nyumba [house]

Curious to see what my homestay looks like?

That's my room!  Or part of it, anyways.  I strategically used my photography skills to hid the messy corner where all of my clothes and everything else that I've been carrying around for the past four months is strewn across the floor.  Mother Dearest would not be pleased!

Below are a couple pictures of the living room.

Yes, a TV!  We haven't watched any local cable yet, but every night we watch some pretty interesting movies.  For the first three nights, we watched a 30 minute part of Merlin over and over again on repeat.  Then the next few nights, we watched an episode of something in Swahili a few times.  More recently, we've been watching lots of movies with wizards and monsters, and this one with pirates who have southern accents.  Oh, and Narnia!  That was a neat surprise, except that a lot of the movie was cut out to make it only 40ish minutes... But it had French subtitles, so that was kind of fun!

We usually eat meals on the floor.  Most people in Zanzibar eat with their hands, but surprisingly I'm absolutely horrible at doing this... I am too messy and drop rice everywhere and somehow cannot seem to locate my own mouth, so Mwana always gives me a fork.  I think I'm going to stop accepting the fork though, so that I can fit in better.  After all, it's part of the local culture!  By the end of my six weeks here, I'll be a pro at eating with my hands!

Here's the kitchen.  Mwana's going to teach me how to cook local cuisine!  You're all formally invited to a Zanzibar dinner party when I return to the US!

^^ Dining room table.  To the left (behind the curtain) is the door to the bathroom and to my bedroom.  To the right (where the bright light is coming from) is the kitchen.  There are two other bedrooms in the house.

That's the bathroom! 

And below is a picture of Mwana, my lovely host mom!  Not as great as my real mommy, but she's a pretty good substitute for the next five weeks!  We trade English for Swahili, and sometimes we dance on the roof together.  Well, that only happened once...but there's no reason it can't happen again!  (Note: the picture is crooked because it was taken by Mudhakir, my 11-year-old "brother".)

And there you have it!  That's mi casa! Oh wait...wrong language.