"Mzungu! Mzungu!" or "A day in the life of Jamie"

5:40 AM - Alarm goes off.

6:00 AM - Time to get out of bed. Every day is a race to see who will reach the light switch first...lately Alicia has been winning quite a bit.

6:00-6:30 AM - Get dressed, eat breakfast, plug in computer. There's a high chance I'll put on the same clothes I wore yesterday no matter how nasty they are...nearly everyone around here wears the same thing a few days in a row. Not because they're lazy, but because for many of them they don't own much else...

In Korr it's culturally unacceptable for women to show their knees...really to show any leg above your calf is seen as inappropriate. So, we wear long skirts. I have three I rotate through depending on their cleanliness.

Breakfast each morning usually consists of a cup of coffee (very needed) and a slice of homemade bread with peanut butter on it (Lynne makes the BEST bread...I'm learning to make it too!). Find keys to Lynne's office among the many keys hanging on the hooks in the kitchen. Unlock office and plug in computer to power strip so it will be charged when I get home in the afternoon. (Power is a bit of an issue here - we run mainly off solar power. We don't have any plugs in the wall in our house. Lynne runs her computer off of a generator, so we plug in each morning to get all juiced up for the evening.)

6:30 AM - Laura (another missionary who lives in Korr) meets us as the front gate of the house and we depart for school. This is my favorite part of the day - the sun has just come up over the horizon and the air is still cool for our 2 km walk to school. The center of town is still quiet - no one is shouting at us...yet.

6:50 AM - Arrive at school just in time for teacher devotions. Each morning a teacher shares a Bible verse and we pray together as a staff before we meet with the students at...

7:10 AM - Meet with the students before classes. This time looks different every day - sometimes it's class assembly, sometimes it's class devotions, sometimes it's a class meeting.

7:30 AM - Classes begin. Since we only have Form 1 this year at TSS (equivalent of 9th grade) and 8 teachers, we all only have 1-2 periods a day. (This all changes in January when we add Form 2 - hooray!) Most of the morning is spent reading, preparing lessons, etc.

12:00ish PM - After teaching my one or two classes a day I begin the 20 minute walk home.

Here's where it can get interesting.

There's a pack of Rendille children (yes, a pack) that practically assaults me on the way home every day. "Mzungu! Mzungu!" they shout. I'm using all the Rendille I know (which still isn't much) to try to teach them my name so they can shout that at me instead. Them shouting "mzungu" at me is roughly the equivalent of someone shouting "white person!" at you over and over as you walk down the street back home. It's cute for about the first day and a half.

The pack catches up to me and holds out their hands for me to shake. Sometimes they demand I give them "sweets"...I never have any. (I wouldn't give them on demand anyway!) The kids are precious in a slightly obnoxious way. Yet all of them are too cute for words - a few don't have pants on and all of them are snot-nosed. "How are you? How are you?" they say in unison...one of two English phrases they know. "Fine," I reply...the only response they understand. "Nebeybariteen?" I venture (it means "good morning?"...actually the literal translation is "do you have peace this morning?" The Rendille are very big on wanting to know whether or not you have peace.). They all giggle at my Rendille pronounciation and respond "nebey!" ("I am fine!"..."I have peace!") They'll tail me for a hundred meters more giggling (cute) and offering their hands and demanding I shake them (not so cute once you get sick from it). After some time they'll stop following me and shout "Bye bye!" - the only other English phrase they know.

The rest of my greetings on the way home will hopefully be less demanding. Rendille greet every single person they pass...every single one. I've gotten quite good at greeting in Rendille but after that I still get lost...

12:15ish-5:00 PM. Afternoons look different every day. Staff meetings, language lessons, mentoring time with our students...they fill up rather quickly. By 5:00 every day I'm exhausted and ready to shower.

5:15 PM - It's bath time. Since we have no running water (really not as bad as it sounds) we bathe in a (rather large) bucket. Use the one of buckets by our drums of water to pour water into the bigger bucket to bathe in. Heat up a kettle on the stove if you're feeling like a hot bath. Pour kettle in big bucket of water and step in. Use pitcher to dump water over your head and lather up. Repeat until clean.

Make sure to watch out for the spiders :)

6:30 PM - Sunset. Life here revolves around the sun - when it's dark things come to a standstill. No street lights here in Korr!

6:45 PM - Dinner time. We eat our big meal at lunch time so that Lynne is not sitting over a hot stove in the afternoon. (Contrary to America, our hottest hour here is somewhere between 2-4 PM...and believe me, it's hot!)

7:45 PM - Time to get ready for bed. Wash face in basin in the room (that we refill from a bucket of water we keep in the corner), brush teeth (we spit outside...cute, huh?), change in to pajamas. (This is the only time it's okay for us to wear shorts!) Get on the computer, pray the internet is working, email friends and family.

9:30 PM - Bedtime! The desert sun zaps your energy faster than you think. Tuck your mosquito net underneath your mattress to keep the all the bugs off your face while sleeping. Make sure your windows are open to catch the night breezes (Korr's very own version of air conditioning...the wind almost never stops blowing here). It will be time to wake up again before you know it...