Somehow I have become the unofficial breakfast maker. It started when Edmund was here and we didn’t have enough granola so I made pancakes one day. And since then I’ve been the first one out of my room in the morning so I’ve just gotten into the habit of making breakfast for everyone. Jaclyn takes so long to get ready in the morning that I wonder if she would eat anything if left to her own devices. I bought some oatmeal earlier in the week and it was much more filling than pancakes because I didn’t get hungry until noon on Monday. Yesterday I tired adding some of the oats to my pancake mix to see how it would taste. They seemed to go over well, so I made them again this morning. However, now we are out of flour, eggs and butter so tomorrow will be something different. I don’t mind making breakfast every day, but it would be nice to have some help every once in a while.
In our discussion about who would do what on Thursday, no one voiced a strong opinion about preferences so finally I said I would go to the office again and plan for next week. Tanya said she would join me so that left Jaclyn in the field with Makame again.
Today I spent several hours trying to print a map of Zanzibar that outlined all of the Shehias we are working so I could mark where we have done community meetings and where we have completed our mapping project. It was quite frustrating because the two maps I could find had very different boundaries for the different Shehias and I don’t know which ones are correct. I finally just chose one at random and printed it as large as I could.
After lunch when Madja had returned from her other job, we got her to help us read some names on consent forms so we could finish making our data collection sheets for next week. We also got her to call several health care facilities to schedule community meetings and mapping trips for next week.
Overall it was a productive day but both Tanya and I rode home at 3:30 feeling exhausted.
We decided to go swimming because high tide was at 4:30 so we got ready as soon as we got home then rode down to the pier. It was cloudy this afternoon and there was a bit of a breeze and I actually got goose bumps after being in the water for 20 minutes. It’s kind of strange to be cold again.
Tanya’s friend, Paulo, joined us and we enjoyed a glass of juice at the restaurant and hung out a bit. We left Paulo around 5:30 and came home to shower. None of us were feeling up to cooking tonight so we went down the road to a local restaurant we haven’t tried yet. I had an amazing chicken curry with rice for 5,000 THS ($3.30) and a banana milk shake for $1.75. We now have a great option for those days when we don’t feel like cooking, but don’t want to take a taxi into town.
We also got great news from work today that they will reimburse us for our bicycles and the taxi rides we needed while Edmund was here, so that’s another $80 I can spend on fun things here.
This has been a busy week and I think we are all looking forward to our short Friday and a nice, relaxing weekend.
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