This young lady and her sister, my neighbors in the village, did laundry on Saturday morning. They started around 6:30 (probably after cleaning up breakfast dishes), and they didn’t finish until 2 or 3 in the afternoon! Hard work.

Mr. Lungu, the single man whose house I stayed in, gets up every morning at 4:00 to start cleaning the house. Between 4:00 and 7:00 AM, he fetches water from a nearby well; starts a fire; mops the floors; heats water and takes a “bucket bath;” and makes, eats, and cleans up after a simple breakfast. Then at 7:00 he is off to the primary school where he teaches.

I, on the other hand, felt like a lazy bum the whole time I was there. I was never able to roll myself out of bed until after 4:30, and sometimes not until 5:30. Then I enjoyed some quiet time for reading. As a guest, I wasn’t allowed to help with chores, but sometimes I would do something to help out anyway.

On my last day, I got up after a meal to pour water for everyone to wash their hands. The men laughed out loud when I refused to sit down and let someone else do it. The crazy mzungu (English-speaking person) was tired of just being a guest.