day in and out

One of my favorite parts of the day is in the morning just after all of my housemates leave. They are usually gone by 7:30 and the maid doesn't come until 8:00. I have half an hour in which I know that I am alone in the house and I can dance around to non-existent music while I make toast or pancakes in the frying pan. I get to decide if I'm going to have tea or hot chocolate or just water with my breakfast. The air is still fresh and I usually haven't yet encased my feet in shoes. I walk on the cool cement.

One of my other favorite parts of the day is coming home as the sun is setting. At the turn from the main road into our neighborhood, there is a woman who sells roasted corn. Not sweet corn, which I don't really like, but hearty corn well roasted so that sometimes a few kernels are half-popped open like popcorn. I buy an ear from her every day. It's become a tradition. I greet her and shake hands with Elaine, her little daughter. Elaine swings around the sign post and I talk to her in English, which she doesn't understand, while her mother makes sure the corn is brown all over. The corn sometimes comes wrapped in pieces of the husk - to-go packaging.

When I get home, I always realize that I forgot to buy an extra ear for the guard and I give him 100 shillings (10 cents) so he can go buy his own, which I think he prefers because it means that he gets to go out of the yard for a while. I go out on the balcony and watch the sun set behind the long field and the low hills. I eat the corn and sometimes a popsicle and then usually I get so frustrated with the corn bits in my teeth that I have to go fix it before the sun actually goes down.