I cooked in an insaka
Funny how I'm finally showing where I lived, now that I'm not there anymore. Guess that's cause I have internet now. Better late than never I suppose.
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| This is my insaka (cooking shelter), decked out for 4th of July. |
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| in relation to my hut. that's my dish drying rack with laundry tubs and my solar shower on it. |
I cooked on a brazier with charcoal.
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| seen here with corn cob charcoal |
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| seen here empty with a pretty butterfly |
So, I didn't actually use my insaka very much. Turns out it was the stage for the musungu show. (musungu is white person if you hadn't got that yet)
I cooked there most of the time, mostly to justify its existence. Eventually I stopped caring and just cooked on my little porch. But I always ate in my house. Though the weather was usually nice out, it was much more pleasant to eat inside, in peace. Eating inside, I still always got a nice breeze, just not the scenery. Inside, I could listen to my radio (at lunch) (I heart BBC and VOA) or watch The Office on my ipod (dinner). Maybe I would've interacted with my family more if I spent more time in my insaka instead of inside my house, but I much preferred inside, alone, in peace.
Outside I would be constantly asked about everything I was cooking with or eating. Or asked about my radio or asked to give them my magazine, newspaper or book. My ipod stayed secret for the entire 2 years. Maybe the constant watching of all my actions and bombardment of questions and requests for my stuff might have died down by the end of 2 years if I stuck it out sitting in my insaka. I didn't have the patience for that. (and I don't think it would've because new kids kept coming to stay with us. Seemed like there were always new little eyes trained on the musungu.) Turns out I like my privacy.
The most important reason for me to have an insaka was that it became my "office". Whenever someone would come to see me, we could sit there and discuss whatever. I wasn't so comfortable with people in my hut. Too many musungu things to explain, and if the visitor was a man, the public insaka was obviously much better than inside.
Ndeshako means I am trying, in the habitual tense. So I may not always succeed, but I am still trying, throughout. All I can do is try and keep trying. However, if I'm honest, it's often more of a reminder to keep trying than an accurate description of my life.
