordon clan.

The afternoon is little bit hot but I decide it is time to take on the walk to the bus stand to get myself ready for when I need to do this walk with my backpack.  The pedometer tells me the trip is 3.2 miles one way (I had guessed 3 miles so I was close).  The total trip takes me 2 hours and  15 minutes there and back.  When I get back it is an hour of rest to rehydrate (48 ozs worth).  It is hot enough I am covered in a thick sheet of sweat (I know a nice image right).

The shower is the same as yesterday but I remember to add some cold water first.  Then it is dinner time and I am fixing a special meal for Wednesday.  It will be pasta covered with cream of mushroom soup (thickened) and some local vegetables and a can of tuna.  In all it took over an hour to prep and cook everything then wait for it to cool down.  One of the big problems is I only have one burner and no counters or tables so I have to place one pot on the ground while working with the other.  Now to my favorite cloth from Alice Galloway-the fruit and vegetable cloth which scrubbed the outside skin off my carrots and I did not need to skin it after cleaning it.  It also did a bang up job on the bell pepper as well.  Did not use it on the onion.  By far my favorite since carrots are my favorite vegetable.

vegetable before scrubbing

vegetable after scrubbing

all of my counter space in the kitchen right now 

yummy pasta with tuna and vegetables

In addition to the big meal (I always cook too much pasta and pay for it later since I can’t keep it till tomorrow) I have set up the computer to show a movie on the 10.1 inch screen.  Terminator Salvation is the choice for the first movie night.  I copied most of my DVD collection left over except some of my favorite tv shows (sorry BTVS, Stargate and Alias maybe I will have time next go around)

The high today was 97 degrees and the low was 68 degrees with relative humidity between 35 and 90%.  Bedtime temp is 89 degrees at just before 10 pm.  The bats are just being rude now and don’t understand this is still my house.  Another fight to ensue with them.  I walked 8.8 miles total on the day.

Thursday

Up on time again and cleaning out the house. The dish clean up from last night also has to be done. Today there is a mom dog and two puppies hanging around.  I am already playing with the puppies and wishing I had dog food.  Today is pre-school day and I visit there to see how things are going.  The class is overcrowded right now as we have 57 kids because one of the other pre-schools in the valley closed and we now have their kids.  We have to work on a solution to the crowding and making sure all the kids old enough to get to primary school next year are getting proper attention. After lunch William and I brainstorm ideas but none of them seem to be big hits with local way of doing things according to William so I have to go back to the drawing board.  This is one of those times I wished they would throw some ideas out as well but they just look at me instead.

This afternoon I do laundry which takes about two hours between changing dirty water in the buckets out for clean  and hanging everything up to dry.  After that I head out to walk but just an hour out and 54 minutes back this time (there is uphill and the return is all downhill-we live in a valley).  I come back and cool off  for about 40 minutes then do some reading on my bible and devotionals for bout 30 minutes.

Shower is normal with adding some cooling water.  After that is a simple dinner of crackers with peanut butter and sugar free jelly.  (I did not get any bread this time but will correct that next week if I have enough room).

High today was 95 degrees with a low of 67 degrees.  The relative humidity was between 30 and 80 %.  The night time temp at 9:45 pm is 86 degrees and the bats are still winning our battle.  8.3 miles on the day

Friday

Up a little late-actually woke up on time just could not crawl out of bed until 7:15.  Clean the house of bat crap.    Work through my gear for the trip home.  Today is a computer day with a lot of work to do on the computer including writing this blog, the report for January, creating some proposals for future projects and things of that nature.

That takes the majority of the day with a short break for lunch of crackers and peanut butter (the beef jerky in that one bag ran out and like most things you have to be careful not to just go open another bag because you need ration these special things out like sugar free candy and beef jerky and tea mix)

The walk today was 2 hours and 20 minutes total and the overall for the day was 7.25 miles.  The high was 96 degrees and the low was 65 degrees with relative humidity between 30 and 78%.  At bedtime it is 87 degrees and I am starting to name my bats in the house but I ran out of names.  

I spent a little time trying a new animal head crochet for my cards.  So now I have a lion to go with my elephant and giraffe.

 Saturday morning is early rise at 5:45 am to get ready to depart for the bus stand.  The bus of course does not arrive until almost 8 so I could have slept another 45 minutes.  It is standing room only and tight at that.  I could not count as I could not turn around.  It was very tight and people constantly moving and stepping on each other.  Three hours later we pull into the Singida gas station (yes they fill up with gas while the bus is full of people here).   So it is a late morning getting in and I have a lot to do but not enough time to get most of it done.  On the list find a skillet, find dog food for the puppies and their mom, get a lot of pictures printed (the pictures will show up via @fdmusa and Full Dimension Ministry facebook page as soon as I get them to the ministries social media persons (next on my list of things to do tonight while I have internet and am watching the Arsenol vs Tot fixture out of my eye.