It Has Begun

So this morning I awoke to a bright sunny day, happy to discover we had both electricity and running water.  Yea--I can do laundry!  So, I put my clothes in the washing machine and 3 minutes later, the electricity goes out.  Ah well, it happens.  Perhaps it will come back on again soon.  So, I eat breakfast and wash the dishes, and then the electricity does come back on.  Wahoo!  So, I turn on the washing machine and 3 minutes later, oh, no more running water.  Well, at least I finished washing the dishes.  I go ahead and do my Bible and prayer time and then start studying Swahili, when the water comes back on.  We'll see if it works this time.  I turn the washer back on and continue studying, and am delighted to see that both the water and electricity is staying on.  Holly and I have a meeting at 11:00 with a man who will hopefully be supplying us with milk straight from the cow every morning (which we'll pasteurize ourselves) so that instead of paying $9/gallon at the store, we can pay him $1.75/gallon.  At about 11:30, Mr. Milkman still not here, I finish up my Swahili and set about making hamburger buns for supper (it's Holly's birthday, so we're having an All-American dinner), continuing to wait for the laundry to be done (for the half-hour setting, it typically takes an hour or an hour-and-a-half; something to do with the low levels of water and electricity) and for our guy to show up.  12:30 rolls around and we still have no milkman, but my washing machine sings to me that it is finished.  I take out our clothes and head to the back yard to hang them on the line.  The minute I walk outside it starts raining.  I haven't seen rain in 5 months.  I mean seriously, not just no rain, but not a cloud in the sky, beautiful blue sunny days.  And it has now been pouring down rain for the last 3 hours.  I take my newly laundered clothes inside and try to find places to hang them all over the house.  Hopefully they'll still get dry.  

But anyway, rainy season has begun.  This is good for several reasons.  The main one being that there is a major lack of water here, so now people will have enough for not only themselves, but also their crops.  The only downfall here is that there are more mosquitoes during the rainy season and the rain is annoying.  This is not so much a place where you drive around to the grocery store.  I walk to the market every day to not only buy food, but also just to talk to people, building relationships and practicing my Swahili.  The market is, of course, outside, which makes this slightly more difficult.  But, I have a wonderful pair of wellingtons and a somewhat waterproof jacket, so after I finish this blog post, I will go out in the rain in my skirt and continue to live life, just like everybody else.  Maybe the milkman will come tomorrow?