Ah this past Sunday I took the padlock off my door for the first time in 2 weeks to walk into my hotbox of a home that had empty water bottles, medicine wrappers, dust, and cobwebs all over. Heck yes, I busted out some sweet ninja warrior moves at every run in with a cobweb. You know the feeling. When a web hits your face it’s like instant super powers. Ok. Enough on that.

So lets back up to say Jan 20th. The Peace Corps experience is like a rollercoaster. This week just so happened to be an up week. Health clubs, softball practice, meetings, everything was going well. I was reading some friends comments back home about how Kenya has been treating me well. And I was like you know what it really has. I haven’t hardly been sick. MISTAKE. Not 24 hours later: Boom – Have some malaria and that’s not enough how about we throw in a viral infection.

So I was doing laundry Friday morning and when I was taking my clothes off the line I became incredibly weak my clothes instantly became 90 lbs. and I needed to sit down. It wasn’t until Friday night that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was malaria. PC medical told us in training that we would know when/if we had malaria. True statement.

We were given a med kit stocked full of meds we might need at some point during our service. In this kit is a rapid malaria test. I didn’t drag myself out of bed until Saturday morning to confirm that it was malaria. I pricked my finger, drew blood, and watched the 2 lines appear indicating what I already knew. I called PC medical they told me to start the anti- malaria meds and that I would feel better after the first dose. (It’s 4 pills in the morning. 4 at night for 3 days.) I didn’t start feeling better until I had taken all 24 pills. At one point I was on 20 pills a day for different symptoms.

I had a splitting headache. I’m almost sure an axe was stuck in my skull. My back was in excruciating pain like I had never felt before. I’ve been in a couple car accidents that have messed up my back. Had nothing on this. I was drenching my clothes in sweat one minute. Then the next I was freezing, wrapped in my sleeping bag wearing a sweatshirt, pants, and socks. None of which I have had to use at my site till now. (Remember my house is like a sauna…it's free, no club membership necessary. Come visit.)

My symptoms only got worse and my temperature kept increasing. When it reached 103 and I wasn’t showing any signs of getting better it was off to the hospital for me. The first night I spent 5 hours trying to get admitted to the hospital. I had nearly finished the meds by now when they tested my blood so it was already out of my bloodstream and they told me nothing was wrong with me. Yes, but I beg to differ. So I stayed in a hotel room being miserable freezing under 4 blankets with a 103.7 temperature. (any higher and I was looking at possible seizures, brain damage, etc.)

PC was going to fly me to Nairobi the next day. In fact one of the PC med staff was going to fly out to get me but abdominal pain had now joined the unwelcomed guest list and they just wanted to get me in a hospital asap. So I went back to the hospital that denied me. After 3 hours of running me back and forth through about 12 steps they admitted me. I was sitting with one of the drs when she was on the phone talking to another dr. telling him she was admitting me because I was Caucasian. Really!? Cause that didn’t work for me last night.

While I was waiting in the waiting area there were no seats so a nurse came over to tell everyone to scoot over and share seats so I could sit down. Awesome even hospitals do it matatu style. (You may remember me writing about how they pack in 30 people in a 14 passenger vehicle.) Cool lets have all the sick people sit on top of one another coughing all over each other. This seems good. They called me back to put in my IV line and by this point I was feeling pretty ill. The nurse asked me why I was looking like that. Seriously, do I need to explain? I nearly puked all over the place. She gave me a bowl to carry around just in case.

I was put in a room with 6 other women who would randomly peek behind my curtain to wave at the white girl. A nurse stopped by to ask if I wanted anything to eat. (I have no idea what Kenyan hospital food would be.) I hadn’t been able to eat since I was sick but I kept trying. I asked her what my options were and she said no, you tell me what you want and I’ll get it. Um, so in that case a brownie sundae and BBQ. She brought me chicken and terrible rice. I looked down at my hospital bracelet to see that it was a baby bracelet and latched on the very last hole giving no room between the bracelet and my wrist.

The next night I was in a private room but my bed was angled like a ski slope so I woke up with a stiff neck and kept falling to the foot of the bed. The food was endless (which they kept being surprised when I hardly took a stab at it…people can we remember I don’t feel well. You know the whole hospital thing and all.) I also got fruit baskets with fruit I had no idea how to eat or even which part to eat. When I first moved into that room they brought me my own salt and peppershakers. Living fancy. You got nothing on me with your hospital stay Beyonce. The next morning the IV had made my wrist and hand swell up causing the baby bracelet to cut into my skin. Luckily, I was able to leave to get to Nairobi so PC could have a go at me before the hospital had a chance to balloon up my remaining hand.

I ended up staying in Nairobi for a week and a half while they monitored me and ran blood tests every other day. My liver was over functioning and a few other things were high but after 2 weeks of labs, check ups, and resting I was able to come home. My stats have gone back to normal. I’m still a little weak and my appetite hasn’t fully returned but I’m getting there. I was pretty miserable but I got spoiled with people serving me food, running water (showers, a real toilet) rooms that don’t feel like I’m in an oven, and uninterrupted sleep with no one banging on my door.

Let’s back up one more time to Jan. 1. A fellow PCV and I have been in search of a decent cheeseburger. I have had 4 and none have been slightly good, but we finally found one in Nairobi. We were passing through to get back to our sites. Nairobi is off limits to us except for medical reasons. So we were discussing how we could get "medical" trips to come to Nairobi to eat real food. I didn’t realize what I was asking for and the worst part I didn’t have an appetite my entire stay. I never got to order that bacon cheeseburger that I’ve been dreaming about ever since I found it a month ago. I know I know little violins are playing.

By the time PC was done with me I had been stuck with needles about 10 times. Also everyone always has a hard time finding my veins. So it’s a search and find but with all the blood work to get here and shots I’m used to it by now. At one point I had 6 jabs in my left hand. I played connect the dots and made a dinosaur.

It was tough being that sick and away from the people that love me but I kept hearing about how many people were praying for my recovery and keeping up with the updates on how I was doing. Even people I have no idea who they are. I was told one guy after finding out called 33 people. The love was felt from afar. Thank you for that.

I also had a number of great PC friends visit me at all of my medical stops along the way. In my worst hours I couldn’t help but question how long I would let Africa beat me up. You may remember back in 2009, I came back from Uganda with a viral infection that turned to pericarditis. That wasn’t fun but I remember saying then that it wasn’t gonna stop me from returning. Malaria is mean and viral infections hate me but this won’t stop me from staying.

So this is how you wanna play 2012. I like a good challenge. Lets go.

That was too long. I’m done.

Except I'm not. Side note: People have been worried that I haven't been eating for 2 weeks that I'm losing weight. Yes, indeed I have lost 5 pounds. But no worries somehow I have gained 18 since being here. Crazy right. I try to gain forever in the States and can't, but move to a place that is lacking food. Sure, makes perfect sense.

Last thing: World Malaria Day is April 25th. More on Malaria in a couple months.

One thing that has taken time to get used to is living by myself. *Some background on myself: Lived with a family of 5 through my whole life and if you have ever met someone in my family, we are not very internal people. We are LOUD, there is rarely a time when there is silence in our house, music is playing (usually by a person), the TV is on and people are yelling on top of it all. Once leaving my home and attending the University of Washington you would think I would want to experience life on my own, some peace and quiet….but no, I lived in a sorority with 80 other young women (some of the most intelligent, beautiful, rambunctious group of women). And I didn’t just live there for two or three years out of my four in college (like most people do), I decided to stay all four. 3 months later I move to AFRICA all by myself…I had never cooked for myself or cleaned a toilet, I even made my parents have a curfew because I was too scared to sleep at home by myself. Alright, enough of the confessions, my point is that it can be pretty lonely. I’ve realized that I CANNOT have my house be quiet, it drives me CrAzY! So, I blare my music…problem solved. And as anyone would know who has gone on a car trip with me, I can’t listen to music without singing along at the top of my lungs…As I do my laundry outside I am serenading my neighbors, as well as the birds and lizards that sun bath on my tin roof (The lizards and birds don’t seem to mind as much as my neighbors…). Deborah, the nurse that lives next door, told me the other day “you keep singing hun! Its good for the spirit. Doesn’t matter what anyone says.” My response “…what is everyone saying???...” (obviously they are all talking about how I must be a singing star back in America…).

As, many of you also know I live on an infirmary compound surrounded by 2 schools (one all girls, the other mixed), a soccer field, a convent and a catholic church. An amazing part of the church is that like a church in America, music plays a large role in all of the services, but unlike a church in America this music is full of drums. In any type of celebration here drums are going full force. At first I thought this was amazing, how wonderful…now, I want to run over and ask if drums are really necessary for a church service at 5:30 am (if you think church bells are bad…bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, BUM, BUM, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, BUM, BUM). I will say that when I am in the mood for the music (which is any other time of the day besides when I’m trying to sleep) it is some of the most amazing music I have heard. An older man (retired teacher) died near my house last week, it has been very fascinating to watch the ritual/celebration of life here. The family and friends of this man (which is naturally almost the whole town) paraded past the school up to the church and the sounds that I heard coming from the women’s mouths was something that I didn’t even know the human vocal chords could make! They don’t just cry during funerals they wail. It was shocking. And the music is playing at all times. For three days the celebration continues. They must keep the body in the home for 2 days, they last day (usually a Saturday) they bring the body to the church for blessing and then back to the home they go to celebrate all-night-long. Dead body stench and all, the music, dancing and celebration continues through the whole night. It is a last good-bye to the person before they burry them direction in front of their home. *interesting belief of Luyia’s: It is tradition to bury your deceased relatives in the front of your home so that the dead can continue to bless your home in their afterlife. I asked if the dead ever haunted them or if they even have a belief of haunting, their response was “why would they haunt you unless you did something bad to them during their life, and if that is so you deserve it!” (…of course). I then asked if they cremated their dead…they looked at me with disgust and ask, “Why would you put them through all that pain!?” …I guess I forgot that the dead still could feel…stupid me…

So because of the funeral, school came to a sort of pause. Many of the students attended the funeral with their families because they knew this man. So, Thursday and Friday was mainly review and games. Pretty fun. I found out that my class five (4 students who actually all happen to be hearing) didn’t know what continents were, let alone what ocean their country bordered. So after drawing a map of the world (my kids thought it was beautiful….it wasn’t…) I went through each continent and ocean with them. Miraculously a song from good ol’ McKenna Elementary came to me and I began singing it. The kids went crazy for it. Started dancing around the classroom and chanting the song at the top of their lungs. Whether they were saying the words correctly or not, I didn’t care, it was fun getting these kids out of their set routine of repeating everything that I say, copying the board and total lack of any creativity. I’ve noticed myself doing things like sitting on the desk instead of the chair, being a complete goof, making up outlandish lie’s so that they get upset and yell the correct answer. My favorite conversation that we keep having is when they call me muzungu (which means white person), I look around shocked and ask “Muzungu where???” They point at me. “WHAT!? I’m white!!!!!!!?????” “Yes, you are a muzungu.”“No. I’m Kenyan…I’m black.”“NO! Your white.”“But I’m from Africa.”“NO! you are from America.”“WHAT!? Really?”“Yes madam Claire, you are from America, you are just living in Africa.”“Oh…is that right? But isn’t America in Africa?”“No. It is far away!”“Is that so? Where?”“It is across the Pacific Ocean.”“NO WAY!”“Yes! On the other side of the world!”

….Finally…success….I’m not even sure if they know I’m joking through most of the conversation until they’ve drawn a map themselves and labeled it all and I’ve told them they have passed a test…they don’t even know what just hit ‘em.

This term is also when all the schools get together and have “the games”. This is many different competitions that go on at the end of the term, soccer, track and field, even dancing. So after school we have practices. This past week has been dedicated to dancing. WOW! Pretty amazing. I’ve wanted to take a video, but the kids get so distracted by the camera they always stop dancing…eventually I will capture it. It is the funniest and most impressive thing I’ve seen the kids do collectively. The dynamic drumbeats these kids create out of empty jerry cans alone are remarkable. Some of the kids don’t like to dance, but others get so into it! The boys crack me up, shaking their hips and bobbing their heads in traditional African dance. It has been fun being apart of it and watching them do something all together. I fall more in love with these kids everyday and they always seem to amaze me. The questions, the conversations, the personalities and new discoveries every day have been so much fun. Not every day is easy, it can be hard to motivate the kids when the heat from the day alone consumes all of your energy. And no matter if I’m getting through to them on the syllabus material…they know the continents J

My name is Alli Davis. I’ve served in the US Peace Corps, I’ve climbed to the summit of my service and crossed the lion-infested savannas of East Africa. Now my challenge is to navigate the cacophony of the Kenyan matatu stage. Millions of Kenyans and wazungu come to the stage each year, but what they [...]

            My site is in the South Western part of Kenya, near-ish lake Victoria, between the cities of Kisumu and Kisii. There isn’t a whole lot right here where I am, I live about a 45 minute walk from the nearest place large enough to be called a town.  There are little stores around here that sell the basics (eggs, bread, milk, flour, etc.) but that’s about it. 

