Tidbits of daily life Part I

26 January 2012

Having addressed most of the issues of feeding myself (calcium and iron notwithstanding), let’s turn to some tidbits of daily life. Let me start by saying: it’s hot. Very very hot. Here in the lowlands, there are few trees, and especially because this house in new, there are none large enough to shelter the house from the sun beating down. I knew someone who described hot summer days at home as ‘Africa hot’. Well, it’s Africa hot here in Africa.

One small redeeming factor is that the sun comes up here behind a hill, so it isn’t shining here directly until a little later than it would otherwise. In that light but not bright time, it’s time to clean the house, which means, washing the floors with a towel and a bucket of water, local-style. I have to leave the windows open because of the heat – if they were closed it would be even more oppressive – but that means that the breeze, which there thankfully is one of , blows in a lot of dirt. The last couple of nights there has been a very strong wind, and this morning the dirt was fairly piled up in places. So daily washing is necessary during the dry season.

There is a pair of birds that hangs out in the trees outside the living room window. I haven’t identified them yet. They are medium-sized, black, white, and brown, though the smaller one has red on the end of its beak and two yellow cheek-patches. They are always together. They eat lizards and big bugs. They run into the window frequently, I think in an attempt to perch on the window frame. There are also some beautiful turquoise finches that comes around sometimes, and yesterday I saw a bird that was bluejay sized, black with short spiky red around the head and breast, though not the face.