Routine.

Our days have fallen into a dull routine of not knowing what we're doing and feeling like we're more in the way than being helpful. By 6:00 a.m. all the kids who live on the compound permanently are awake and doing their allotted chores. I notice that the two biological children are not given chores to do, and there is one particular eleven year old girl whom they call "Tip" that has more work than the others. I feel as though there are dynamics at work here that I am not completely aware of, but I see something happening on the surface. The kids eat breakfast on the floor in the dining area and around 8:00, they all head off to school.

Our mornings are full of construction... or I should say, my husband's morning is full of construction with the other husband. They are trying to convert a shed into a room with a bathroom that eventually our host family of four will move into. In the morning the two year old baby plays in their room and takes a nap, while {since I'm sick} I lay in the room next door and watch episodes of Ina Garten on YouTube and sleep the morning away. 

Around noon, the wife of our host family gets on the motorcycle and goes into town to bring back some food. By this time the sun is sweltering and my husband takes a break from working in the heat for a little bit. Lunch comes to us in small clear plastic bags, and it's usually soup with noodles and chicken. Everything around us is covered in dust and dirt, and I retreat to our bedroom where I am still getting over a virus that my kids had the week we left for Thailand and passed on to me.

Around 4:00 in the afternoon, the kids who live here come trickling back from school, and my husband gives them music lessons. I notice that their biological daughter is given snacks to eat but that the other children are not. The other children start on their chores for the afternoon. Then around 5:30 my husband goes with the other father to play soccer for a couple hours.

The boys come home around 7:30, when the women start making dinner. We don't eat dinner until 8:30, and the kids don't go to bed until 9:30 or 10:00. Showers {by our host family and the kids that are on the compound} are taken twice a day. I'm doing good when we have a shower once a day!

And then everything is repeated the next day.