            I’ve reached a very special time in my time as a PCV.  It’s a landmark in any PCV’s service; one could even go so far as to say it’s a right of passage.  I have a feeling you are dying to know what I’m talking about, making wild guesses in your head.  No, I have yet to become a “real” Peace Corps volunteer (you see, No “real PCV” would consider you one of the fold unless you too have pooped your pants, I haven’t yet but I’ll keep you posted. You’re welcome).  It’s the time when I start my blog with “Oh my gosh everyone, I’m so sorry it has been forever since I’ve posted anything on my blog for you all to read! I’m a horrible blogger!”               Oh my gosh everyone, I’m so sorry it has been forever since I’ve posted anything on my blog for you all to read! I’m a horrible blogger! Haha, sorry folks! Really, it has been a while since I’ve written, but things have been busy around here. Also, sometimes it’s hard to decide how to describe my experiences in a way that will accurately convey my thoughts.  Sometimes there are things that I experience that are striking, worth sharing, but if I just wrote them up and posted them I know they wouldn’t come across correctly when you read it.  It can be time consuming.                         For example, what would you think if I told you that I rode in a matatu (an 11 passenger van, kind of like a VW bus, that is used for public transportation) with 29 people in it the other day? That’s right, it had 2.6 times the number of people than it was designed to hold. I have a feeling that most Americans would read that, shake their heads, and feel sorry for me. Or even worse, that they might just add it to their mental bank of things that make you feel sorry for the “poor, uneducated African.”  You want to know what I thought?  “One more! Please shove one more in! One more!” That’s right, I wanted 30 to break my matatu PR.  I like matatus.  They’re cheap, they go basically everywhere in Kenya, they come by my house at least every 10 minutes. I’m so used to sitting four across in a row made for three with some lady’s baby partially sprawling onto my lap, a chicken below the seat and my backpack on my lap that I don’t even notice it’s different anymore. Honestly it can be nice; it’s kind of like a big, really warm, practically institutionalized group hug.                          In Kenya, it’s not that common for people to show affection physically in the way that Americans do.  People shake hands; oh boy do they shake hands.  Every time you see someone you are expected to greet them properly, shake their hand, ask them about their day, etc., even if it means you have to cross the street or walk 100 feet over to where they are sitting. Every morning when I arrive at school I shake each staff member’s hand. It is also acceptable for same-sex friends to hold hands.  This seems to be especially true for males; for example, it is fairly common for two guys in their 20s to walk down the street fingers intertwined, swinging their arms forward and backward ever so slightly. It just shows that they are good friends. However, I think I have seen two couples, total, in the 4 months that I’ve been here holding hands. One was young, one was old.  Hugging is also very, very, very uncommon.  Sometimes women will greet someone they haven’t seen for a while with an almost hug/cheek kiss, where they do the arm part of the hug while sticking out their butts so that nothing touches, while almost doing the cheek-cheek touch thing that people use to greet each other in Argentina, except they leave at least an inch of space and don’t make the noise. That’s about it…. I’m not normally a touchy-feely person. In America, at least, I have a well-established bubble of personal space… but here; I’ve come to miss being able to hug my friends goodbye. Matatus kind of make up for the lack of physical contact.   Anywho, those are my musings for right now. I hope you’ve enjoyed all the updates and that you are enjoying America-land with its wonderful cold weather, layered clothes and iced beverages!   Peace and Love, M

            It’s hard for me to believe we are about to start week 6 of the school year. The first five weeks have really flown by.  I’ve by and large really enjoyed teaching, I go through the classic ups and downs of PC service on a daily basis, but mostly it’s been up.             The school I work at is a new school.  It was founded in 2010, and is just adding a third year class (called “form three”) this year (there are four years in high school here). There are between 50 and 60 students in each of the three classes, a little more than a third of these students are girls.  The school started by borrowing two small classrooms from the adjacent primary school compound (the primary school wasn’t using them), and just completed construction on the first classroom on the actual secondary school classroom (so there are three classrooms in use right now).  There is also a “temporary” office building with the principal’s office, a storage area and the staffroom.             I’m one of seven teachers.  There are two, government funded, trained teachers (called teachers’ service commission or TSC teachers. To work for the TSC at the secondary level, one must have a degree in education from a university). The principal is one and the deputy principal is the other (she is also the only other female staff member). The remaining five are funded by the school (called board of governors teachers, or BOG teachers); of these, there are two university student guys in their 20’s on a long break, one is a “form four leaver” (a young guy who graduated from secondary school with good grades on his exit exam), one is an older guy who is some sort of bookkeeper or accountant, and finally there’s me.  We have a fun time in the staff room.  They are all pretty open-minded so we’ve been able to have some very frank discussions about Kenya and America, which I love.             I’m teaching biology to all three forms, chemistry to the form ones, and “life skills”  (basically a healthy living class) to all three forms.  In total that works out to a little over 20, 40-minute lessons a week, basically what any other full-time teacher here takes.  It was recommended that I start off with around 15 lessons a week, but I’m happy with a few more because I think I would go nuts if I didn’t have as much work to occupy my time. I like being busy too much.             The day at my school starts at 7:15am and goes until 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday and from 2:00pm to 3:20pm on Sundays.  The first, last and Sunday lessons are “extra” lessons, so teachers only have to come for the ones they are scheduled for. All four of mine (one for each form of chem and bio) are at 7:15am, which I really like because even though it’s still early, the kids are more awake since it’s yet to get really hot in the classrooms.  The last hour of the day is “games time,” where the kids either play soccer, volleyball or netball; or they participate in clubs (the most active of which is a journalism club).  Many of the kids stay on after five to keep playing games, so there are some days where we’re at school for over 10 hours. It’s a long day for them and I’m impressed by their ability to pay attention even at the end of their day.              So far I’ve really enjoyed teaching here. There are some definite challenges; for example, the school has yet to receive funding from the government to buy books for the students, so we are working with only a few copies of each textbook that are mostly there for the use of the staff. However, by and large things are good.  The kids have a lot of potential and It’s been fun to start to get to know them a bit better.  Hopefully soon we’ll be able to start talking about the kinds of projects they are interesting in having me help them with.   Peace and Love, M

            My site is in the South Western part of Kenya, near-ish lake Victoria, between the cities of Kisumu and Kisii. There isn’t a whole lot right here where I am, I live about a 45 minute walk from the nearest place large enough to be called a town.  There are little stores around here that sell the basics (eggs, bread, milk, flour, etc.) but that’s about it.              I have the great fortune of living just off a major paved road.  This makes transportation a lot easier. All I have to do is walk out of my compound and hail a matatu and I can be in a place with a bank and a grocery store that sells cheese in under an hour (other PCVs can tell you that this is a serious luxury).  I just have to be careful not to leave site too much; other volunteers have serious transportation barriers to getting out of the village so they tend to only go out when they need it, but I don’t have the same barriers so I have to employ serious will power sometimes.              I live on a family compound, which is fantastic. First, because I have a little bit more privacy than I would if I lived on a school compound (my students don’t always see my comings and goings), and second because I have a lot more security than I would if I lived alone (there is always someone around to keep an eye on the place and look out for me, and the family that owns the compound seems very well respected so the creepers stay away).  The family has been really great, helping me to get comfortable here.             Their house sits in the middle of the compound.  The family’s son has a house that sits in the front right corner of the compound (in the local Luo tribe’s tradition, the oldest son builds a house in the front right corner of his father’s compound when he comes of age, he eventually moves out to build his own compound but he keeps his house at his parents. The family’s son spends most of his time in Kisumu where he’s a Doctor). My house is a part of a long building directly behind theirs. In that building there is a large kitchen for the family, a guest room, a storage room, my apartment, CS’s (a public health PCV) apartment, and a young Tanzanian family has a third apartment.              My apartment isn’t huge, but it is really nice.  I have a small kitchen with a sink, a sitting room, a small bedroom, a hallway and a tiny bathroom with a western toilet and a cold shower (which I don’t use, bucket baths are much more pleasant than cold showers). The house has electricity, running water from a rainwater catchment system (it only works when there is rain though, we’re in the dry season right now, so I’ve been drawing water from the well on the compound), and a ceiling.  The ceiling is a real luxury because I have a tin roof (like the vast majority of Kenyan homes), and tin roofs heat up houses like giant solar ovens. The ceiling keeps the hot air trapped above me, so my place stays pretty cool all the time. Cell phone reception isn’t great, but that’s just about the only thing I can complain about. My other PCV friends have taken to calling it “the tiny palace”… so I’m lucky.              I have a pretty minimalist set up right now. I have a 4’x6’ bed, two kitchen chairs and that’s it.  I’ve talked to a “fundi” (basically a technician of some kind, in this case a carpenter, but they can be anything from mechanics to tailors) about building some shelves, a sofa and a dining table for me, but we’ve yet to get started. Hopefully by the end of the month though, something will have come into existence. Until then, I will continue to lounge on a yoga mat on the floor in my sitting room, haha.     Peace and Love, M

About a month and a half ago, I had the great privilege of swearing in as a Peace Corps volunteer. The swearing in ceremony is the moment a Peace Corps trainee becomes an official Peace Corps Volunteer, and is probably the coolest ceremony I have ever participated in. In a battle between any of my graduation ceremonies and swearing in, swearing in would have KOed graduation in the first three minutes. It’s just that cool. I’ll expand. At each swearing in, five volunteers are selected to speak. One deaf education and one science education volunteer are selected to thank the officials that helped bring us to Kenya (the government, the ministry of education, the headmasters of the schools we serve at, etc.). Three other volunteers are picked to give a commencement-style speech; one gives it in Kenyan Sign Language, one in Swahili and one in English (the three official languages of Kenya). A couple of weeks before swearing in, I learned that I had been selected to give the speech in Swahili. I was really excited, but really nervous because while I’d gotten fairly proficient at basic tasks in Swahili (like bargaining with Matatu touts, greeting people, explaining why I’m in Kenya), I hadn’t really achieved a level where I could express abstract ideas or feelings (I think the only “feeling” word I had was “to become happy – Kufurahi”). The deaf education volunteers trained in another town from us; so even though DR (English) and I worked on the speech before we travelled to Nairobi, we couldn’t finalize it until meeting with KR (KSL) a couple of days before swearing in. This meant that the translation of the speech into Swahili wasn’t completed until the morning of the ceremony. So while everyone else was practicing reciting the oath (the standard issue “I swear to protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America…” oath), I was outside trying to read through the speech 100 times before we had to leave. I’m sure I looked like a crazy person, pacing back and forth, speech in hand, repeating three word phrases under my breath, over and over again. Then the time came and we all loaded on a couple of busses for the drive over to the country director’s house where the ceremony was being hosted. He and his wife have a beautiful home on the outskirts of Nairobi. They had set the yard up for the celebration, with big white tents for shade, rows of chairs, banners and red white and blue everywhere (it looked really nice). As we waited for swearing in to start, we watched a traditional music/dance group and loitered around drinking lattes (they had a coffee company making LATTES, I had 5… I was really missing coffee at that point), snaking on American junk food (Doritos, Cheetos and brownies), admiring the cupcake version of the Peace Corps logo and taking as many group pictures as we possibly could. It’s funny how two months in the village can really make you appreciate little things like good coffee and cheetos. Then we all sat down for the ceremony. The training manager welcomed everyone, the country director, an embassy official and an official from the ministry of education all spoke, then we said our oath and officially became volunteers. Our group was one of the last to swear in during the 50th anniversary year of Peace Corps, and many of the comments made reflected on the legacy of Peace Corps around the world and on returned PCVs. It’s an experience that tends to change people, to shape their world-view and character, something that few Americans can even fully understand. Joining the Peace Corps is a bit like gaining life-long membership in a funny little club of interesting, service-minded individuals. One speech giver even made the comparison, “if the marines are the few the proud; Peace Corps volunteers are the fewer the prouder.” Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m happy to join the fold. Completing that oath was a moment of pride for me, of hope for what I can accomplish while I’m here, and of excitement about being exactly where I want to be at this juncture in my life. Then we gave our speeches. KR went first with the KSL version, then I went, then DR finished with the English version. I hadn’t realized how long that freaking speech was until I was about a third of the way through and my mouth was tired of forming all the unfamiliar sounds (I’m pretty sure it’s the longest uninterrupted period of time that I’ve spoken in Swahili). I made it through though, and I think I did a respectable job so “iko sawa, hakuna shida” (it’s okay, no problems). A few more speeches were delivered and then it was time to celebrate. First we had cake at the ceremony, then we returned to the hotel changed out of our fancy clothes and ventured out into Nairobi. A big group of us went to explore the Peace Corps office, others went to pick up a few items at the big stores (some things are hard to find in the village), while still others went to museums. That night, we went out to dinner in the Western-style restaurants that Nairobi offers. I went with a group of about 15 to a Mexican restaurant for fajitas and Sangria. We capped off the night with some dancing back at the hotel (the Macarena definitely made an appearance for the first time in many, many years). It was wonderful, simple and fun. One by one, people dropped out to go to sleep (most of us were departing early the next morning for our permanent sites), and we said our goodbyes. It was hard to leave everyone, over the 10 weeks of training we had become a funny little family, but exciting to move on to the next stage in our time in Kenya. Peace and Love, M

6 weeks into my service. Some days it feels like 6 years while others feels like 6days. I've been teaching 4 weeks and all I can say WOW! There have been so many ups and downs. Some days I leave the lesson smiling from ear to ear because I know the students have picked up a thing or two. But many times I leave the classroom feeling so defeated, especially during the 1st week when I didn't really know what to expect. I teach about 28 Lessons a week:KSL Class/Grade 4(5 lessons a week), Science Class 4(5), English Class 5(7), PE Class 5(aka the whole school because the kids just walk out of class and many times the teachers don't notice because they are doing other things) and Math Class 8(7). This class will be taking an exam in November so I work with them night and day in hopes that they will get scores good enough to get them accepted in a secondary school.

As with most deaf students here in Kenya, my students are far behind their hearing peers. Out of my 9 students in English 5 I would say 2 can write properly and that's with guidance. So needless to say teaching them what's on the syllabus I was given went out the door the second week. My goal is to teach them what they should have learned so one day they will understand the things we are trying to force upon them now. I mean really what's the need of knowing that words like stop and cut have double letters when adding -ing if you don't know how to use them in a sentence.

Each month our students have testing for 3 days to show the progress of students throughout the year. They are practice test that we order from some bookstore, many of the questions are not well written/simply don't make sense. The scores do not determine if you move on to the next class, everyone moves on, and the only test that truly matter is the KCPE that is only taken by Class 8 to get into secondary schools as mentioned before. Anyways, all of this to say that typically scores are pretty low. They have 5 subjects:Math, English and English Composition, KSL and KSL Composition, Science, and Social Studies/Religious Studies. So out of the 500 possible points we had one student in the entire school get above 300 and this was a student who just recently lost her hearing(and is now losing her vision-its really sad actually) to a tumor. She's extremely bright, but since being here her scores have dropped which I can totally understand.

Each teacher grades their class work and reports it to the headteacher for that particular class. You wouldn't believe how many times I heard 'See this one can't write a thing' or 'This is just how I pupils are, we have to accept that.' I'm sorry I just have a hard time accepting that. Deaf does not equal dumb by any means and if you see that they can't write then help them with the basics instead of continually pushing them through. Now I know you can't take much time out of class everyday to try to help one student write but we have nightly Preps(study hall) of which myself and just one other teacher shows up to regularly and helps out. Or you could simply try to teach them instead of assigning them pages to copy out of a book(of which they don't understand) or missing class altogether. On Friday there were a total of 5 out of 12 teachers here. No we do not have Subs. If you do not show the students simply sit in class and story(it's what we call talking in the deaf world), or flip through pages in a book. These children are pretty well disciplined, I mean we all know the days of which our teachers didn't come to class and how we went crazy-giving the Subs a hard time, copying each other's work or not doing it at all(ha maybe that was just me). But these students just sit in class patiently waiting for something to happen, I guess they are just used to it by now. Its crazy because in training the PCVs who were already working in schools warned us about all of this but I wanted to believe that my school would be different...ha so much for that.

