Toileting & Showering 101

Hi Everyone!!!

We’ve finally  arrived in Rongo, where we will be staying for the next 8 weeks! Mr. Okidi (our dad for the next 8 weeks and also the clinic manager) picked us up from the bus station. It was about a 10 minute drive to his and now our house! We met his wife Perez, who is a lovely, lovely lady. She welcomed us with open arms and called us her daughters :) We also met Masi who is their daughter. She was very nice and talked to us for quite some time. Chris, their son lives in a separate complex on the same property with his wife or “committed partner” who is pregnant and expecting their first child.  We just found out that the baby will be due in the next few days or so which is quite exciting!

The Okidis have a number of businesses/ways they generate income; in addition to taking students (income generating due to the fact that we have to pay a fee), they also have a store which sells food and internet minutes, a bricklaying business, a farm and they own property. We got a tour of their compound. The main house is cozy and welcoming and has four bedrooms. Mr. & Mrs. Okidi use one of the rooms, and currently two University of Alberta students are occupying two others. Therefore, since there were three of us, we were given the outside “house”, I say that in quotations because it is nothing like a shack but more of cement walls which have three beds and a separate room for toileting AND showering (we’ll get to that later). As we first entered our “house”, our jaws dropped. It was probably at that moment that we realized that we were no longer in the comfort of home or even Nairobi, but we had arrived in rural Africa. There were bugs and spiders everywhere, not very appealing to Nikita whom I didn’t realize was THIS petrified of bugs. The Okidis told us that the University of Alberta students were finished their placement in two weeks and after that we could move into the main house. That little bit of comfort made us all suck it up and take this living experience as just that, an experience.

On a side note since I haven’t commented on the weather, Mary, Nikita and I realized that rule number one is that your parents are always right. All of them told us that it would be chilly at night and that it would rain, yet none of us believed them. So equipped with some shorts, capris, t-shirts and only two sweatshirts each, we now realize that we packed more for our Europe travels as oppose to our 9-week African adventure. It rains, no pours here at least once a day, usually around 6pm for about 25 minutes. In the room that I’m sleeping in, there is a leak in the roof which is just lovely…luckily I don’t sleep until 9pm haha…

I mentioned to Perez as soon as I got here that I was vegetarian because during our bus ride over here, we saw numerous windows that had big slabs of beef just hanging in the window with flies buzzing all around. And in our compound just outside our door, we have 5 cows and a number of chickens just walking around. There’s no way I could eat that…and since fish is out of the question in Canada, I just can’t bring myself to eat it here…Our first few meals have been pretty decent as Perez makes some good vegetable dishes. Their main vegetable, kale, is not very tasty. We have a lemon drink which we have to dilute with water. So far, none of us have been sick or have had any kind of adverse reactions to the food. My malaria pills have been going down much better which makes me very happy!

So for all of you who have been to Africa before and have visited family, going pee in a hole and showering with a bucket is no big deal. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had to do this so it was quite a learning experience for me.

On our bus ride from Nairobi to Rongo, the real toilets started disappearing and the holes starting appearing. I had to get lessons from Nikita and Mary because I forgot how to “pop a squat”. Many of the bathrooms don’t have toilet paper here, so we asked the hotel in Nairobi to give us a few extra rolls to take with us. There is also no running water anywhere nearby, so hand sanitizer is key! Positioning yourself over the hole is important so as to not miss and go on the floor (I MAY have had one accident). In our house here, one of the stalls has a toilet bowl with no seat. It takes more leg muscles to squat over a toilet with no seat as opposed to a hole on the ground. We’ve gotten pretty used it to now that it’s our fifth day, but there are many more days to come.

Showering is another story. For all the “muzungus” reading this blog, let me explain. In the shower stall, there is a bench and a small tub. Outside of the stall in the main hallway, we have a huge vat full of cold (non-drinkable water). Perez heats water for us which goes in another container. We take some of the hot water and fill it inside the tub in the stall. Then we take as much cold water as necessary to come to a temperature which is right for us. Then you soap and shampoo and use a little jug to scoop the water and throw it on you. The key here is to ration your water so that you have enough to wash out the soap, shampoo and conditioner. 

And there you have it folks, toileting and showering in rural Kenya.

We also had our first day of placement which was the same as it would be back at home, orientation on the first day. The clinic is quite big and has various equipment and supplies to use although many of them are worn out and limited in nature. We met our preceptor, Evance, who is 26 years old and graduated with a four-year undergraduate degree. He is extremely nice and took us on a walking tour of Rongo which lasted 2 hours! He told us that “in the clinic he is our boss, but outside of the clinic he is our friend”. Perfect!

We had heard some rumours, but today we met Mr. Okidi’s second wife who is much, much younger. Mr. Okidi must be about 60 - 65 and his second wife is about 30. He has three kids with his second wife who are 8, 3 and 1.5! It was pretty interesting to see the interaction between them. It was very limited with Mr. Okidi playing with his children most of the time. His second wife, Maureen was very nice and cooked us lunch (chicken and rice with carrots) and gave us Fanta which we loved!

I don’t know if I’ve missed anything, but you can leave questions in the comments section and I’ll do my best to respond. And Alex, yes, you can adopt the elephants but it’s a long process. We’ll update you when we get home :)

And, if anyone feels like making an international call, our number is 254-787-848-171

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Shahla