Being a woman coming to work in an Islamic Republic, I prepared myself for a lot of things. I mentally prepped myself to be a ghost, to sometimes be heard, but definitely never seen. I brought a suitcase full of clothes that were two sizes too big that covered my neck, wrists and thighs. I packed a dozen scarves to cover my head with. However, the social reality of working in an office funded by the USG in Afghanistan sometimes wildly differs from my conservative expectations. But sometimes it is a little more than I could have prepared myself for.

I have really enjoyed the culture, energy and personalities of the people I work with, so here are a few anecdotes from my daily office life:

When I first arrived, I was struggling to get all of the staff names right. First off, names are all Arabic. At least in Africa, people will frequently take “Christian” names like, Peter, or Christine. Or they will be named after some popular American word, like Immaculate or Duplex. Here there are names like Amira or Taqdeerullah. Anyhow, there are three men that share my office, and two of them I always got confused and my friend helped me by saying, “B is the religious one, so just remember B is for Beard”. And he is the more religious of my team. Everyday at about 1:00p and 4:00p he will go wash, put on his Kufi (white prayer hat) and lay out his prayer rug facing the Qiblah (Mecca), and begins his subtle chanting and kneeling. At first I was very careful when interacting with B. I made sure to be very proper and to know my place. And then he sent me a video on Skype that was “too funny”. The video was set in an American work place with a man in a suite who stared as a women bent over in a tight skirt, and another woman slapped him. I courteously chuckle chatted him back.

Another day, my expat colleague was talking to another staff member and said (referring to the innocuous carrot and stick approach), “For some reason Dr., your stick is not working. You keep waving it, but nothing is happening.” Now, the thought had crossed my mind, but this is Afghanistan, so I remained professional and let the moment pass. But B, B of all people, just burst out laughing and repeats it to the next guy that comes through the door.

The contrast to B is all of the men that come through the office and don’t even acknowledge my presence. In Afghanistan, like many places I have lived, greetings are a very important ritual. You can spend 15 minutes just asking back and forth after your companion’s family. If someone walks in the room, you stop working, stand up and he goes around and greets everyone. It is insulting to just say hello and keep typing. Unless you are a woman. If you are a woman, it is fine to keep working, because many men will just walk right by your desk.

…

One day while just the two of us are in the office (usually there are 4 other men), A, the young, very beautiful, shy woman that sits next to me asks out of the blue, “Is there an Amazon store?” I look over at A, sitting in her headscarf with her dark sweet eyes and ask, “A what?” assuming that she can’t possibly be talking about the Amazon.com that I frequent. “A store for Amazon. You know, the website, can you go to a store?”. I have not talked too much with A as she is really quiet (at least when men are around), but I do know that she has a husband in Canada. I walk over to her desk and she explains that her cousin is getting married next month and she wants her husband to go to the store in Canada and buy her a dress to bring with him to Afghanistan for the wedding. She shows me two dresses. One is a typical American bridesmaid type dress – black strapless with an a-line skirt to the knee. The other is a straight-up va-va-voom, Jessica rabbit type dress – bright red, also strapless but with a sweet heart cut, long, tight with a high slit. I look at this young woman and think to myself, you must be hiding a rockin body under that house-like outfit… I am shocked, are women here allowed to own such items let alone wear them?!? After further prying, it turns out that traditional Afghan weddings separate men and women, and women typically wear really fancy dresses in the hopes of impressing the mother of a young bachelor. But my colleague is already married, so I guess it is just a great opportunity to wear something sexy!

The contrast to A is G. G is really a rather ‘western’ Afghan woman. She does not wear a head scarf in the office, and she wears tighter clothing and shorter sleeves than most. She has a very friendly, blunt affect and is almost flirty with men. However, she has a horrific husband. She will come in and show us bruises or burns where her husband has beat her or thrown acid on her. She tells us that she works because when she brings home money, her husband does not beat her so much…

…

N. N is one of my favorite people I have met here. He is a twenty-something, good looking, good humored, hard working man. His family and culture is very important to him but he does not take time out of the day to pray and frequently has lunch brought to his desk to eat. N and I are always laughing, when I am out sick, he always asks after me. He will tell me all about his family or about the party he attended the night before. When I asked what a party in Afghanistan is like, he tells me that he and his friends gather, and they play instruments, predominately a stringed instrument, and they sit around and sing. N really makes me wish I could actually experience The Real Afghanistan. I wish I could be invited to a friend’s home, and drink tea and sway as my friends sang traditional songs.