Sorry I know you all were expecting another rainbow and butterfly blog but this one just won't be that. Ha you all know I'm a pretty cynical personal anyways so sometimes these things just have to come out. On a positive note I truly love my students. Although they ask about 100 questions a day(if you know me you know I hate when ppl question me/where I'm going/what im doing haha

Every 1st Saturday of the month we have parents day. Yesterday we had our largest turnout since the school has been open in 2009(says the Principal) which is awesome. It was so great to see so many parents and siblings miss and love these kids. Of course not all came, so there were a few sad faces but I tried to play with them to keep their mind off it for a second or two. Most of the parents do not know sign language so they simply talk to their kids but we are working on mini sign language classes and they all seemed very interested to learn the alphabet and numbers so that was promising. Seeing all the parents and love ones did make me a little sad as well. As of today 2/5/2012 I've been in Kenya 4 months exactly(any other time 4 months would be nothing). This is the longest I've gone without seeing my family, of which you all know I am very close to, and most of my friends. I am very thankful for technology(honestly I'm not sure how people 15-40years ago made it in the PC-I guess if you don't know about it you can't miss it/expect it, but honestly I'm not sure what I would have done) Skype, facebook, and email usually makes my weekends worthwhile. But honestly nothing beats/brightens my day like a good ol piece of snail mail. So thank you all who have sent me something-although I prob told you thank you on facebook the same day I really do appreciate the time and effort put into sitting down and writing a letter then going to the post office and mailing it. I know life in America is often busy and usually don't have time to do little things like that so I feel pretty darn special when I get something. Well that's all the updates I have right now. Until next time....

Jenny and I were sitting on the couch (twin size, simple wooden bed frame my principal gave me a year ago with thin foam mattresses on top of it that I use as a couch) in my living room when she deliberately grabbed a black, ballpoint pen and drew a triangle on the palm of [...]

Note for the folks at home: Football (also known as "soccer" or "that kicking game") is, without doubt, the most popular sport in Kenya. Other sports exist; like rugby, volleyball, badminton, handball, netball, and basketball; but they are generally considered warm-up acts to The Game Of Games. Kenya boasts its own national football league, the Kenyan Premier League, which currently hosts sixteen teams from all over the nation (although, admittedly, most are based in the capital city, Nairobi). Despite this, few Kenyans follow the Kenyan Premier League, opting instead for English Premier League games. Many English clubs have a strong following in Kenya, including Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal. To a Kenyan, American football seems like an outrageous and comical sport, if they have heard of it at all.

Sorry for the lack of updating. Though I guess it's only been a couple of weeks so maybe there is not really a lack. But the only thing I really have to write about is a rant about dependency syndrome, people telling me to buy them sodas, kids (including the one who lives on my compound) calling me mzungu, and the lack of privacy at home (the man who owns my house seems to have decided to move back for half the week, every week, which really disrupts my happy routine).

I am trying to refrain from this because I've complained about these things before and once, or 10 times maybe, should be enough. I think I just really need to take a vacation so that these same old things that keep bothering me will stop bothering me again. I'll get to working on those plans. But in the mean time, I am here. Not doing a whole lot and trying to avoid all the proposals people want me to help them write. I hate writing proposals. So boring and tedious and not at all what I came here to do.

I do have one story about my cat friend. Every day I am at the office (which is most days lately, meaning I am not doing much though the organic farming project is up and running nicely) I eat lunch at this hoteli (restaurant) called the Sky Way Hotel. Communication is limited between me and the people who work there, but I think I can call them friends, as far as my loose definition of friends goes in the village. It's really hard to make friends here, with the cultural and language barriers and especially the fact that I am perceived to be rich.

I have another friend there who is a cat. Everyday the cat follows me in because he knows he will get some of my food (especially if Mama Jennifer has thrown in some matumbo (cow intestines) as a special treat for me). Here animals and humans have very different relationships and I am pretty sure everybody thinks I am crazy for scratching this cats ears and giving him my hard earned food. I also talk to the cat and hope nobody will notice but I am pretty sure people do. However, I am short enough on friends in the village as it is, so I must keep this one even if people think I am crazy for befriending a cat.

Today there was another man dining in the restaurant who really did not appreciate my treatment of the cat. He stood up and yelled at the cat in Luhya, I am perceiving he told him to leave but instead the cat went and hid behind my legs. An obvious give away that I am friends with this unwanted visitor. And the cat stayed there for the rest of lunch time, eating the food I "dropped" and enjoying a nice scratch on the head. The man causing the disruptions got ready to leave but before he did he threw one more fit to the whole restaurant including the mamas who work there who I consider my friends. The fit took place in Luhya but I assume I was being insulted for being nice to a cat.

And this is my only (non-complaining) story of the last 2 weeks. Which is why I have not been updating.

Hopefully I get out of this "not doing anything" phase again soon. It seems like I come up with a lot of plans and work and things we can do and we're really busy for a couple of weeks and then one day we realize we have nothing to do and are not doing anything. It's a cycle I don't quite understand. Or particularly like. But as a plus I did manage to get my iTunes playlists all re-arranged and up to date while at work, and this always takes a really long time.

I was walking home a little while back in the late afternoon; it wasn’t quite “sunset,” but rather that canary-lit expanse of time filmmakers will often refer to as “The Golden Hour.” I had had a perfectly pleasant day and felt completely unhurried as I picked my way over the coral-carved paths and alongside eerie, [...]

Several people have told me the formatting of the blog made it hard to read so, after literally hours of trying to fix it from my end I ended up with this new, and really simple template. Hope this is easier on the eyes...

Here’s a random cute pic to start off the entry…

Boo helping me study

And this is what the doctors do in the reception area of the clinic when there aren't a lot of patients...

  The clinic staff shelling peanuts in the reception area of my clinic 

So I made a list of New Year’s resolutions the first week of January and I’ve been trying to at least attempt to follow through on them. Mostly they’re the same ones I’ve been making for years; get in shape, eat better, study, make better relationship decisions (ie stay away from boys), be less dramatic. There were a couple more specific goals though. I want to get a 37 or better on my MCATs in May, which means my nose needs to spend a lot of time in a book over the next few months (for those of you not up on your MCAT scoring grid, a 37 would put me around the top 1% of testers which makes it a really lofty goal). I also want to get the “read” folder on my Kindle to over a hundred books by the end of this year (currently at 59 so I’m thinking this one is in the bag). “Be happy for ____’s happiness” is another one. If you know me well enough (ie have heard me bitch about my previous relationship enough) you know who’s name goes in the blank. If not, let’s just say I’d like to be happy for an ex of mine who happens to now be shacking up with my arch-nemesis. I’m not yet “zen” or a big enough person to give a shit about her happiness- maybe in 2013. Another resolution; finish writing a book by the end of this year. I’ve started writing a couple since I’ve gotten here. One is around 18,000 words and the other, newer one is around 12,000. Both have promising beginnings but my downfall has always been in the follow through. This resolution is probably the goal least likely to get completed. Admittedly, it’s a repeat offender having made numerous appearances on lists of ‘things to do’ over the years. I’ll try to keep you all updated on how the resolutions are coming…In January I spent some time in the shamba (field) planting vegetables for the clinic. When the new addition to the clinic opens we will have in-patient care and would like to use the crops from the shamba to feed the in-patients and the staff. They also gave me a little plot of my own to try and grow some other vegetables. Right now I’m trying my hand at cucumber, carrots and pumpkin but I’m hoping to add more variety as time, space and motivation allows. The garden has a two-fold purpose. On one hand, I need stuff to do until the new addition opens. I have some other stuff going but a lot of it involves sitting in my house, which gets depressing after a while. So, the garden will get me outside, get my hands dirty and also cut down on my food costs since I’ll be growing some of my own veggies instead of buying them. Plus, I’ve always wanted to grow stuff. Mom and Dad (and the 30 x 6 ft strip of dirt in the backyard where grass used to be) can attest to my previously failed attempts at gardening.

The other goal of the garden is to try and get people to grow other kinds of vegetables. Even though there are a wide variety of crops that could be grown here, the Kenyans tend to eat the same five things over and over again. As a consequence they tend to grow those same few crops. This wouldn’t be a problem if they were getting sufficient nutrition from what they were eating. Unfortunately they aren’t and considering the fertility of the land here, that’s a real shame. Vitamin A deficiency is the number one cause of preventable blindness in Kenya, especially for children. This is the case in many other developing countries as well. In addition to causing blindness (especially loss of night vision) Vitamin A is important for boosting immune function and, as an added bonus, keeps your skin nice and healthy. Due to wide-spread deficiency, Vitamin A is supplemented for all children under 5 (every 6 months) and pregnant women. However, since there aren’t magic supplement fairies that go to people’s houses to make sure they’re getting proper nutrition , this requires that the kids be brought to a health center at regular intervals which is hardly the case (even for people who live within a few kilometers of our clinic) and many kids don’t get these supplements. I have, on several occasions, met children in the village who were 2, 3, 4 or more years old and had never been to a health facility, didn’t have a single immunization and no birth certificate. Really though, the supplementation shouldn’t even be necessary. Vegetables like sweet potatoes, carrots and pumpkin have lots of vitamin A and are easy to grow and prepare. And when I say “lots” of Vitamin A, I mean 1 cup of mashed sweet potatoes has 769% of your RDA (recommended daily allowance), 100 g of raw carrots have 334% and 1 cup of boiled pumpkin has 245%, making all three of them great sources of Vitamin A. So, what’s the problem?As I said before, people here tend to eat the same five things every day. Here’s what a typical diet for a villager around me might look like:Staple Foods (i.e. consumed on a daily basis) · White bread or Mandazi (maa- n- da-zee) – fried doughnut like things only with less sugar· Chai – black tea, milk and sugar· Maize flour – very similar to corn flour. They use it to make ugali (oo-ga-lee) which is eaten at least once a day if not twice. If you want to know what ugali is like, take malt-o-meal and add about a third of the water you’re supposed to (no sugar) then heat and stir…· Sweet bananas – tiny little things I never believed would taste different than normal sized bananas but actually do…· Kale – they call it skuma wiki (skoo-ma week-ee) and they prepare by finely chopping the leaves, boiling, draining, and frying with a small amount of onion and tomato. · Other native green leafy vegetables – some of these are actually my favorites both taste wise and from a nutritional standpoint. They tend to be high in calcium, iron and folic acid (like green leafies back home) and their biggest downfall is that they are traditionally prepared in the same way as skuma wiki, so some of their nutritional value is lost through boiling and the frying adds unnecessary fats.

Semi-Staple Foods (consumed once, twice, possibly three times per week):· Black beans · Whole maize (similar to corn but tougher and (guessing based on texture here) with a higher starch content)· Potatoes, sweet or regular· Eggs – may be eaten more often if they own chickens or have easy access and moderate income· Milk – may be drunk more often if they have easy access and moderate income· Other tropical fruits (oranges, mangoes, papaya, very rarely pineapple (they are expensive))· Sugar cane· Porridge (usually exclusively fed to small children)· Green bananas – peeled, boiled and fried with onion and tomato (seeing a pattern here…?)

Rarely Eaten Foods (A few times a month and/or at special occasions)· Meat – usually goat, chicken or beef. People raise livestock here but it is the “middle-class” villagers who can afford to eat their animals. I would say most families in the village, especially very poor families, have meat only a few times a month. · Dried fish – either tilapia or omena (o-men-ah, small minnow-looking fish) that are sun dried and transported from Lake Victoria. Omena are reasonably cheap and eaten more often than other meats. · Sweets – suckers and bubble gum are available at most little shops and given to kids as a reward or on special occasions

So, the goal of my garden is to introduce the community to different vegetables and subsequently show them ways to prepare them. To do that second part I want to get a community resource center started. It would be a space for educational materials (textbooks, etcetera) that everyone could benefit from, plus a place where we can hold meetings for youth groups, cooking classes, etcetera. Here’s a few pictures of the shamba around the clinic and some of my own little plot that they gave me to grow my “other” vegetables. Since writing the first part of this post I’ve found seeds for watermelon, cantaloupe, baby spinach, mixed baby greens and broccoli. The carrots, cucumber and pumpkin have also started to sprout and it’s a little ridiculous how excited I am about that fact. At least for now, I’m loving being a farmer.

 The field behind the clinic where we planted a TON of kale and I got more dirt under my finger nails than I was aware they could hold, My little shamba. It's about half way dug out, the far end will be a melon patch when I find the time and energy to hoe-out the rest of the space!

The only downside to the location of my shamba is its proximity to that fence you see in the picture. There’s a path on the other side of that fence which a lot of people walk down and, even though I’ve been out there for over 2 weeks straight now, every single day, people still stop and stare at the white woman working in the field. Some people applaud me (literally) and think its really cool that I’m doing the same things they do, that I’m making an effort to really experience their life. Others ask me why I don’t find a boyfriend to do the digging for me. The people in this second group are all men and they all annoy the hell out of me. One guy (who has defended himself as a proponent of gender equality on numerous occasions) went so far as to tell me that my body is going to get “hard” if I keep working and a young women like me should have a soft body and should do work in the home to keep it that way. I am getting extremely good at smiling and nodding cordially while secretly wanting to punch someone in the face. Perhaps I should consider a career in politics. The fact of the matter is I enjoy the work. I like getting all dirty and sweaty. I love falling into bed at the end of the day and sleeping like a log. Plus, having a Kenyan do it for me would I mean I would have to pay them money I really don’t have or I would have to date them, something I am wholeheartedly uninterested in. The reasoning there is a whole other issue I might get into at a later date.*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*On to a more depressing story… I think I might have talked about jiggers before, so if you’re a frequent viewer and you know about them, skip the rest of this paragraph… Jiggers are tiny little bugs that are related to fleas. They live in the dirt and when you walk barefoot they can ‘jump’ onto your feet, burrow under your skin (they especially like the nail beds) and lay their eggs. The jigger stays burrowed and grows as they produce more and more eggs and eventually the sack bursts and the eggs are released into the dirt where the cycle can start over. This process leaves open wounds all over the feet of an effected individual. In severe cases the jiggers can infest the hands, knees and even genitals. If they are not treated the person will become disabled as their toe nails fall off and the toes eventually atrophy and fall off. Painful sores on the feet keep the person from walking so they end up crawling around the house, which is how the jiggers end up on the knees, elbows, genitals (from sitting on the floor with inadequate clothing). The saddest part of the whole thing is that the treatment is cheap and easy; you dunk your feet (or whatever other part is affected) into a bucket of water mixed with about 15 cents worth of liquid medicine (a cleanser very similar to bleach). In 20 minutes the jiggers are killed and after a few days they fall out of the skin. The wounds begin to heal like any other and in a couple weeks the wounds are healed. So, this brings me to my story… a couple weeks ago I went on an “outreach” day into the village to treat jiggers. We’d done a similar trip the week before waaaaay in the interior (well over an hour of walking away from town) and treated twenty or so people over the course of an entire day. Here are pictures of the first family of kids we treated. We found the 3 sisters home alone in the middle of the day; their parents had gone off to try and find or beg for food.It's not at all unusual to find a 9 or 10 year old taking care of their younger siblings.

