Cleaning Day

Kayla and Frederick in our frontroom

Our emergency supply of water and super cool broom!

Today was a day of cleaning our apartment. Kayla and I started with our bedrooms. The drawers had to be removed and cleaned and the spiders and roaches had to be evicted. We unpacked our suitcases, swept and mopped the floors and cleaned the window sills. We have the coolest broom. It is a handful of straw tied together at the top and you bend over and sweep the dirt out. It is actually quite good. We moved onto the kitchen to organize our new dishes and food. The eggs sit on the counter with the fruits and vegetables and have no need to be refrigerated. We brought some beautiful sarongs and have hung them up for our curtains and to beautify our home. It is lovely. We love our beautiful home now, and today is much better than yesterday. In fact, I know that every day here will build upon the other and life will just get better and better.

Our Kitchen

After a morning of cleaning, I took Kayla to the very large market which she had not yet experienced. The fish market, the meat market, the vegetables stands, everything you might need is all thrown together is a mishap of alleys and narrow streets that are very easy to get lost in. It’s a good thing I am not afraid to ask for directions out! There are rows and rows of tailors that sew everything imaginable! My pillow is one stuffed with bits of material from one of these places! I would need to go to Kampala to get a cotton stuffed pillow! We bought a watermelon (our second one because we somehow lost the watermelon we bought yesterday!), another bucket and some popcorn.

Kayla's bed

For dinner tonight, we went to our favorite, “Diana’s Garden”. For 5,000 schillings ($2.50), it is a buffet of different foods (don’t know all the names), including chicken, greens, sweet potatoes, etc. It was delicious. The food here is so basic and nutritious. Poor Kayla had such a headache tonight. I know it was from cleaning so hard and not drinking enough water. When we returned home, she stepped into a ditch and twisted her ankle. Now she is limping and hurting. We had to cancel our walk to the orphanage in the morning and will instead be driven there. She made her first friend today. She gets teared up talking about her though, because this is a girl in such poverty that she cannot afford the fees to go to high-school, but desires to be a nurse. I have a feeling that this new friend is just the tip of the iceberg for Kayla, and her heart is going to be touched by so many things, as is mine.

We dont have a line outside yet, so we hang our hand washed things in the bedroom for now. I WONT be doing Kayla's laundry these days- she will learn to wash them herself!

My bedroom curtains-bringing a bit of Hawaii to Africa