I thought the plan was to wake up and go to church in the morning then sleep the afternoon away, but here was yet another case of either me not understanding what was going on or the plan changing on the fly. I don't know if I've mentioned it so far, but there have been several times that I've been asked if I still wanted to do something I'd said earlier, and several times it seemed to be something of a surprise that I hadn't changed my mind. I showered and got ready for church, but Grace saw me in my Sunday clothes and told me that we weren't going to church. Instead I went for my long Sunday run, going farther on the road around Lake Victoria than I had before. I was disappointed though, that the road dead ended in a community rather than continuing along the lake. Still it was another cool run with more good views of lake, which was fantastic. I can still feel the thinner air from the elevation on my runs, but that will just make me stronger when I go back to sea level. So far I think running has been my most effective way of understanding the layout of the area I'm in, maybe because that's the only time I'm figuring out where I am on my own.
We laid low for most of the afternoon and I took a long nap. I was still adamant about seeing the sunset on the lake, so we went down there to catch the sunset. I was starting to get tired of hanging out with all the girls, but I imagined it was no different than what any of them would experience if they came and hung out with me and the Hamilton cousins in the States. We walked down along the same dirt road I had been running in the mornings maybe half a mile to a point where a small park was. The mosquitoes were unbelievably thick, and we didn't get all that good of a sunset as far as sunsets go, but it was still a very beautiful scene. Thanks to my utter lack of photographic ability I don't know that I really captured it all that well, but I'll put the pictures up and hopefully you can at least get an idea of what it was like. Kisumu is on the eastern side of the lake, which I'm told is the largest fresh water lake in the world, and from there the water goes as far as you can see until it meets the horizon, which at times can be a hard line to distinguish until you concentrate on it. We headed back in the dark, which was a little bit sketchy with the motorcycles whizzing by, but got more sketchy when I guy told us that someone had just been attacked on the dirt trails through the brush off the road that were a shortcut back. Flo and one of their friends freaked out a little bit and said they were going to wait for a motorcycle, but Grace and Nora (another cousin) didn't seem bothered and another lady walking by that chimed into the conversation insisted we would be fine as long as we stayed on the main road. This whole conversation had taken place in Swahili, so it was explained to me after we were on our way again. We got home fine (note: it took all the restraint I could muster not to throw in a story about how we did get attacked and lost some good men, but eventually beat back the attackers and how I killed a man with a traditional tribal spear I had happened to nab from the Luo village yesterday and see if I could get a movie deal, but the thing that made it so appealing was the very reason I could put it in: there would be real potential of someone believing the story and calling the American embassy, starting the greatest long distance, international misunderstanding I've had in my life since Patrick discovered I had a girlfriend on facebook while Heather was in Kenya last spring. Somebody stop me if I make another one of these honest, responsible choices, they just add to my getting old phobia), and Flo and I decided we would leave for Eldoret the next afternoon. This was already three days off of our original plan, but this was one of the cases where I really enjoyed how flexible and noncommittal the schedule was. It had been nice to have a couple days in Kisumu, and I'm here for long enough that there's no reason to rush through anywhere.
Another new experience Sunday night was sleeping with a mosquito net. In the shuffle of guests coming and going I was moved back into the room with Flo, Grace, and Nora. Let me comment that it is rare to have a room to yourself unless you are the only child of your gender in the home. It seems to me that the standard set up for homes I've been in is to have a master bedroom for the parents, a bedroom for the girls and a bedroom for the boys. I don't think I've seen a kid's bedroom yet that didn't have a bunk bed in it, even with kids up into their 20's that are still at home. That's another difference from the US, and I think somewhere where the US is different from a lot of the world, it is far from standard for children to leave when they're done with high school. Unless they leave, it seems that a lot of kids stay at home well into their 20's, and even after they move out it seems to me there is more of an expectation of staying close to their family, which I tie back to the traditional homestead community, which, in the case of the Otienos, they are only a generation away from. Anyway, I untied my mosquito net and let it drop around my bed. It felt to me just like a fort I would build when I was a little kid, I thought it was awesome.
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