 My friend Ignatius washing the feet of the girls in a basin of medicine. One of my favorite pictures from my time in Kenya so far. We also sprayed the houses of the people with moderate cases to try and stop the buggers from re-infesting. This day, however, we made the short trip to the school I taught at and treated over 60 kids in a couple hours.  A bunch of the school kids waiting or being treated in the front yard of the school.

Most of the cases were pretty mild, a few on the toes, maybe one on the heel or the ball of the foot, but nothing we hadn’t seen before. Then the teacher’s showed me the feet and hands of a pair of brothers. The pictures are below.

You can see the sores where the jiggers burrow in, lay their eggs and then eventually burst out of, leaving a painful open sore.

This picture does a good job showing how the toenails in particular are a favorite area for the jiggers and how their infestation can disfigure the toes. These were the only kids who had jiggers on their hands and it wasn’t just one or two, it was enough that it was probably affecting their ability to write and do other activities requiring fine-motor skills. We treated the boys' feet like all the others and I had the idea to treat their hands by putting them in gloves and filling the gloves with medication. They looked a little goofy but it got the job done.

So, we treated these two boys and the rest of the kids at the school and then we went to the house where the brother’s lived so we could spray since they obviously had a bad infestation. The house, a four walled mud hut with a roof of dried banana leaves and maize stalks, was on the way back to the clinic, a house I’d actually been to before. We called “hodi” as we walked up, which is basically like “anybody home?” and an obviously old voice cracked “karibu” from inside, which means welcome. The five of us piled into this tiny room, maybe 13 x 15 feet and exchanged the necessary greetings with the old woman who turned out to be the grandmother of the boys. We told her that we’d seen the two boys at the school and asked if we could spray around the inside and outside of the house. As this conversation was going on I was looking around the tiny house wondering if one could inherently ‘know’ there were a shit-ton of bugs here just by looking. Really, you can’t; the house looked like any other mud-walled-hut I’ve seen a hundred times in the village. However, as I was eyeing the cracks and crevices of the floor from afar, I noticed a little kid sitting in the bedroom. The ill-fitting wooden door was barely half open but I could see the little boy sitting on the floor through the space where the door ‘hinged’ with the wall. He was cross-legged on the floor, picking absently at his bare feet. I nudged Jen (one of the community health workers for the area) and pointed to the kid in the room. She peered in at him for a moment before going into the room and scooping him up off the floor. She lifted him easily, carrying him away from her body with outstretched arms like you would a filthy animal. She crossed the living room and brought him outside. She tried to get him to stand but he refused to put his weight on his feet and let his legs buckle and his butt fall to the grass when she finally let him go. He tucked his legs up again and slumped forward, his head hanging droopily over his feet. If he had been a depressing sight inside, seeing him in the harsh light of the day was enough to bring tears to your eyes. The pictures below are of this little boy and they are disturbing.  Most little kids love having their pictures taken. This little boy would not look up from the ground and he wouldn't talk to me or any of the other community health workers, even to tell us his name and how old he was. 

 The worst case of jiggers I've ever seen in a small child. There are no words that can describe the particular mix of emotions I felt sitting there with this child. The jiggers were so bad on his hands and feet that they were forcing some of his nails right out of their nail bad and they were in the process of falling off. He wouldn’t stand because he couldn’t; he was in too much pain from the open sores all over the bottom of his feet. One of his fingers was shorter than the matching one on the other hand because the jiggers had literally eaten off the tip of his finger. I would have been surprised if this kid could hold a pencil or feed himself without considerable pain.

I was simultaneously heart-broken, angry and so, so frustrated. We sat him down on a tiny little bench and submerged his hands and feet in the water-medicine solution. I put gloves on and squatted down next to him, trying to pull off jiggers I could see and rub loose skin out of the way so the liquid could get better access at the bugs under the skin. The kid kept trying to yank his hands away because it hurt but it was important to make sure the medicine could work properly. I felt awful inflicting that pain on him and watching him squirm in pain made me even madder. I paced back and forth in the front yard fighting tears as his hands and feet continued to soak. Nothing is sadder than seeing a child in pain Nothing is more frustrating than knowing the prevention of that suffering is as easy as washing ones hands and feet. And, nothing is more maddening than hearing the caretaker of that child make excuses as to why he’s in that condition. I have constant discussions here about family size, about why it’s important to reduce the average family size if Kenya ever wants to get itself out of “third-world” status. The Kenyans tell me that Americans don’t like children and that’s why we only average just over two per couple. They tell me that Kenyan people cherish and revere children, that they are a gift from God and that’s why they have so many. It’s really hard to see something like the boy with the debilitating jiggers and think that that qualifies as cherishing a child. Isn’t it better to have a few children and take care of them than have a baker’s dozen and leave them all suffering? In that family’s case, the mother died about five years ago and the father abandoned the children (there are four of them). In fact, that father lives just down the street with a new family. For all intents and purposes his children died to him when their mother passed. Though I can understand a lot of things and my horizons have been broadened through my experiences, I will never understand how someone can walk away from their four small children and never look back. I cannot understand how he could live in the same village, undoubtedly knowing of their suffering and do nothing to help them. The sad thing is this story is not a rare one. I am told that if a woman dies the chances that the father will stay with the children are slim to nil. In Kenyan society it is the man’s right to take a new wife and have a new family. If this sounds like I am laying blame solely on the men, I’m not. The women are just as much to blame for this practice as far as I am concerned. It is these new wives who, in many cases, insist that the man sever ties to the children he bore with his first wife. Instead, it seems to me that these women should insist that the man take care of all of his children. After all, isn’t that what she would want if she were to die? Alright, enough preaching on that depressing and oh-so-frustrating topic! Here are a couple pictures I have to share are of my own recent experience with bugs. After waking up with increasingly itchy for two weeks straight I finally took a picture (I don’t have anything bigger than a face mirror) of my back one night after getting out of the “shower” and this is what I saw…

First I laughed at the fact that I looked like I had chicken pox and then I promptly started researching how to kill bed bugs. I went to the chemist (drug store) and bought 75 cents worth of poison which I mixed with water (per instructions that were, thank God, in English) and proceeded to spray everything in my room that could have possibly come in contact with my bedding. There is nothing quite so depressing as having to de-bed-bug a Carebear and a stuffed lion. I lined them up against the side of the bed like a firing squad, apologized and doused them liberally with stinky poison. In fear of night time retaliation I have not yet invited them back to bed and they currently glare at me from their perches atop my still full suitcases.

Finally, I’ve told many of you that I’ve been making jewelry and I wanted to share with you a few pictures of some of the things I’ve made. Thanks to everyone who has sent me magazines, you’ve helped make some of these! If anyone is interested in purchasing anything, let me know :-)

These are the paper beads made from magazine!

 A necklace (or wrap it on the wrist a few times for a bracelet) and earring set.  This is just a few of the pieces I have made and if people are interested I can post more pictures in future entries. Alright, until next time, love you all!

The other night was interesting to say the least. I just feel like I have to tell the world about it because nothing like this would ever happen in the states. My home was invaded by safari ants. These ants are not your typical tiny ants that aimlessly wander these ants are always on a [...]

Not sure what happens if you find a lizard in your laundry bucket on ground hog day, but we’re hoping for rain.

When I was sixteen, I worked at a grocery store in New Hampshire. One day, this customer came in and looked at my name tag. I was used to getting all kinds of “Hey, Ryan? Isn’t that a boy’s name?” type comments and so when he repeated my name I expected something like that. But he looked at me strangely and said in a slow voice, “Ryan the Lion.” It made me smile at the time and my fellow cashiers

So far we are a day into training at the Nairobi compound. learned my first bit of Kiswahili. after my typhoid and hep A shot that has left me with a dead arm these last few hours, my buddy Ryan … Continue reading →

i just received an email that explains all of the tiers of living in kenya as peace corps volunteer. i live like the top 5 tier, the rhino. it’s the highest of difficulty. actually, i live even higher than that, … Continue reading →

Well, today is February 1st and everything is going well here in Bondo. Below is an update of what I've been working on:

University classes:

I had a meeting with the dean of the business school on January 3rd in which we chose classes and he announced that the new semester would not be starting until April... So, you can imagine my surprise when I received a call the next week on January 11th telling me that I had a class at 5:30 until 9 PM in Kisumu that evening. In a rush, I called the dean to 1) ask why the semester started in January and not in April like he had said earlier, 2) explained that I cannot travel at night due to Peace Corps regulations, and 3) I cannot put together an entire course outline and first day's lecture notes in 1 hour! His answer was: "yes, there seemed to be some confusion with other professors too.. when I said that 'the next semester will start in April', I meant the following semester after this one." This totally caught me off guard and I requested him to take me down to only one class as there was no way that I could prepare completely fresh material for three classes and competently teach them all. I am now teaching Introduction to Business on Saturdays in Kisumu. I teach for 3 hours (from 11 to 2) and love it! The students are interactive and engaged. Their first midterm is next week, and I have been diligently preparing them for it. I will pick up Development Studies next semester, and if I have time, I might also pick up Human Resource Management (an MBA level course). I've hit other road bumps this semester (similar, but not as serious, as the one described at the beginning of this paragraph), but all-in-all, things continue to move forward at a good pace.

Bondo Website:

I've been working with someone who recently moved from Mombasa, and is volunteering at the center as a journalist. She is writing website content, and I am helping her identify opportunities to highlight Bondo for tourism and try to relieve some of the issues that plague the community via a website. The website content is coming quickly and I've been having fun taking pictures of hotels, restaurants, and cultural events with her. I am going to work with a few other people volunteering at the center to develop the website design and then merge the two. The website is coming together, but has been difficult to do without the internet... See below for details about the internet.

E-Health:

The Ministry of Health has developed a great website that compiles information collected around the country from community health workers. The content seems to be accurate and updated regularly, but would not make a lot of sense to someone who didn't have a college degree, and in some cases might not make sense without an Md. I am working with another volunteer to develop a sister website (or section of the Bondo website) to help explain health information to people who do not have a lot of education. This includes 1) building a health database in English, Kiswahili, and Dholuo, 2) linking to resources like WebMD and other useful websites, 3) setting up a system for people to ask health questions (this will include the ability to make the sender of the question anonymous), and 4) alert people in the community of outbreaks and precautions about outbreaks of diseases. The health officer has taken a significant interest in this project and is giving us any necessary assistance that he can offer. He plans to meet with us on a regular basis.

Students on Attachment:

I am supervising three students on attachment (kind of like an internship). These students are interested in development work and I am helping them to identify issues in the community, identify the causes of those issues, and then work with the community to create solutions to the challenges. Each of the three students will be working on their own project, and the projects will be tied to the Bondo Community Trust. It will be interesting to find out what they decide to work on... We've got a meeting tomorrow morning to identify the projects.

Roots Africa Development Organization (RADO) Training Courses:

RADO is an organization focused on giving alternatives to women and youth who are involved in harmful industries (such as the sex-for-fish industry and general prostitution). RADO has programs to teach these people skills that will help them move to other methods of employment. Bondo Community Trust is teamed up with RADO and we are hoping to start classes this month. We have, however, hit some significant roadblocks with this project. There is someone in my organization that is making it very difficult to move this project forward, but hopefully the issue will be resolved soon.

Bondo Community Library:

The library is almost complete and we are sourcing for books. I've received a few donations from the states, and our good friends Mark and Jenn Dull are coming to Kisumu today from Canada with a few boxes full of books. I've been working with the library team at Bondo University College to learn how to organize the library. I think that we are going to use the Library of Congress method of categorization.

Going Paperless:

As the center is trying to save money anywhere they can, I've given a big push towards going paperless (at least for administrative functions). As we have the nicest computers in Bondo, it seems a waste if we don't use them.

Setting up the Internet:

The computers are now networked, but I am waiting for a team from Kisumu to help me install the internet. There has been some slight problems with the LAN card on our server, so we are hoping to have those issues resolved soon.

LGBT Group:

I have been working with a LGBT group here in Bondo. This group is a well-organized group with over 30 members. The group is focused on protecting the identify and personal security of each of its members, and it took the whole group to agree to let me start coming to their meetings, which is a huge honor. I have been working with them to develop a proposal for funds from an organization in the US. I think that they have a good chance at accessing these funds. It is hoped that the funds will allow them to get a protected safe-house in both Nairobi and Kisumu, in case one of the members needs to get away from Bondo due to safety issues. The proposal also has IGA ties and a plan to become sustainable in a short time frame.

There is probably more to report, but these are the projects that have been taking up most of my time recently.

A String of Happy Accidents: My Vocation as a Jesuit Brother

Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno was born in 1952 in Detroit, Michigan. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in 1974 and Master of Science in 1975 in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1978. From 1978-80 he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Harvard College Observatory, and from 1980-1983 continued as postdoc and lecturer at MIT. In 1983 he left MIT to join the US Peace Corps, where he served for two years in Kenya teaching physics and astronomy. Upon his return to the US in 1985 he became an assistant professor of physics at Lafayette College, in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he taught until his entry into the Jesuit order in 1989. He took vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991, and studied philosophy and theology at Loyola University Chicago, and physics at the University of Chicago before his assignment to the Vatican Observatory in 1993. Br. Consolmagno is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, one of the largest in the world. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. In 1996, he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with an NSF-sponsored team on the blue ice of Antarctica, and in 2000 he was honored by the IAU for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of asteroid 4597 Consolmagno. From: NationalJesuitNews Views: 1 0 ratings Time: 06:33 More in Nonprofits & Activism

I hope your holidays were awesome because mine were over the moon! My baby girl, Stephanie, flew over for three glorious weeks with me and I will definitely tell you all the stories and show you the pics. With Steph and I both snapping (her camera is way better than mine) we were able to capture some really special moments. So here are the tales of our wide swath through Kenya.

I left Maralal at 4am on 18 December with a driver taking me to the Samburu airstrip for a flight to Nairobi. He had never been to Maralal before (lots of people haven't) and also had never been to the Samburu airstrip. Off we went and he only got lost when when were near the airstrip. I was getting a bit antsy but have looooong since learned not to sweat things here, so he made a call for directions. As we were nearing the strip a plane flies overhead and I comment that "I bet that's my flight." He had no comment and when we arrived, sure enough it was. I just looked at him and said "You better get me to Nairobi today if you have to drive me. Do you want to call your boss or shall I?" He slinked away to make a call and returned a few minutes later saying "the plane is coming back for you in 15 minutes." Well, you know what I'm thinking right? But I don't say it, just sit down in the hot sun, check my watch and wait. There is no airport terminal here, just a dusty airstrip with some white plastic chairs and a few local Samburus standing around shooting the breeze. Can you get this? 15 minutes later the plane lands, the pilot opens the door and yells "you Christyne?" I answer and haul my bag into a mesh and elastic area inside the back of the plane, buckle up and we're off. No security check, no ID required, no weighing of luggage. Just 12 seats and four other people are on board. It was a smooth ride for 30 minutes to Nairobi.

