Flushing toilets is overrated!

My house/compound is really nice, so beautiful, quite comfortable, and all that I need. My family compound is without running water (which is the norm) and without electricity (of which there are only two of us volunteers staying in such households). And I am perfectly content to be without both.

Latrines have been fun, or not so fun, for all of us, as self flushing toilets are definitely not an option. And in fact we have recently begun a poll of whether people love, hate or are indifferent towards their latrines. I'll have to get back to you with the results. My Latrine is actually a sanctuary of sorts. It is clean, it is open sky, and I am lucky enough to have my own one, attached to my bedroom. I love it, and love getting up early in the morning, or coming in late in the evening and taking a bucket bath with views of the sunrise, a pretty papaya tree, or stars overhead. I'm sure that my thoughts about going to the bathroom in a small hole in the ground might change when I have my first case of GI disturbance, but for now, I am quite enjoying it and feel it is somewhat freeing and comfortable. I'm also trying to make friends with the Madames Cabinets, who also love my latrine. So I am finding that I am perfectly happy without running water. Electricity is something that I really would like to have at post, to have the option of listening to music, and writing on a computer, but running water I could certainly live without.

Bucket Baths are also pretty wonderful. There is not much better than coming home sweaty and hot and going into the latrine with a bucket of water and pouring cupfuls of it over yourself. Bathing has become much more of a long event, which I enjoy, once again to a beautiful sky of sunrise clouds or stars. If, however I take the bucket bath in the evening, or any time in the day, the water is warm or hot. So for "cool" water, it has to be morning.

I also appreciate not having electricity in my homestay for the fact that we do not have Television. There are quite a few families with televisions here, and many volunteers go home to houses where the families watch TV together, or the TV is on and kids watch, etc. There are also some pretty big stereo systems. But there is none of that at my house. There is people and conversation. And whether that is or isn't the traditional "Africa", I appreciate it very much and value the time when I can lie on the mat with the family and talk about all sorts of things, and let time pass slowly.

Evenings are truly my favorite time of the days. I enjoy them much better than the training classes. I come home, take a bath or change, come out to the courtyard and sit on a mat with my family. Sometimes there is rice to sort (picking out pebbles, insects) which used to be a daily task. Now is corn harvesting time, so a few nights ago, after dinner, we all took the corn kernals off cobs for an hour or so. We sit and talk, (or I read and study some evenings), and eat dinner, talk some more until its time for bed. I get home from school around 5:00 pm every day, and it gets dark around 6:00. So from 6:30-8:00 or so, it is by lamp light. There is only so long you can stay up by lamplight, so by 8:00, I am getting tired and usually head to get ready for bed. Of course that means that most days I get up between 5:30 or 6:00. Right about when its getting light outside. I love going to bed early and getting up early, and have always wanted to get on a more "sun directed" schedule. Having no electricity is an excellent way of doing that. So I am loving the schedule. It is also going to be interesting being a place with practically the same sunrise and sunset times all year long, as it is only three degrees from the equator.