N recently lost a 1 year old nephew to meningitis. When he returned from leave (keeping vigil at his brothers home), the moment he entered we all hugged him (well the men did, I can’t hug men), and then immediately circled around and B launches into the sing-song of a Muslim prayer. They raise their hands at the conclusion of prayer and murmur quietly in the way that the Messenger of Allaah (peace be apon him) once did.

…

The other night at dinner, my friends were telling me of a colleague who is so sweet, and always cautioning them to live in the moment. He has lost an eye to the insurgents and has been blown up a number of times.

…

When I came here, everyone was afraid for me – all we know of Afghanistan is what we read or hear in the media. That information is predominantly of the war, the insurgents or the brutality of the old Taliban regime. Typically I leave room for you to make your own interpretations, but on this blog, I am really hoping that you get the following: This country has been to hell and back (well, maybe not back entirely), Afghans have dealt with, and still deal with, many complex and frightening problems, but, through it all there is joy and humor, strong relationships and a vivacious culture, and maybe most astonishing, a belief in the potential of the future - A beautiful vitality.

*I have used letters to represent coworkers as many local national staff risk their lives to work with us.

That’s me. Charlie 820.

After our first attempt to land at Kabul International Airport, the captain gets on the intercom to announce that conditions are bad for landing as he could not see the necessary indicators on the ground. It is a whiteout snow storm; apparently, it has been dumping snow all day. He tells us that we will circle for 30 minutes to see if conditions improve, and then take one final attempt to land, if we cannot land again, then we will just return to Dubai (no big deal, just turn around and fly back 3 hours). The pilot makes sure to remind us that Safi Airline is the safest airline in Afghanistan. Though, the timing of that statement was less than reassuring. I look out my window, and all I see is white, I know I must be surrounded by mountains, but can’t see a thing. I imagine we must be close to the ground but have no idea. My stomach is a bit nervous, not sure if it is because I am in a plane trying to land in a snow storm amidst towering mountains, or if it is because I am (hopefully) landing in a country at war. Or some mix of both. Needless to say, I am a bit more on edge than usual during this landing. We start the decent again. All of a sudden I see the runway right below us, our wheels touchdown, and the cabin breaks into tentative applause. I breathe a sigh of relief.

The airport is like most airports I’ve been to in developing nations. Sparse. Though with a few more guns. All of the ladies dawn their head scarves as we step off the plane, and we rush to get through passport control. The luggage pickup is an old school conveyer belt surrounded by numerous Afghans asking if I need assistance (for a price of course). But I, being the master packer that I am, have it under control. Someone asks me if I am DAI and tells me my vehicle is waiting, but I do not recognize him so I blow him off. Not about to begin this foray into Afghanistan with a kidnapping. The power shuts down. We all stand around the luggage roundabout in the dark until the generator kicks in. Eventually my luggage comes around and I make my way through customs (just another series of queues) to my escort. He verbally welcomes me (men and women do not shake hands here, let alone hug) and we exit the airport.

It is a quiet evening, dampened by the falling snow. Everything is that glowy blue that comes about on a snowy evening just as the sun finishes setting. Due to airport security protocols, there are numerous abandoned walled-in lots surrounding the airport where no vehicles are allowed. As we make our way across this empty snow field I find myself hoping that I did actual recognize this man, and it wasn’t just the 2 days of travel talking. He starts to talk to me about my project and about the weather in California and I feel a bit better. We pass through what appears to be a crack in a barrier wall, and find ourselves in a parking lot filled with landcruzers with UN painted on the sides and, somewhat more discrete, armored vehicles. Eventually we walk up to one such unremarkable armored vehicle and a Scottish man steps out and says, “You must be Rachel”. He introduces himself and loads my stuff into the back. I hop in to find two other expat men in the back seat already. The security man climbs into the front seat, turns around and says in his thick Scottish accent, “We are on yellow; there have not been any instances in the last two days. First-aid packs are here and here (pointing to packs on the backs of the driver and passenger seats), I have weapons up here with me, and the rest are in a trunk in the back of the vehicle (beneath all my shit). If anything happens, just lie on the floor and follow my directions. We have about 10 minutes till we reach HQ”. He then gets on the radio and to inform HQ that pick-up is complete and we are en-route. By this point my head is swirling; So many possibilities and so little instruction. Nothing has happened in the last 2 days - in what kind of world is that satisfactory? I imagine that if anything were to happen, it would be pretty difficult to hear any instructions from my security. But, I take a breath and try to steady my heart rate. “Here we go” I think to myself.