In Nairobi I grabbed my bag and hopped in my cab for some quick shopping stops before settling into my hotel. Dusty and whupped, I was in bed asleep by 9pm. Up again at 6am for a quick breakfast and then off to the airport to meet Steph's flight. And there she was!! A vision of beauty I had not seen in over six months. She had followed my instructions to sleep on the flight so we could storm Nairobi.

And we were off--first stop some lunch before hitting the museums. The western-style Westgate Mall has some nice cafes and shops and we needed some food to tide us over until we settled into the dining car on the train to Mombassa at 7pm.

I also wanted Steph to see where I shop in the big city--Nakumatt--which is like Costco at home. Usually I only manage to get there every three months and beg others to buy for me in between. Steph thought it was more like "Big Lots" on steroids.

Steph laughed at the story of Blue Band which is marketed here as a "Vegetable for a healthy diet" but is nothing but fatty margarine that never has to be refrigerated. I snagged a couple of bottles of wine for the trip and we headed off to the Arboretum.

Besides trees and flowers, they have some clever stone tables and benches. Not many people were out and about on this lovely day and it was sad that the park was in a downward spiral of maintenance.

This young lad was reading from his book in a sunny spot.

Steph jumped in on a double dutch but had long since lost her game. The locals thought she was funny.

Next stop was the National Museum. Although it houses some fabulous treasures dating back centuries, they are also in cases that have been neglected and poorly lit. My favorite part is the sculpture gardens that surround the museum and the medicinal garden that showcases an assortment of herbal treatments for various maladies.

The tree in the foreground is the Acacia (numerous varieties here), the circle globe has a map inset of Kenya, the arc above the globe represents the beaded necklaces of the various Kenyan tribes with the constant sun above it. To the right is the ship mast from the coastal region.

An amazing stained glass map of Kenya

An inset representing the aubergine color of the peoples of the coastal region

Ceramic tile walkway in the herbal medicine garden

A close up of one segment of the ceramic tile walkway

We didn't have time to peruse the inside of the museum as we needed to dash to meet our train for Mombassa and it was rush hour in Nairobi. As it turned out, traffic was light because the matatu drivers were on strike for fare increases.

Our compartment. Looks nicer than it really is.

Of course I ended up with the top bunk!

The train goes TO Mombassa every Monday and RETURNS every Wednesday only. This is a very old train on a very old track built back in the British colonial period. Nothing has been done to it (barely) since the 50's. You can ride First Class or Open Class. With First Class you get a bunkbed sleeping compartment for two (better travel with a pal or you will end up with a stranger) and a full dinner in the dining car. Open Class is the cattle car with minimal seating. I don't do cattle cars.

While the conductor was having a heated conversation with some would-be passengers who were desperate to get on a fully booked train for the holidays, we noticed another train on the parallel track headed to Kisumu in western Kenya. It had barely come to a stop and throngs of people were running to hop aboard. This train had only open seating for the same overnight trip as we would have to Mombassa. Yuk! Open seating means there are about as many seats as you would find in a dining car without the tables. Well put Steph. So we were watching the spectacle. Too many people with stuff and not enough doors for everyone to pile through fast enough creates quite a kodak moment for those of us watching.

In goes the backpack

Now here are the Christmas presents

Getting a bit cramped in here now!

Okay, here comes the baby girl

Easy does it

Now hand me her little brother

Okay. Kids are all in

Nah! Don't think I can make it in through this window

Since the conductor was still on the platform arguing with the wanna-be passengers, he decided to ring the dinner bell or the two dinner seatings would never happen and we were already an hour behind. So we headed off to chow down.

We had mystery soup, because we weren't sure what the chunks were that were floating in it, but think it was mushroom. There was of course ugali, rice, potatoes and some roast chicken and stewed beef. After dinner it was bedtime as we were wiped. Steph videoed me walking back to the room and thought it was hilarious! The train was rocking and swaying and the hallway was barely wide enough to traverse, so I looked like I had had waaaay too much to drink.

In the morning after a non-descript breakfast we settled by the window to watch our arrival in the coastal region. Of course we had to stop in every small town along the way and here are some shots of the sights.

Woman walking to the train depot

Children playing on an abandoned railway car

Finally we arrived in Mombasa to meet my fellow Peace Corps pal "Dutch" who was our official tour guide for the area. She had lots planned for us too. We stowed our bags at her tiny two room place and headed out to tour the city. It was bustling with activity pre holiday. We walked through the "old city" and settled on a favorite place of hers to have lunch on the water. It was late for lunch but the server assured us they had food. We placed our orders and were told a few minutes later that they were all out of those choices. So we made second choices. None of that either. Third choices were also declined and finally Dutch irately asked "what do you have today?" The only options were beef or vegetable pilau. Guess that is what we'll eat. I had the beef and thought I was going to lose my crowns and didn't eat most of it. When the bill came, Dutch told them we weren't paying for the beef and berated the server for the poor quality of the food. We paid and walked on down the street to observe the interesting old architecture of the buildings and doorways as we sidestepped the open sewage troughs flowing thru the narrow streets. Soon we heard the waiter come yelling after us that we had not paid for the beef. Dutch lit into him and I thought she was about to beat him with her "mary poppins" umbrella as she yelled "I told you we weren't paying for the mbaya beef!" And off we went again. We strolled thru the old market area and Steph had fresh coconut peeled on the spot. Very soft shell and meat and just sweet enough to be refreshing.

My great pal Dutch

Women selling fruits on the sidewalk

It was time to traipse over to Fort Jesus which is an historic buttress along the water built by the Portuguese in the 1500s as they were the first settlers to the area. It is so named because as Catholics they wanted to construct it in the shape of the cross.

The actual layout of the site

View as you approach from the outside wall

Interior area showing various rooms and levels of the compound. It was an actually military base where soldiers and their families lived, worked and worshiped.

Beautiful teak wood sculpted doors with brass fittings and ornamentation adorned most areas.

There is a small museum that is now on the property that houses some artifacts. The most interesting was a complete wall of hieroglyphics that was removed from a section of one room when Muslims occupied Ft. Jesus.

Dutch had originally planned for us to stay at a rooms in a local house. Since it had no hot water or air (Mombasa is like New Orleans in August this time of year) I opted for a little luxury that included both and a pool. So we checked into the Tamarind. It is a well known beachside resort with awesome food, service, dhow cruises and even a casino right on the Indian Ocean.

The view from our balcony and the "monkey fingers" Christmas tree in the reception area.

We had a yummy dinner alfresco at the hotel of fresh prawns and red snapper before calling it a night. We were off to meet more of my pals in Kilifi in the morning to tour the Gede Ruins.

Try thinking about your most frustrating moments and how you deal with them? For Steph it was the whole matatu experience. Hearing a cacophony of voices yelling "where to", grabbing your bags,boom box music from the 60's blaring from inside and bumping you while you are trying to negotiate your fare for the ride. I saw Steph's eyes glaze over in complete shock before the pressure blew and she was like a tom in a catfight snatching back her bag and pushing people away. Dutch gives her senior smile as do I, we are veterans to this process now. Onboard with the rest of the smelly crowd, we pass hundreds of acres of sisal growing to produce the lovely baskets and floor mats we all enjoy. The Gede Ruins date back to the 13th century and were mysteriously abandoned in the 1600s, probably due to war and strife. There are clear remains of a very organized and efficient society that built a complete town, seven mosques and even some ingenious toilets for their era.

Yep. Four bumps on a log. Dutch, myself, Kelly and Jenn. They are our new guides as this is their turf.

Entrance to one of the mosques, designed with a concave section to reflect the Imam's voice praying.

Now it's off to lunch and Jenn had been working with a local eco-tourist camp nearby that had a cool facility and raised all their own food. Sounds terrific! This is also where Steph had the honor to meet Jesus. Lucky girl!

The open air, sisal roofed dining area and bar where we ate. The kitchen is underneath and nice toilet.

Lovely lily pond with "Jesus' family.

As it happens, Steph was taking the "family" picture and a young white guy approached her with a very important story that "would change her life." He ordered up a round of sodas (which we quickly told Steph to be sure she didn't hold the tab on that) and ushered his family upstairs to tell his tale. He stated he was channeling Che Gueverra in a former life, we were all related to each other and he himself was Jesus. He put his foot up on the chair to show his foot wounds (cigarette burns?) as proof. He wanted Steph to write his life story and post it on the web. Steph let him know she was not a very good writer and he stated she must destroy the photo since she would not show the world proof.

[By this point I'm getting a bit concerned that Steph may be a bum magnet for every local weirdo. There was already a guy on the matatu that was encroaching on her personal space by trying ever so stealthily to put his arm around her. She hopped into the seat next to me at the first opportunity!]

We left Jenn and Kelly in Kilifi and headed back to Mombasa after Dutch got into a shouting match with the matatu driver over the fare. Muzungus are constant prey for overcharging and sometimes it will really wigg you out. I separated them and got us a matatu for the right price.

Back at the Tamarind, we had a nice alfresco dinner again and Dutch packed up (she was crashing with us) to head to South Africa in the morn for Christmas. We didn't even hear her leave at 4am. We enjoyed our lazy day by the pool before strolling to board the dhow for a dinner cruise and local water sights.

The Tamarind "Dhow" which offers a dinner cruise, local band and potent "dawa" drink

A beautiful Kenyan girl on the matutu--a pleasant part of the ride.

That nasty looking millipede is nicknamed "mombasa train" and we saw lots of them. They are harmless but really creep me out and Steph loved to spook me with them. Pest!

The dhow was really good seafood and after we docked we packed up and decided to hit the casino. We knew we would be back late and we were leaving the next morning for the south coast as it would be Christmas Eve. We enjoyed the hours and hours at the casino--but of course gave all our winnings back.

[Oh. Steph's bum magnet is still working overtime! We stopped for iced tea on our return from Kilifi and a creepy guy whispered to me that he could get her an evening date and make alot of money. Then a strange guy who sat at the table with us on the dhow wanted to show us his videos of lion kills in the Masai Mara last year. He whipped open his ipad and played movie after movie. All he cared about was watching lions kill their prey. Sicko! I reminded Steph that her shoulder tattoo and sleeveless blouse were scarlet letters in Kenya]

In the morning our driver was waaaay late to take us to south coast peninsula town Ukindu where we would spend several days at the Pinewood Resort. As a result we were caught in a monumental traffic jam waiting to load onto the ferry. What should have taken about an hour took four. At least we had a/c. Here are some sights from the traffic jam along the route.

Muslim woman out for a stroll

This is how you carry your child and your stuff.

Young boy at our car window soliciting funds to play school sports

Cart loaded with onions, potatoes, jeri cans of water manned by foot power

Getting close to the ferry now

Okay, everyone make a run for it!

Standing her spot on the ten minute ride across

We checked into Pinewood, a charming place at the tip of the peninsula, and were treated to a fabulous koi pond, baby turtles, and rabbit breeding. All meticulously maintained for the pelasure of the guests in their natural habitat. There were even colobus monkeys that played in the trees and scampered across your balcony looking for items to filch. You had to be diligent about locking your doors because they a very smart little fellas and will walk right in and make themselves at home.

Beautiful painting of Masai women hanging in the lobby. Wanted it bad!!!

View from our balcony with the Indian Ocean on the far horizon

We watched these beauties every morning as we had our breakfast beside their home pond

One the the items on Steph's list was to swim in the Indian Ocean. She did. Hated it! It was beyond bathtub warm--probably about 95 degrees and no relief. She went in at low tide and had to walk thru seaweed and it was icky.

Yes, you can even ride a camel on the beach if you so desire.

[Are you tired of reading yet? My brain and fingers are numb but I am determined to get this finished before my internet minutes run out in 10 days. Granted, this is not the normal vacation for a Kenyan--not even close. But occasionally you have to go big, right!]

So let's move on to Maralal. This is my old site and I wanted Steph to see how I really live daily. We hired a transport for the trip and neither of the drivers had ever been there. Not uncommon since Kenyans rarely go to places outside their work or home locations--too expensive to travel on their meager incomes. It only took 9 hours this way--woohoo--instead of the usual 20 on a matatu. As we arrived on a Wednesday, Steph got to reeeeeeeally live my life--no power. We had a nice candlelight dinner while we swatted bugs and mosquitos and waited to shower off the road dust tomorrow when their would be hot water.

I told you I had attended a training class recently where we learned lots of new things. One being how to make a bag garden, aka vertical garden. I had promised Father Jorge to show his shamba man how if he got me the fertilizer etc. So Steph and I showed Samuel how to grow kale, a staple here, in a bag and reduce the amount of water and space needed.

I took Steph to my office which is on the compound of a handicapped orphanage.

She enjoyed comparing the different tribal areas, now Samburu, and seeing the variety of climate and customs.

After three days here we were off again for the final leg of our trip--Samburu National Reserve. It is a safari camp about 5 hours southeast of Maralal and home to some unique species of animals only found in this part of Kenya. We were staying at a very small "camp" that only allows 16 guests, Saruni. It was built 3 years ago by Riccardo Ortiz, a former CNN world correspondent and author from Italy. I had met him several months ago in Nanyuki and he had arranged our entire Christmas vacation. Well done Riccardo. The camp sent a driver for us and when we arrived there, the vehicle had to literally climb the side of the mountain to get to the site on top.

The tented villas are not even visible from below, all eco friendly

The view from our living room area of the mountains and Game Preserve

As it was now New Years Eve, we were treated to dinner in the sandy park with entertainment by a local "singles" choir. It was quite fascinating as the girls and boys were definitely flirting with each other as they sang and danced.

Everything about our time here was straight from the movie Out of Africa. Beautiful scenery, local Samburu in native clothing as guides and waiters, and incredible wildlife. Talk around the table was of how we would spend each day--nature walks, tracking lions or leopards or just lolling in the absolute stillness of the surroundings.

We opted for the tracking part and were awakened by someone gently calling "good morning" at 5:30 am (ungodly hour for vacation) and holding a tray of hot coffee, fruit and pastry. We were loaded up by 6am as the sun rose behind the mountain and our tracker and guide slowly drove our jeep thru the reserve observing the footprints of animals on their morning hunt.

Lots of interesting things to see. This is a termite mound. Termites rent out space to bats and other nocturnal animals. The termites wing span is often the size of your index finger and they will fly around batting their wings off purposely and die after they have laid their eggs.

The reticulated giraffe are unique to this area of Kenya with their webbed dark brown pattern

Another unique fella is the Grevy Zebra which has a white belly--no stripes here.

Around 10:30 we stopped beside a river for a picnic breakfast that was beyond yummy! Sausage, bacon, toast, various jams, fruit and steaming coffee. That was really needed as it was cccccold in the dewy morning. We were wrapped in hoodies and socks to shake the chill.

