A Few Differences

Internet and Phones

Internet here in Kenya is very different than in the states. There are a few providers, but the main two are Orange and Safaricom. You purchase modems (jump drives) and pre-pay for data with scratch cards that you can purchase just about anywhere. Internet speed is slow. Downloading large pictures, songs, videos, etc is not advised. Internet is great for doing basic social media, email, research, etc. 

 

Phones are all pre-paid. Smart phones work here but are expensive if you buy them here. Tasch and I brought our iPhone 4’s under the assumption that they were unlocked. They were not. We are still in the process of unlocking them. Anyway, for phones here, you buy a SIM card and then you put shillings on your account. You can then, go online and allocate how many shillings you want for airtime and how much you want for data. SMS counts as airtime. This is similar to the pay-as-you-go phones in the states. 

Water, Electricity and Laundry

Water here is not drinkable. Water must be filtered to brush your teeth, wash your fruits and vegetables, and to drink. You can filter it by boiling it, or by using a water filter. We did not have a water filter here when we arrived to WGM bought one for the house!

Our water filter. Thank you WGM

Electricity here in Kericho is not reliable. It goes off at least once a day (usually around dinner time) and can stay off 15min to a few hours! We have candles all over the house because when power goes out at night, it gets very dark!

Our backup generator.
The is how we spend our evenings

Laundry is a very time consuming activity. We do have a washer, but it is not like the ones in the states. After clothes are washed, we put them in a separate compartment for them to spin. We then put them back in the washer to rinse before putting them back in the spinner. Once the washing process is complete, we hang our clothes on our clothes line in the back yard to dry. 

Our washer. The left side is for wash/rinse cycle.
The right side is for the spin cycle.

Our dryer. We don't need electricity for it!