By this point it is dark in Kabul, but traffic is still plenty. The driver speeds in and out of traffic, sometimes against the flow, but rarely ever stops. People step out in front of our vehicle to cross the street, and I hold my breath. As we make it through police checkpoints, the security radios it into headquarters. Shortly we pull up to a gate that magically opens and we enter a garage.

Everyone piles out into the building, and I do a three-sixty, not sure where to go. I poke my head around and find my way into the security control room - abuzz with radio communication, the walls covered in maps and trackers. The guy in charge eventually asks me if he can help me, and, after learning I am new, promptly launches into a rant on how they run the security operation and how they track every movement of every member of the team. He explains the callsigns to me, and tells me I am now known as Charlie Eight-Two-Zero. “Charlie 820, Charlie 820” I repeat in my head, but my mind hasn’t quieted from the car ride, and this new influx of information is just making my mind swirl at a faster rate. Eventually the guy who runs the overall security operations of LGCD comes and takes me up to his office. At this point, it is 7pm on a Saturday, so everyone just wants to go home. He offers me water and sits me down in front of a big screen. Though I would prefer a cigarette, the water and the darkness calm me a bit. Then he tells me in his Irish accent, “This presentation is not meant to scare you, just to give you a realistic idea of the situation on the ground”. Great, I think to myself, again, not finding the forewarning reassuring.

We proceed to spend the next hour and a half going over every major hit that has taken place against our project in the last few years. We discuss the fact that because we are closely tied to GoIRA’s (Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) and the US governments counter insurgent program, we are a considerably higher priority target than NGO’s and even other private contractors. I begin to piece together the nature of my program, working with the PRT’s to clear areas (of insurgents) and then work to build infrastructure and livelihoods on behalf of GoIRA, in an attempt to create a relationship between civilians in these remote places and their government. It starts to make sense that we would be a target, but definitely not something that had dawned on me before this debrief. He details houses and projects that have been hit. At some point I interject, “I know this may be a bigger question than you are prepared to answer, but have you sat down and identified the threshold at which the loss of project and security personnel outweighs the benefits of our work?” He gives me a wishy-washy answer with the underlying emotion being that no one thinks we are there yet. He then runs down all of the security protocol and pushes me off to HR to sign papers and get my body armor and cell phone.

Being that it is nearing 9pm, the HR rep just hands over my body armor and tells me to meet her Sunday at 8:30 to go over everything. I am thankful for this reprieve, as all I desire is a warm shower and a bed. She calls for a vehicle to pick us and take us to my new home. We climb in, and the security escort up front immediately asks us for our callsigns. I stumble and dig for the paper in my bag where I had written it down. “Charlie Eight-Two-Zero”. Again we are bumping our way through the walled, pot-holed streets of Kabul with the crackle of radio traffic in the background. We arrive at my new house, and security gets on the radio and requests for them to open the gate. Men in body armor and AK’s come out and open the gates. Inside are shooters in various strategic positions aimed at the gate, and my vehicle. I am not in Kansas anymore…I try to open the door, but it doesn’t budge. I ask for assistance, and the security escort opens it from the outside with no problem. It dawns on me that this is an armored vehicle, and the doors are like that of a vault. Gotta put your back into it.

I climb out and once again drag my shit through the mud and snow, and look up. It is a multi story house with old southern architecture. We step into the marble foyer with sweeping grand stairwells. My escort hands me over to the head of security of the house, and he gives me a tour of the house and runs over what to do in event of earthquake, mortar shells or compound attack. He says, “You will know if we are under attack because you will hear a big boom and then the tak tak tak of gun fire”. Sweet. I ask him if we should fit my body armor and put together my grab bag, but due to the late hour, he too puts it off until tomorrow. Left alone to myself, I shower and try to wrap my head around things. I head down to the kitchen to see what’s to eat. Chat a bit with the few people snacking at 10pm and head back to my room. I am dead beat, and look at my queen bed longingly. My mind is racing, but I am drained and allow myself to climb in. It doesn’t take 10 minutes for me to be up and packing my grab bag. Basically a grab bag is bag you grab in event of attack that has all of the essentials (warm clothes as it is winter here at 5,000 feet, food, water, first aid, meds, cash, passport, phone). I place it next to the door with my body armor. I get back into bed and fall asleep as I mentally run over the actions of what to do if we are attacked (some people count sheep). At 4pm California time (3:30 am Kabul time) I wake up. With every little noise, I pause to assess its significance. I go over and over everything that I have been told in the last 12 hours, and try to piece together the likelihood of a hit on this house, this night. I feel inadequately prepared for anything and everything. I try to will myself back to sleep, but at 6:00am, I give up and go down to the gym.