The trackers keep in contact with each other via short wave and we soon learned of two female lions having a warthog for a snack. We zoomed to the location to watch.

This gal is licking the remnants from her paws. Of course if there is a female there must be a male somewhere, right? Male lions had not been seen in the Preserve in two years but the next morning we spotted the big guy.

And it seems he had found his mate. Not sure if it was one of the ladies we had seen the day before but he was very content. It was tender how protective he was of her. He didn't want you getting too close and if she moved, he moved. Lions mate for 7 days and do not eat, drink or hunt during this period.

Everyone was excited to stumble upon this pair and later in the day we found them resting beside a river having a little snooze neck-to-neck.

This was our tracker who spotted the lion tracks and led us to the sites both days.

A sausage tree. Not really, but called that. The seeds are inside the pod and sprout when they fall.

Of course you can see oodles of elephants, gazelles and little dik-diks (like baby deer) which are food for every creature in the preserve, poor things.

And we saw a leopard!!!!! Not many do. We saw his tracks and boom there he was just walking down the road. Very exciting. We made the early morning trek for four days in a row and also went out on an afternoon hunt when we saw the leopard. This is not a fenced preserve so the animals are free to roam wherever. The locals are amazed that our only experience with these animals is in a zoo.

Nearby we visited a local Samburu village so Steph could see local life, The women are in charge of EVERYTHING! That means cooking, cleaning, raising children, building the houses and literally keeping the home fires burning. They all came out to greet us singing and dancing as they brought us into their compound. They grabbed us by each arm and invited us to dance with them as the children swayed on their backs or ran around looking at the strange white women.

After one of the dances, this little guy wanted to shake my hand. After we shook, he would look at his own hand to see if the white had rubbed off on him. The women thought it was very funny.

Boys who do not go to school are required to herd the goats.

Typical Samburu woman with beaded necklace and earrings she makes herself and wears daily

Cute little boys staring at the muzungus.

The women build the homes, about four feet tall, of sticks and cow dung that bakes in the sun

Inside the home is a mud floor with large rocks to build a fire inside and rest a pot on top to cook.

I bid a very sad farewell to my baby girl after our wonderful three week trek and she headed off to Nairobi for the long flight home. I hopped in a jeep for my transport back to Maralal.

Once there it was time to start packing because moving day was only three days away. Peace Corps had decided it was too dangerous for me to continue my trips to the bush to work with the camel groups and basket ladies. There had been several cases of highway banditry where a couple of people were shot and others robbed. So I am being moved to Kabarnet. It is about 12 hours southwest by matatu but luckily I am being moved so it will be much shorter. I had to leave my sweet Sukari behind as animals are not allowed in Peace Corps vehicles. I cried for at least an hour before we left.

And now I'm here. It is beautiful here. Nestled between two mountain ranges, very green, hot during the day and cool at night. And this is Kalingen tribe area. So this will be the third tribe I get to experience. I am now settled in my little place--not nearly as nice as Maralal, but pleasant. I do not have any running water so have to haul it in jeri cans daily. I've learned to really conserve water just so I dont have to haul it or continually dump out the dirty water. Today, I did my dishes and the rinse water then became a bath for Sukari (yep she's here now) and then I washed the floor with it before I dumped it outside. I have an outside shower room I NEVER use because it is cold and stuffy. So I have a big plastic bowl I use with warm water to sponge bathe and another to rinse. The choo is also outside with the smallest hole I have ever seen in my life. I peed on my shoes and clothes the first couple of days before I found a "short call" soap jug that is much easier to use and empty. I have better aim when it comes to pooping in that tiny hole.

I love my job and the people here. They are very western in dress and demeanor. I work at a SACCO which is like a local credit union. I am helping them get it together. They folded after mucho shillingi in bad loans in 2009 and have reorganized to give it another try. They are already in a precarious spot so it is a daily struggle. Actually encouraged them to go after the old loan money and felt like dog the bounty hunter last week when we went door-to-door chasing it down. Was really funny to have a muzungu tell someone she was going to repo their goat or cow if they didn't pay in 7 days. I will!! I already have a day scheduled with the local askari (police) and a van to accompany me next week.

Okay. That's it. I'm done. Totally whupped now. Don't expect anything anytime soon but when it comes it will be good. Serious Kenyan repo stories!

Greetings all. I don’t have too much to update you guys on. It’s hotter than hell here right now, and has been for the past few weeks, so my brain functionality has taken a little vacation for the rest of … Continue reading →

I have just finished reading Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and have to say it is one of, if not the most interesting and thought provoking book I have read in years that I … Continue reading →

I have just finished reading Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and have to say it is one of, if not the most interesting and thought provoking book I have read in years … Continue reading →

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was a blur. but i did meet william ruto (a presidential candidate in this years electoral and also on trial with the ICC {international criminal court} for the mass murders during the 2007-2008 riots stemmed by those elections). nice guy. … Continue reading →

so beautiful, so spiritual. it was a tough hike, i must say. 5 days of climbing 6 hours per day, then camping. the coldest it got was around 30 degrees fahrenheit. i had a fever two of the nights due … Continue reading →

Peace Corps volunteers hate bats. Not the kind of sallow, superficial animosity indifferently cast at root canals, tummy aches, and bitter green vegetables. No, it is a deep-seeded malicious disdain that emanates from the darkest fibers of one’s being. The kind of venomous loathing that, left unchecked, prompts holocausts, genocides, and other horrific deeds to be committed. It is this kind of scornful, callous abhorrence that volunteers harbor toward the bats. Maybe it's the way they roost in the rafters, plastering the ground floor tenants' possessions with that precious, sought after resource they spew from their back end, or the way they emerge from the business end of the choo when the user is at their most vulnerable, their coarse, whiskered bodies brushing against private parts and special places in a most awkward fashion, turning a routine call of nature into a miserable tangle of fur, underpants, and other substances I'm sure. Whatever the reason, hatred of these sonar guided choo dwellers has become such a standard of the Peace Corps volunteer experience that the top brass in Washington have considered the inclusion of a bat affinity questionnaire to be added into the already lengthy application process, thus ensuring the adequate level of antipathy toward mammalian-bird cross breeds.

Surprising to say, then, that by some strange circumstance, some unnatural aligning of the cosmos, I seem to be lacking in that all important bat loathing quality displayed by so many of my fellow volunteers. Perhaps this is attributable to my previous experience in the deserts of Southern New Mexico standing witness to flapping, chirping cyclones of living black smoke as they ascend out of the bowels of the earth to cover the dimming sky in nightmarish clouds of insect devouring shadow. Or maybe I zoned out during some key, anti-bat seminar during training, my usually attentive mind distracted by fantastic day dreams of winning the Kentucky Derby on the back of an underdog mule by the name of Percival Fuzzlestein. The two of us becoming instant media darlings and embarking on a whirlwind tour of the morning talk show circuit which culminates with Percival, a British citizen, being knighted during a ceremony broadcast live from the steps of Big Ben just like he used to lie awake dreaming about. Regardless, I never really thought much of my relationship to bats, nor did I have any idea that I would grow closer to them as a result of one fateful night here in Kenya.

It is a late evening in the warm, remote village that I am calling home for these two years. Chompers brushed, dishes washed, I am at the end of my nighttime ceremonies preparing for that final daily ritual, slumber. And slumber I must as I’m to travel to Mombasa early the next morning, as though I were given a choice when to travel. In my area there is one bus out per day departing just as soon as there is sufficient light to see the road and if you miss it, well, don’t miss it. Knowing that my immediate future involves my being on this bus I crawl into bed and do my best sleeping beauty impression. I lie awake in the darkness, enjoying the elevation over the hard cement floor my new bed provides me. All the factors for a sound night’s sleep are in place, all but one that is. A faint rustling sound out in the darkness, beyond the protection of my walls draws my attention. Now it is not out of the ordinary for an orchestra of bizarre noises to accompany my twilight hours, and certainly the sound being produced is not so far out of the ordinary as to warrant suspicion in the untrained ear, but a strange premonition compels me to leave the comforts of my bed to investigate.

I venture out into the darkness surrounding my house, torch in one hand, my desire to return to bed in the other. I investigate the area where first I heard the strange occurrence expecting to find some sign of Rachel (or Gracie, I haven’t decided yet), the rat who usually dwells in my rafters trying to enter the house after a long holiday but there is none. I then proceed to investigate the area around the base of my house, a common entry point for other less welcome visitors but I find none. A lazier man would have retired at this point and while I, despite my greatness, am most certainly lazy, I continue to scan the ground moving outward from my house until I see them. The blood craving, baby hating, church burning demons that seek to feast on my organs: siafu. I scan to the left and then to the right, my reflexive legs churning has already kicked in, taking the initiative to keep me off the ground as much as possible. I continue strafing up and down the front lines of the invading swarm to find that this cloud of exoskeletons and hatred has completely encircled my house and is closing. Present distance from my house: approximately 3 meters.

I realize that I have time, but not much, before my house is held captive by the sleep depriving curse of the siafu’s occupation. If I am to have any chance at rest tonight I must move quickly. I hurry inside, quickly donning my army ant battling attire: pants, a pair of long socks (non-matching), my state of the art cross training shoes, and a pair of gardening gloves. I waste no time ensuring the orderliness of my appearance as each second wasted is like a gift to the oncoming horde. Taking only a moment to splash a healthy puddle of bleach in front of my door and around the posts of my bed, I make haste to return to the front lines and meet the blood thirsty enemy who draws ever closer. Two meters. Not much space, but enough to employ that most sacred of elements that I hope will assist in driving back the demonic fury that encircles my home: fire.

Now, siafu don’t fear fire, they love it, seek it, crave it in fact. It is fire in which they bathe, and breath, and worship their diabolic queen. It is this fire which gives the bite of the siafu it’s powerfully burning, flesh searing sting. No, siafu do not fear fire, but it confuses them. Having been borne from the very pits of hell, the seven layered inferno, fire leads these children of despair to believe they have somehow made a wrong turn, and are somehow back in Hades where there are no fresh souls to devour, no babies to feast upon. It is this perceived absence of infant flesh that causes the siafu to double back en masse in search of living victims. The downside of using fire to fight these children of the flame is that I’ll need time to make the necessary preparations, and time is something I have very little of.

I dash through the advancing lines showing off mandible evading moves that I have perfected through multiple run-ins with these relentless antagonists, and break through the other side of the wave untouched. I waste no time to basking in the effectiveness of my evasive maneuvering and instead set immediately to work. Scorpion resistant gloves in place, I rummage madly through the brush, scooping up armfuls of dry grass and relaying them to the front line. With each subsequent trip I eye the soul destroying pack of man-eaters inching ever closer to the boundary I seek to defend. One and a half meters. One and a quarter meters. At one meter I can delay no longer and begin to light the first of the fires that will disorient and dispel the advancing terror, but it is immediately apparent that the small amount of fuel I’ve managed to gathered using my limited time won’t be nearly enough to repel the demonic offensive on all sides, and I rush inside to wield my trusted path opening broom.

As I sprint back outside I notice the brood has already started swarming around the meager fire and up to the outer perimeter of my fortress. Spending not a moment to lament the ineffectiveness of my flaming defense I begin pushing back the invaders wielding my bristled Excalibur with a fevered tenacity honed through numerous conflicts with these adversaries. It is through this frenzied sweeping pace that I almost fail to notice a sudden plop, landing in the darkness about twenty feet away from me. Facing the already overwhelming advance on all sides I can hardly afford the reprieve to investigate the mysterious sound, but curiosity, again, takes the better of me, and I begin clearing a path to the source of the noise.

As I inch closer I catch site of a small, hairless creature circling about miserably on the ground within a pool of siafu, crying out for help from friends who have long since fled. Two round bumps decorate the face where the eyes should be, and a wrinkled yet smooth, shiny gray membrane covers the body of this despondent critter. At first I believe it to be some kind of tree frog or tree toad or some kind of tree dwelling amphibian when, in an attempt to push itself away from the swarming siafu it extends a long, clawed, webbed hand. Bless my choo! It’s a baby bat! I stand watching the young dracula in training struggle helplessly against the unholy tenacity of the siafu, his infant flesh no doubt has the sweetness of honey dipped in caramel and covered in sprinkle to their voracious maws. The blind, flightless youth is the perfect victim for the, ironically, also blind pursuers and I realize that it is only a matter time before this wretched creature succumbs to an excruciating end of being devoured one tiny mouthful at a time by his unnatural pursuers.

Now, normally I do my best to stay out of interzoological matters realizing that nature has a course to take and that everything has a beginning and an end, but something, whether it be the desperation in the tortured cries, or the pathetic manner in which he hobbles around blindly in a vain yet determined attempt to escape, snowballing more exoskeletonized executioners with each progressive sightless step, something made me feel that if I didn’t do something I would regret it for the rest of my life. After spending an ashamedly long time to gather my resolve I know what I must do.

Tossing the broom aside I scoop up the young heir of mammalian flight, spiriting him away from the clutches of the advancing siafu colony. I take him to a spot nearer the house not yet over run and start assessing the extent of the injuries as he struggles around in my gloved hand. Quickly realizing that I’ll need more light as well as access to an environment not immediately at risk of being overrun we retreat inside where, surgical forceps in hand, I start to work removing the still latched on marauders, their jaws embedded deep in the tender flesh of the young insectivore. Feeling my dirt encrusted glove to be too coarse for his soft infant coat I transfer the small patient to a more comfortable sock and continue with the procedure, my small companion still struggling under my instruments.

At some point around the extraction of the 50th assailant the restless struggling of the young nestling begins to diminish markedly. It’s possible the release from the siafu’s powerful sting has allowed him to relax, or perhaps he has grow accustomed to my presence and realizes that I mean him no harm, or maybe he has simply become too exhausted from the ordeal to resist my efforts any longer. Whatever the reason, the young arial mammal becomes quite docile, cooperative even, as I continue to remove lingering siafu from crevices I wouldn’t even expect to find sand in after a day at the beach. Only when removing the most tenacious of soldiers from the sensitive webbing of the thin wing membrane does my young patient show any discomfort.

The operation finally finished I venture back outside to assess the still imminent threat of the siafu advance, though am overjoyed to find that the invaders have started to retreat back into the woods. Whether they have been bamboozled into retreat by the wall of flame or have simply decided to haunt elsewhere this evening I have no idea nor do I particularly care. I investigate the tree from which my young friend fell and find the retreating horde still receding from the highest branches.

