Nyumba yangu imenishindwa!

Yesterday morning I was sitting in my office thinking about what I should blog about next. Now that my pictures are updated I'm going to try and post more often. I couldn't come up with anything exciting. Then last night was one of those nights where everything that can go wrong seems to. It really wasn't so bad but I was tired and hungry so it seemed worse than it really was. So the title of this post is 'my house has defeated me!' It seems appropriate. I had a good day. I went to the office for awhile then Robert came and took my fruit tree shopping. We went to 4 places to buy everything. One day I'm going to have a beautiful yard full of fruit trees! The problems started when the day was passing faster than I was able to get my work done. I forgot to water my wilting passion fruit vines until I was in the kitchen trying to make dinner. Since there isn't a hose or anything outside I left food cooking and began filling my mop bucket inside to cart water to the 8 vines outside. I wanted to continue cooking so Tisho, my language teacher, and I wouldn't be eating dinner at 9! Of course that wasn't my best idea. I ended up burning some of the food. Then because everything is always dusty here and I was spilling water from the full mop bucket on my trips outside to water I ended up with muddy footprints all over my clean floor....that bummed me out because I had just spent hours over the weekend cleaning. The final straw was my kitchen sink. My sinks don't like me. I turned the water off to the living room sink because it keeps leaking water all over and a plumber won't be out til the weekend. The one in my bathroom drips all the time and I can't make it stop. A few weeks ago I had the kitcehn faucets replaced because they were impossible to turn on and off. I was told that I must have messed them up by turning them off too hard and ruining the seal. I thought that sounded likely since the water shortages meant often I'd be washing dishes and then there would be no water. I'd turn the tap off and try to make it tight so if the water returned it wouldn't come pouring out and be wasted if I wasn't around to hear it. So for the last few weeks I've been very, very careful. Last night all of the sudden it breaks again. Now there is no way to even get the water off short of shutting the main line off outside the house! When that happened I was ready to throw in the towel, leave the house and go out to dinner somewhere. It's amazing how it is the little things that drive you nuts when living in a different culture. I don't mind never blending in, eating different foods, wearing different styles of clothes or even struggling at times to communicate. What's the hardest to deal with on a day to day basis are the little things around the house. I miss being able to call my dad to fix stuff or in this case to pick up the phone to call a plumber!
After a good nights sleep I'm able to see the humor in the situation though. This morning I put my kanga on and stepped out to turn the water back on to the kitchen. I was able to make breakfast and clean up and then just stepped back outside to turn the water off again. It's really not such a big deal and isn't too much extra work until a plumber comes. Plus, I'd rather do this and have water than go through the water shortages we've had the last few months. As for the muddy footprints, well, I'm not expecting company so I'm going to wait another day or two before mopping the floor again.