A new day awaits. The sunlight is somehow reassuring. I call for a car to take me to the office, climb in and give them my callsign. Charlie Eight-Two-Zero.

Dated 29 July 2010. (four days after The Great Fire)

I woke up early this morning to go over my speech for the opening ceremony. Today we are finally celebrating the completion of a project that we have been carrying out for the last 3 months, building an Artisan Community Center. This is a project that aims to provide a dry space for our artisans and their community to use as a meeting house during the rainy season. It is a moment of pride for our women who, because of their hard work and commitment to our organization, have brought a beautiful, pristine and high quality structure to their very remote village. This project has been funded for years by the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, however due to the remote nature of our project, they have never visited us. After many emails and a meeting in Dar with our contact, I finally convinced the embassy representative to come visit for the opening ceremony. The team was ecstatic! Big day!

After a surprisingly short delay, the team, in our smartest outfits, piles into our landcruzer and we go speeding off into the bush to make sure things are ready. The mood is familial and celebratory in the car, everyone is singing and swaying as we bounce over bumps. The team is together and we get to show off our amazing project!

I should mention, that the embassy representative decided to bundle his trip out to our village with a few other project visits since it is incredibly unusual for them to get out our direction. Because of this, I plan to meet him on the main road at 2pm so that he can follow our vehicle out to the site. But we wanted to get there early and make sure everything was ready to start on time.

When we peak over the hill that slopes into the valley where our site is, I can hardly recognize the site I have been overseeing for the last few months. There is a canopy made out of local fabrics tied together and there are already hundreds of people swarming around (and it is only 11am!). We pull up and the artisans and other women from the neighboring village surround the car in song and dance. We climb out and dance our way to the ceremony site. Eventually things quite down, and I just start snapping pictures. After it is clear that everything is in order, I decide to walk around and get some more photos around the site ( I have been trying to make a better effort to take more photos).

It is important to know that I am wearing really flat sandals with no support and a very tight skirt that goes to my knee.

So I walk around to the dirt road in front of the site and click away. I hear more singing and decide to go back to the festivities. I try to go around the opposite way I came, which requires me to walk over a small dirt ditch, but half way down I realize that the opposite side is much higher and too steep to climb up in the skirt I am wearing. So I pivot to go back the way I came. SNAP. Something rips in my ankle and I immediately hit the ground (remarkably without dropping my SLR which I am too cool to wear around my neck). I am in blinding amounts pain, grabbing my ankle and focusing on breathing. I faintly hear the two guys on the road laughing at me, the mzungu that fell. But mainly my mind is swirling with the most pain I have ever experienced. Eventually the laughing guys realize I am really in pain and not getting up. One decides to come over and help me to my feet (kind of in the manner one would help a screaming child that just fell, “its okay baby,” (lifts child to feet) “Now go run along and play. “). Obviously, it is not that simple in my case, but in my pain, I do not have the Kiswa skills to tell them that something snapped and I am seriously injured. I was even in doubt as to how seriously injured I was. Afterall, all I had done was turn around. All I knew was that I was in serious pain. Between gasps, I muster up the words “lete rafiki yangu” (bring my friends). Naturally, they go into the ceremony and say “an mzungu has fallen”. All 300 people turn around and head to the road to see the spectacle.

So now, not only am I am more pain than childlabor could possibly be, but I have an audience of 300 rural Tanzanians. Sweet. My boss arrives and takes charge in her perfect kiswa. She asks me with a chuckle, “what, you wanted to get the entertainment started early?” I reply that I just thought that more attention should be on Me. So, I don’t really know how they decided that a stooped 70 year old woman and a short man were the best fit in the crowd of 300 to help me get up and hobble up the hill, but they did. Once up, another grandma starts swatting at my ass. Because, apparently, it is bad enough that an mzungu has fallen, but to have her nice outfit soiled by red dirt is just too much. Heidi (my boss) later tells me how funny I looked as a 6’ tall women hunched with these short people on either side. Eventually they get me in the car, where I finally allow myself to look at my ankle. Already it is purple and blue and swollen to a soft ball size. F***. This was not how the day was planned to go.

After much consultation amongst the crowd and my team, it becomes clear that the X ray is broken at the local hospital and no one can decide what to do with me. My head starts to clear and I step in. A month earlier, an Australian ER doctor arrived to our village to start her 3 year mission service. I tell my driver to take me to her, as she will know what to do. And he does exactly that. My ankle stabs each time we bounce over a bump, but at least fresh air is blowing at my face through the window, keeping me from passing out. My driver drives us straight up onto her lawn, right up to her door.