At this point I am aware of two things. First, that returning juvenile recuperating bat to the still infested tree at this particular juncture will almost certainly result in his demise at the hands of the still very present siafu horde. Second, that I am in NO way qualified to take care of an infant bat, and that attempting do so would certainly result in his demise within twenty four hours when he either starves to death or chokes on the peanut butter I would probably try to feed him. My options are limited and I am left with little recourse but to sit up with my young friend until it is safe to return him to his tree, and then hope that his parents are nearby. As we retire indoors to wait out the storm I settle on a temporary name, Batsy. Maybe not the most original but seeing as I was still unsure of the gender (you try sexing an infant bat) and I didn’t want to overstep his parents bounds I thought it would be a suitable nickname. Sock in my left hand with Batsy nestled up inside we relax in the same plastic chair that once provided me sanctuary from the siafu so long ago.

We sit up together until the early hours of the morning at which point I am satisfied that the siafu have cleared out from the area sufficiently as to ensure a safe return of Batsy to tree from whence he/she fell. Using a stool, the tallest piece of furniture I own, I find a small nook at the highest spot I am able to reach, gingerly placing Batsy and the sock inside. As I retreat down from stool I glimpse Batsy climbing out of the sock, higher ip into the tree as several (or maybe just one, it’s hard to count bats in the dark) adult winged figured circle the upper branches of the tree. Not being much for awkward goodbyes I return back to my bed high above a sea of bleach and hope that Batsy is reunited with her parents, now free from the looming siafu threat.

In the morning I find the empty sock where I left it once full of Batsy. A quick scan of the tree and a thorough scan of the ground reveals no sign of my young friend, as I am left with nothing but speculation as to her fate. To this day, every time a bat flutters away as I open the door to the choo, or whips by my head as I brush my teeth under the starlight sky I wonder if it is Batsy come back to say hello. I hope so.

Just to give you a general idea of what an average day is like for my students. Mondays-Fridays 5:00 am:  Wake up, sweep and mop the dorms, clean choos, older children help the younger children bath (they use a tub … Continue reading →

I know that it has been a while since I have updated everyone, but today I had some free time to take photos and give a brief update. Today is Saturday and the kids are busy cleaning the grounds of the school. My days are long and tiresome. Every day presents new challenges whether it is with my signing or having to defend my sex to the male teachers. So much is happening all at once and there really is no way to describe it other than to document it with pictures and maybe a few brief remarks. I am going to give you some bullet points to outline the last month.

- I teach classes 4, 5, and 6 subjects, KSL, English, Science, Creative Arts, and PE.

- My children can not read or write above a 2nd grade level if that (some not at all, so it presents many challenges).

- They have never been taught that they can use their brain to find an answer but rather copy it from a chalk board so critical thinking does not happen with out a lot of prompting guiding and scaffolding.

- 85% of the time the teachers are missing from their classes and the children are left unattended and learn nothing other than to copy from whats on the board.

- Most of my children want to grow up and work on the beach or clean hotel rooms so we are learning about different options.

- Tourist regularly visit my school they show up smoking and dressed like prostitutes, throw candy and pencils at the children, take a few photos for next year Christmas card, and then leave helping no one and sending a very bad message about all white people.

- The best teachers at the school are the Deaf teachers.

- The female teachers are second best and the male teachers should not be allowed to teach at all.

- I am trying to teach my children the importance of work ethic and thinking for yourself.

- My children are so happy and beautiful and I love them very much.

-We look at the moon together and I try to explain that the moon is not a star.

- I spend the majority of my time with the Deaf teachers ( get along well).

- I am starting a project with my children to use left over fabric scraps to make crafts to sell to the tourists so we can build a library.

Note for the folks at home: Thorny cacti are the dominant life form of Maralal, in the semi-arid Samburu district of Kenya. Humans seem to be an afterthought, sprinkled in and around the bustling cactus metropolises. Growing thorns, in fact, seems to be the common adaptation among all the local plant life. Even the most innocent-looking baby bushes are riddled with sharp prongs just waiting to get lodged in the body of an unaware passer-by. The phrase "every rose has its thorn" holds little significance to a local, who would be surprised to find any flower without barbs.

This New Year has brought with it noticeable changes. Some New Years come and go without notice, but not this time. You can smell it in the air, you can see it in the new faces at work, you can feel it in the cracks beneath your feet as you walk, and I can sense it in my attitude. We have officially moved from the rainy season (one for the record books) to the hot, dry season in Lusi. And though the mold which took up residence on my cement floor and walls during the rainy season persists, I think I can see it growing weaker by the day. Warm gusts of wind blowing off the sun-baked and cracked dirt paths bring the summery smell of drying grasses and the temperature soars in the middle of the day (though, thankfully, not as high as in Garissa). The dirt paths I walk on my way to work have gone from mud-filled to desiccated in a few weeks. Where puddles once were, there are now holes in the ground that look like they might have any manner of living thing inside them or like they may open up and swallow you if you step in the wrong place. In the evenings the air turns cool and the stars sparkle as bright as I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, warm days and cool nights means that the mosquitoes are back as well. Even though it’s only been a few weeks since the rainy season ended, water is already scarce. In a few more days (or maybe a few weeks if we are lucky) we’ll be paying for water to be trucked in for storage in the tanks at work. It’s incredibly hard to imagine that just over a month ago we were all praying for an end to the torrential rains and all 10 10,000Ltr tanks at work were filled to overflowing.

But the lack of rain also has its up-sides. There is constant activity at Rafiki now as construction projects, delayed by the prolonged rainy season, have begun in full force driven by the threat of the next rainy season in March or April. In addition to construction activities, our program staff have hit the ground running this year in an effort to catch up on lost time (mainly due to the exams in schools making activities impossible for the better part of October and November). I am also supervising a new program which started this month so the staff have been getting oriented with the program, planning and strategizing for the past couple weeks. A new staff for the M&E department, 2 new staff for the new program (focusing on child participation through the child-to-child approach and getting children involved in their own IGAs), and a new staff for our health program bring the number of staff I’m supervising up to 11. This means, my days are split between 3 programs and the M&E department and then I try to find some time to fit in my own work. As we settle in to the programs and the routine of our new activities, things will calm down and give me a chance to get back to focusing on how I can best share my skills and ideas before I have to leave.

Thankfully, since the holiday break I am feeling a new sense of calm and am able to take things as they come much better than I have before. Perhaps I’m finally learning the lesson Kenya has been trying to teach me all along. Do what you can with what you have and the time you are given (even if all of those things change constantly). Of course there are still times when I lose my patience, but I feel like I have learned so much about myself in the past 3 months, and it has given me a new sense of strength; strength I am going to need to juggle all of these activities. Things have changed a lot for me since my decision to extend my service in August. It’s been a hard transition not having my closest friends around, but I have learned a lot about myself and I feel stronger for the experience, even if it has probably been the most challenging of my life. I have a great group of new friends and, thanks to a mutual resolution to be fit this year, an active after-work life (I know it’s hard to imagine in the village, but it’s true). So with this New Year, I feel older and wiser, and oddly more “myself” than I have in a really long time. My next task is to adjust to the idea that this is my last year in Kenya and in 7 short months I’ll be saying goodbye to this country that has in so many ways become my home.

My holidays were amazing. It started with a work holiday party, for which I created some fun holiday cards out of cardstock, tape, colored pencils and nail polish (you learn to be resourceful as a Peace Corps Volunteer). The party really only consisted of lunch and some of our staff had to leave early before eating because they wanted to get on the road and travel home since it was already the 23rd. Catherine, the VSO volunteer who came to our organization in November, and our colleague Rachael did superlatives and the whole staff voted. I’m really wondering how I come across to my colleagues because I was voted “Most Organized”, but also “Most likely to end up in jail.” Very interesting.

Christmas I spent in Kisumu with some of my new friends. It was a girl party at an AMAZING house in Kisumu. It felt like a holiday in a palace. We eat had our own room and the TV was longer than I am tall. We ate delicious food, baked (BAKED!!) Christmas cookies, listened to holiday music and watched at least one holiday movie, though our intention was to have a Christmas-day movie marathon. Good try. On Christmas day we ate mango pancakes and drank orange-passion screwdrivers on the veranda in the back yard. It was so relaxing and luxurious, but not really your traditional holiday. We then just baked and ate cookies all day until our Mexican food delivery came around 5pm (ordered the day before). Oh yeah, and there was a bottle of tequila in there somewhere. It was a really amazing weekend. So relaxing and exactly what I needed to save me from getting burned out at work. My new friend Steph somehow even got us all to agree to participate in hundredpushups.com. Deidra and I will be competing against Elise and Steph to see which team improves the most at the end of 6 weeks. The prize is fondue from the losing team and we are pretty serious. Unfortunately, I have also placed other bets on my actual ability to do 100 pushups (consecutive) by the end of 6 weeks… that might be harder.

Highlights:

• Getting to skype and talk with family and friends

• Watching the Seahawks game when they played at home vs San Francisco on my Christmas Day (at 12am, but hey, it counts and since I couldn’t stay awake past 2 I went asleep while they were still ahead. Bonus!)

• Christmas cookies!!!

Interlude. I spent two very relaxing and fun days with another PCV at her site between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. She taught me how to knit and I am proud to announce I am ¾ of the way through my first scarf. I also learned how to make granola in a pan on a gas stove and that it can be used to make a very tasty no-bake fruit crisp.

On to Naivasha. I spent 4, freezing cold nights at a camp on Lake Naivasha. Not camping, but staying in the dorms. I met up with Catherine and some of her VSO friends. I love seeing other parts of the country and even though I’ve been to Naivasha before, I learned about so many more things that I have to go back and do. There is a volcano to climb, a lake to hike around, and a million other cool places to go. Guess I’ll have to add it to my list of places to go (too bad I don’t have more time left in Kenya, or more time off work). On New Year’s Day, to signify that this year would be different than the rest, and marked a turning point in my life, I decided to do something totally out of the usual. I ate fish for dinner. My first dinner of the New Year was crayfish pasta and some bites of fish and chips. And I loved every delicious bite of it!!

Highlights:

• Finding a bagel crisp-like snack in the supermarket – it tastes exactly the same, but sadly it only comes in really tiny bags

• I stayed behind on the 31st while everyone else went hiking or biking and had enough luck to meet and have a conversation with two amazing women who worked with Jane Goodall in Tanzania tracking the chimpanzees – we shared a shandy and talked about everything from their experiences of Kenya when they lived here as young ladies, probably around my age or younger, to politics in England and the US (and how ridiculous politicians are)

• Going into Joy Adamson’s old house and learning about her amazing life (and eating LOTS of delicious cake!! Seriously, it’s free when you go to the house… as much as you want – which would have been more if I had not been hung-over from New Year’s Eve. Oops.)

• Getting my money back for some rotten cheese (it was brie and I was so excited to eat it, only to find the most rotten, disgusting cheese imaginable – see picture below) and getting the guy who tried to cheat us and everyone else in the matatu to give us a fair price and stop lying to everyone in the vehicle. Now, I may have started a fight, but since he was cheating everyone and we all subsequently learned the truth, I’ll claim my victory. It sure felt good.

I'll try to add some pictures later when I have a better connection (I tried now but after half an hour it was only at 16% uploaded... pass). For those of you on FB, you can see/have already seen them there.

We’ve been living on plastic lawn chairs the last 8 months. This is a most welcome edition to our house. Meet our beautiful new couch. Hand made down the road. It is amazing!

Guava. It is a green golf ball with a ghostly interior when raw, slowly giving way to, at it’s best, a yellow baseball with a pink center as it ripens. I walked down the mere two steps it takes to enter my abode not five minutes ago from what I like to call “Guava Hunting”. [...]

It was just a little under two years ago that I received a letter in the mail saying, “Hey, you wanna go to Kenya for 2 years or what?” Excitement ensued followed quickly by the sentiment “Well, what am I supposed to bring?” So I made wagers with fate on what to pack, did my best to predict what I would and wouldn’t need, and have spent a good part of my time here learning from my limitations in foresight. It’s been about two years now and according to my calculations a new group of would be volunteers is about to receive their invitation letter in the next few months, and my hope is that a few of them will stumble across this blog post. Now for those of you future volunteers who are reading this, I’m sure there are all kinds of evidence based guidelines and scientific formulas devised to help a person pack for two years of Peace Corps service, but here’s a couple of pointers from myself and another volunteer living where you’re about to go. For everyone else, I’m not saying you can’t read on, but if you have anything else you’d rather be doing I won’t be offended if you choose to devote your time elsewhere.

Bring It:

Pens – You never truly appreciate what you have until it’s gone and its replacement leaves your hands, clothes, and underwear in a sticky, inky mess. The average life span of a local pen here is approximately 30 days before the self-destruct mechanism is triggered and the writing device shatters mid-stroke, inexplicably releases its entire bolus of ink, or simply stops writing for no reason whatsoever. It seems simple enough, but treat yourself to an enjoyable writing experience for the next 2 years by tossing a few extra pens in your bag and don’t give them away.

Computer – Unless you have a really good reason for being adamantly opposed to bringing anything electronic you should go ahead and just bring a laptop. In addition to giving you the ability to send emails in a timely fashion it will serve as a useful tool giving you more versatility in the work you perform. Netbooks are great for their portability and low power consumption. Most volunteers have reasonable access to electricity and for those who don’t a solar setup capable of charging a computer is more affordable and readily available here than you might think. A good sized external hard drive (think in the terabyte range as these things can fill up quick) for pictures, music, and other files is recommended as you should back up EVERYTHING. While you can a find decent selection of gadgets, devices, and technological what-nots here in Kenya you’re going to pay a premium for such luxuries so you’re best off bringing anything plug-inable from home.

Games – We recommend Bananagrams.

Musical Instruments – Studies have shown that you are used to playing a musical instrument back home you are guaranteed to miss it within a month of arriving without it if you are foolish enough to leave it behind. Additionally, music is a great way to charm your way into the heart of anyone you meet here. There is a limited availability of quality instruments so you are best off bringing something from the US (ideally second hand if losing your instrument would be like losing a body part). Don’t forget strings, reeds, picks, harmonica wax, or any of the other necessary accessories.

Funny Shaped Sports Equipment – Frisbees, footballs, baseballs, gloves, speedos, pucks, hockey sticks, badminton gear, and lawn croquet sets. If you have an interest in any sport other than rugby, volley ball, or soccer (ahem…proper football) and you are interested in sharing that interest with the community you’re living in for the next 2 years then you had better plan ahead unless you’re prepared to do some serious improvising.

Maybe:

Toothpaste – Along with the worldwide distribution of refined sugar came the worldwide dissemination of most dental hygiene products. So unless you have a special loyalty to a brand like Tom’s of Maine don’t waste the space packing a two year supply of anything other than waxed floss.

Deodorant, Shampoo, Petroleum Jelly, Pomade, etc. – You’re not spending the next 2 years in an underwater research facility cut off from any sort of supply line. Follow the toothpaste rule: Unless you have some special brand loyalty save yourself the time and trouble and just go to the store when you get here

Red Cross Wind-Up Flashlight – Guaranteed to be one of the most useful items you own until the wind-up handle snaps off in your hand with no warning (seems to happen for most volunteers around month 6) rendering the thing useless. If you’re going to bring one of these handy devices consider throwing a tiny screwdriver in your bag as well so you can strip it for parts when the time comes.

