Miles and lifetimes

This morning went by in a semi-dehydrated blur of Swahili lessons. We learned how to make water filters yesterday, but my family already has one, so I brought mine to class to assemble so we will have a filter there. One of our language instructors lives in that building as well, so now he won't have to buy all bottled water to drink.

I still don't know what made me sick, and since the filters can leak or crack, drinking water that is only filtered is not 100% safe. Peace Corps recommends that we boil and then filter, then preferably bleach, our water before drinking.

I'm pretty sure my family doesn't boil the water they filter, so I'm going to try to bring that up tomorrow.

We finished lessons in the early afternoon. I ate a little and then helped my mama cook, fighting the tiredness that has been following me all day.

A girl who seems close to my age, (the first I've seen here in my age range, actually), who I think might be one of my mama's granddaughters, came through our gate with a bucket of wet clean laundry on her head, dressed in three blue-green kangas (similar to sarongs) of different patterns. She started to hang up her laundry on our lines strung across the courtyard. First the whites, brighter than bright. Kangas in many colors and patterns: blue and white, red plaid, more greens. She walked between the lines, clothespinning pieces here and there. There is no wind, just sun. Some of the laundry drips cool water on her bare arms, making darker splashes on her skin. The laundry drips make dark red spots on the hard packed clay.

I am tired and thirsty and in Africa.