Batteries/Things That Use Batteries – Aside from being heavy, available in nearly every village in the country (you’ll feel pretty fooling walking through the battery aisle in Kenya after carrying 20 pounds of Duracells through customs), and prone to ooze acid into all the places you really don’t want acid, there are exactly 0 environmentally friendly ways to dispose of old batteries here. If you’re planning on bringing a head lamp or something battery operated the best course of action would probably be to pack some rechargeable batteries (not those cute, underperforming USB chargable batteries) and a wall charger.

Wall Socket Adapters – US price: $20, Kenya Price: $1-2. Plan accordingly.

Quirky Cookware - Most culinary instruments from whisks and mashers to non-stick skillets and stainless steel pressure cookers are available, but for those who need to flip their pancakes “just the right way” might consider bringing your own. If you are in love with your spatula, or have a very specific potato peeler, I might recommend bringing it.

Don’t Bother:

Solio – Light weight and light duty, this is probably a useful device if you’re backpacking through the Amazon, but not so much here. The amount of babysitting and repositioning required to get a decent charge out of this ting during the non-rainy season alone make it somewhat unpractical, while leaving the device unattended during the rainy season is a sure way to drown your investment. Chances are you’ll be somewhere within reasonable proximity to power and in the outside chance that you aren’t, you’d be better off using the money you would have spent on this thing to purchase something cheaper, weather proof, and more versatile here in Kenya.

Water Purification Anything – Let’s face it, aside from the days spent between bathing and the sometime redundant menus this isn’t a camping trip. There are plenty of fast, cheap, and effective water purification methods available here in country that make more sense than bringing something from overseas. As cool and light saberesque as other water purification methods may be, you’ll probably only be wasting money and space by bringing them.

Clothes – Anything white. The purpose of doing laundry here, at least for a busy volunteer isn’t so much to get things clean as to get them “less dirty”. Get a head start on tough stains by not bringing anything lighter than “smokestack gray” or the Crayola color “ashtray”. Also bear in mind that the days of loin clothes and banana leaves are over. Thanks to well off do-gooders elsewhere you’ll be able to get top-quality name brand stuff that you couldn’t afford back home for rock bottom prices in the second hand markets here, so don’t bother packing like you’ll never see clothes again (unless of course you’re a big and tall size and don’t want to tempt fate). Also, for people who go through underpants like a college athlete through a buffet you might bring a little extra of a comfortable style. It’s not that you can’t find bras and knickers here, but 2 years can be a long time to deal with an awkward fit in those sensitive places.

Lesson of the Day:

The big thing to remember is not to bring too much. Aside from a few essentials which may be hard to come by here you can get everything you need and more for a reasonable price while supporting local merchants and all that stuff. So relax and look forward to it, the P word is nothing to be afraid of.

It is almost February and my school is getting ready for the form one students to report. I am anxious for them to come so I can begin teaching. I am currently only teaching one class and am afraid I am getting relaxed and used to my light schedule. I also think it is not the best practice to have students show up to school more than a month after opening day. I am actually not looking forward

My Kiswahili is slowly but surely improving. I’m trying to speak it everyday so that I will get more comfortable speaking because I really want to know this language. It’s actually pretty cool and would be the first language other than English that I will have a full grasp on. I think at this point [...]

Well, well, well… We’ve been in 2 days of meetings with folks from UNICEF learning a ton about well maintenance and repair. In the coming months we’re hoping to create some projects to fix some of the broken wells we have in some of our villages.

My newest pet peeve….. People at my school (deaf people included) tend to refer to any general statement made about children as “deaf.”  The word, deaf, is also used to replace the word, children or people, in sentences. For example: … Continue reading →

I know I’ve already done a lengthy post about witchcraft and the strength of its place in the cultural lexicon of Kenya. It never ceases to amaze, really. As a follow-up a colleague sent me, I’d like to direct your attention to the linked article, published several weeks ago in one of Kenya’s national newspapers. [...]

1) Because after wearing a collared, button up shirt tucked into my skirt, all the little boys decided that tucking in their sweaters and jackets into their shorts looked equally as “smart” (even though they wear their collared, button up shirts tucked into their shorts every day).2) Because they have no idea how much noise they are making at 4 a.m. by tapping on the pictures posted on my window, or laughing out loud as Amani (my cat) goes behind the curtains to see where the tapping is coming from, or screaming to try to get their friend’s attention.3) Because, when something is bothering them or someone has wronged them, they come to my house to talk, to get advice, or simply get away.4) Because when something is bothering me or someone has wronged me, they know and they have a sense of what it feels like to be the “odd one out” and they always make me feel a million times better.5) Because they know I don’t like ugali and don’t try to make me eat it every time it’s served (ahem, teachers...)6) Because they tell me I have a stain on my shirt when they have porridge all over their face, dirt covering their legs, rips in their clothes, nasty breath and snot bubbles in their noses.7) Because no matter where I am, they are there, too.8) Because when I kiss a child on the cheek and give them my hand to kiss they stick out their tongue and lick it.9) Because after a meal of ugali and sukumu their tummies turn into big drums that I get to play.10) Because no matter how awful of a teacher I think I am, they come to me hours before my lesson to start asking why I’m not in their class yet.There’s alot more where this came from...just felt like sharing a few today...

Curbstomp. From my window I saw four feet come down on his head in the dark as people all around scattered. I watched the end of the silver glint in his hand ignite with its crack. Two shots into three … Continue reading →

African Tick Fever, A.K.A. Rickettsia. That was the initial diagnosis, and why not? Swollen tick bite. Raging fever. Africa. It’s classic case. Even one of those snooty, high brow “Oh, I’m not a doctor, I just play one on TV. Now please stop harassing my children” quacks would have had to do something on this one, and so my adventure starts.

Now, when Peace Corps thinks you’re sick they don’t fool around. Following a quick telephone triage I’m off to Mombasa where after a salvo of diagnostics I’m checked into a top notch (or at least upper middle notch) hotel. Hot showers. Electricity. An all you can eat breakfast buffet. I’m beginning to see that falling ill in the Peace Corps has its perks. But a man, no matter how starved and smelly from months of living with a limited food and water supply, can only shower and eat breakfast so many times a day, and when you’re not in possession of anything electricity operated (and you don’t care to watch the one channel that comes through on the hotel TV) you can find yourself with a an abundance of quiet personal time.

Alone in my room, lab results from South Africa pending*, I sit silently, my ears honing in to soft, haughty laughter (undoubtedly from some TV “doctor”) and the light drum of cutlery against tableware bleeding through the walls. As I take in the ambiance of one of the finest establishments in Mombasa a muted, though familiar, melody resonates from the overhead sound system. A refrain that takes me to a home far away. A sagely voice that sings on the importance of knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. It is none other than the siren call of that roast chicken maharishi himself, Kenny Rogers.

Another memorable tune plays itself out, and then another, and yet another. A seemingly infinite stream of John Denver, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Pardon floods out through the dining room speakers and into my room. I lay gripped with the same emotion that must be wrought in those trapped eternally in purgatory, eternally captive to overhear some kind of non-stop line-dancing afterlife next door, reserved for only those line-dancing aficionados whose life deeds proved particularly worthy of this everlasting reward, and for TV doctors and others whose days were filled with especially poor behavior. If you’ve ever wondered silently to yourself what the prestigious upper class of Kenya listens to while dining, you need only listen to your achy breaky heart for the answer.

*I did not, in fact, have Rickettsia. Please refrain from frantic emotional phone calls and emails to the Peace Corps office in Washington.

We are already in the fourth week of classes and this is off to a good start. The biggest change from last year is that I am the school counselor now and I absolutely love it. I never really thought I would enjoy listening to a bunch of teenage girls’ problems but it has been truly great. I am getting to know the students and I feel like I am actually helping them more than by being front of them

18-1-12I actually am not sure if life can get any better here in Kenya, and let me explain why! Today I taught my first exercise class to one of my women groups! Well only 6 ladies showed up, but that is better than none! Teaching exercise to these women was definitely not as easy as teaching in America, but I live for a little challange :) I taught them the basics, and they said they really enjoyed it! We're going to have another session next weeks. So that is # 1 of the best things that happened today. #2, a baby boy (well he's 2) was at the mama's house that we had the exercise session at, fell in love with me! He wasn't scared (like most babies are, because I'm white) then he cried when I had to leave!!!! My heart was melting. So that was #2, and #3..... I got my package from my grandma today. It consisted of 3 dozen of her homemade oatmeal cookies and peanut brittle! I'm basically in heaven,.... and off my diet! hahah. Anyway I just thought I would share my good day with all of you! Tomorrow I'm teaching at Atlas Secondary School, again, but I tell ya what, it was like pullin teeth to get back in to teach again. Most principals are more than happy for me to come and teach health to the students, but this principal..... makes it seem like he doesn't want me there and has to "squeeze" in time for me. I just don't get it, the girls are always really happy when I come, and they always have a lot of questions..... Oh well, I teach tomorrow and keep working on the principal.

19-1-12 Another awesome day for the books! It started off with an hour long run...... not only my longest run since arriving in Kenya 7 months ago, but I was also accompanied by my new running buddy! She is a women from one of my JOYWO groups, she lives near me. Her name is Bridget and I think she is around my age, but already has 3 kids! We don't talk much, during our run, but it's definitely nice to have to company! Also today I went to Atlas Secondary to teach the girls. I talked to them about peer pressure and sexual abuse. They said they were understanding everything I was saying. Afterwards, I had them write their questions (they could be about anythings) and then I read them anonymously. When I was through, I found myself in the staff room, being bombarded with questions by other teachers. . . . why I'm not teaching the boys as well,,,, why I don't come more often?.... I guess it's just the principal who doesn't want me there!, which makes me feel much better about it. So hopefully I will be able to come and talk with all the boys! I have found in these schools, that it is the boys who ask all the questions! Obviously gender roles are very different here in Kenya, which is why I like talking to the boys and girls separate. When I am teaching about these important topics, I want all of the students to feel comfortable, which is why is keep the separate. But I am so glad the teachers want me to come back! Hopefully I will be able to talk with the boys on Tuesday before I leave for Ghana on Wednesday! Also on Tuesday I am teaching another exercise session to the women I taught this week!

20-1-12Another long run this morning! Then off to work, went to another JOYWO training today as well as i have one tomorrow. They are fun and a good change of pace! I get to spend the whole day with mama Lydia and Juliette, we d rive really far out into the bush and train new groups about table banking and then I get to do my condom demonstrations :) You would really be surprised how many women have never even seen a condom up close and personal. They are always a little embarassed at first, but by the end they are a little more comfortable and definitely grateful for the education!

This will be my last post until I return from my vacation! We leave on Wednesday morning, and I cannot wait! We are going for 2 weeks and are each just bringing a backpack :) Yep we're real peace corps volunteers :) Peter, a boy who works on my farm ( a very cute boy) is watching Kibaibai for me. He loves kiabiabai and treats him like a pet rather than a kenyan dog. He always watches him when I go out of town. So Kwaheri kwa sasa! (goodbye for now)

It’s hot and dry here and there isn’t any water in so many parts of the country. My good hill is slightly better than other places, in that there’s a bore hole about 2 kilometers in one direction and a river about 2 or 3 in the other. So we carried water with us as [...]

It is pitch black outside. From the far western side of the sky, brilliant flashes of light intermittently sever the darkness. The flashes of lightning are deep in the distance, so deep that the expected thunder gets muffled and lost against the hills and the trees in its futile attempts to reach me. Yet, despite their distance, the flashes are so distinct they illuminate the entirety of the heavens.

The sight is breathtaking. I run outside with my camera, hoping to capture the clear bolts of lightning on film. With the dim light of my cell phone I take careful steps outside of my compound, where I could stand and see the beautiful spectacle unobstructed. But as I reach the front of my compound I am blinded by the security light hanging from the underside of the roof. The single light bulb sheds so much light it dampens the brilliance of the distant lightning and mutes the twinkling stars above. Frustrated, I search the walls around the light for a switch to put it off. Defeated, I move further in toward the darkness and toward the road so as to get the best view I can.

I smile with awe as I see the lightning bolts arch and twist, some stretching their unrestrained energy all the way to the ground below. The bolts seem to linger for more than just moments, or perhaps it is their remnants that linger as negatives in my corneas. With each bolt, I can see the sharp outline of a dark, ominous cloud presumably where the bolts are borne. I thought to myself that nothing can be more sublime, nothing more natural and paradoxically peaceful, aside from the single glowing light bulb some distance behind me.

He comes up to me stumbling. It is only 9:30pm, but he has had enough to drink and is on his way home as he sees me standing there. “Ahhh Mwadime,” he greets me with slurred words in my local name.

“Look!” I exclaim in Swahili and point earnestly toward the horizon, shedding my excitement on him. He turns slowly and asks me, “What?” He is not in the least amused by the lightning in the distance; to him its natural display of power is nothing of consequence.

“The lightning. It is very good, isn't it?" I replied.

“What? That?” He looks and points at the horizon. “Pffffff. That?” he repeats, his words reeking of alcohol as they reach me. Finally he says, “That's not lightning. That is.”

He points behind me, to the single light bulb hanging from the outside of my house.

“That.” He repeats, his arm locked straight with a single pointed finger fixed at the end.

His drunken insight offends me at first. It seems shameful to claim something like a light bulb more substantial than an awesome display of lightning on the horizon. And furthermore, that same light bulb that I found bothersome and tried so desperately to extinguish he finds more worthy of attention. But as I continue reflecting on his words, I consider how commonplace light bulbs are to me, just as lightning is to him. I consider that this village may have only had electricity wired in a decade ago, and still only the ones in proximity, or the ones wealthy enough are able to enjoy what electricity brings. Never had I smelled the burning of kerosene as I study by its light, or had to leave my cell phone at a shop all day to have it charged for me. I think back and realize that I have never known a life without electricity. Save for a few camping trips, I had never been without electricity for more than the rare two hour black-out would allow.

He stumbles off in the darkness, leaving me alone to watch the bolts traverse the pitch black sky. As he leaves he does not take a single look on the horizon; the magnificent thunderstorm remains entirely ignored as he hurries home to undoubtedly turn on his television. Perhaps WWE wrestling is on.

Well, it's been a good run. 358 posts in just over three years. I've enjoyed sharing my experiences, though of late, blogging has begun to feel like more of a chore than a healthy way to express myself. I thought I would migrate over to Facebook or Twitter, but I've found myself spending a lot of time on Quora lately, so that's probably how I'll be expressing myself, at least for a little while now. I will leave the blog up for a while, but I don't expect that I'll come back to posting. Hope you've enjoyed the ride.

-Daniel