“Roooooose,” I yell in the door. At that, Dr. Rose and her 2 daughters come

running out the door. Everyone is shocked. After some assessment, Rose decides it is either a really bad sprain or a break. She splints it lightly, tells me to elevate it and not to put any weight on it, gives me some light pain killers and says she will check in on me.

My driver then drives me home, where he and our guard carry me into my house. He then takes off to find the embassy representatives. Jessica (who you remember from the Day of the Great Fire), immediately sets out to start cleaning my feet. It hurt to the touch, but she was gentle. About an hour later, my guard comes in with a tree that he has widdled down for me to use as a walking crutch. I smile at the gesture (and as it turns out, it really saved me those first few days).

Anyhow, long story shorter, after 3 days, Dr. Rose is called into the hospital for an emergency where she is shown a chest x-ray. She inquires about this, and they tell her that the x-ray machine is in fact working, but only for special people (people who can pay the 10 USD). So she gets me in for an x-ray. It is clearly broken, but what is not clear (due to the poor quality of the machine) is if there are other breaks that compromise the joint. Everyone decides that I will need to go to a better hospital to get clarifying x-rays, and potentially surgery.

Meanwhile, I am uninsured, so my mom is in a frenzy in the US trying to figure out what to do, and how to get it covered. She tries everything (even the US embassy in Dar). She doesn’t sleep for a week.

I pick up the phone and call flying docs, my med-evac insurance. We make arrangements for a pick-up on Monday at 11am. At this point, my team starts running around to make sure I have everything I need to go to Kenya and then on to the US and that they have everything they need for the next few months.

On Monday, Edson drives me out to a dirt airstrip, I say goodbye to everyone, and I board an ambulance/plane. The irony is not lost on me that the last time I left Kenya, I was evaxuated due to political unrest, and here I was flying into Kenya (being medically evacuated from Tanzania) on the eve of their contemptuous constitutional referendum. Luckily,it was peaceful. Even more lucky, an American surgeon was on the flight and stayed with me through it all to make sure I received adequate medical attention in Nairobi. In Nairobi the x-rays showed that it was in fact broken in 3 places and the orthopedist said that surgery was necessary. This meant that the joint was incredibly unstable and I was going home to the US for surgery. I stayed the night in the hospital and then stayed with my new doctor friend while I waited for my flight in 24 hours time. Unfortunately, my doctor got called off to a medical emergency in Sudan, and had to take off suddenly. This meant that I had to give myself a shot (blood thinner so that I did not get a clot and die on the plane) and find my way to the airport.

I call a taxi and we head to the airport. Because I have a duffle, and am on crutches and countless pain meds, I ask him to park and escort me in. When we get to the check-in counter, the woman tells me that she regrets to inform me that my flight has been cancelled for 24 hours and that all other flights are booked. My mind starts swirling, my eyes well up, and I start spewing verbal diarrhea about how I have to get home for surgery and I do not have enough meds to delay yada yada yada. She smiles and says they are happy to put me up in a hotel room for the night and shuttle me to and fro the airport. I clean my tears up, and go into scary Rachel mode inorder to express in no uncertain terms that a delay was not an option, and that she needed to do whatever was necessary to get me on a flight. I even suggested they bump someone else off another airline, most tourists would be happy for the extra 24 hours in Nairobi. I was not a tourist. Eventually, she tells me she will try to get me on standby on Swiss air and instructs me to sit on a metal bench and wait for 2 hours until she will know. My sweet sweet taxi driver tries to insist on staying with me until I find out, but I send him home. He goes out and gets me food so that I can take my meds and continues to call and txt to see if I have made the flight. A church group comes along and prays for me not to be lonely in this time of need…

In the end I made the flight. But of course, my baggage was lost at customs (with the x-rays)and I was squished into an isle seat with a huge cast on my leg. Eventually, I made it back to the US and to medical coverage and after 3 months of a cast and no weight bearing, and 3 months of physical therapy, I am recovering well. It seems all of my previously good travel luck came in to call.

25. July. 2010

I feel like I should start this post with “I once had a farm in Africa”.

It looks to be a busy Sunday with a pile of work that needs to get done before this hectic week starts, so I wake up early and do an hour of Yoga. Laying in Shivasina I give thanks to my higher power, my creative consciousness, my spiritual light. I thank my teachers – those that have inspired me, brought me to my knees, kissed me on my lips. I give thanks for the challenges that I have surmounted and grown from. This morning, I was lucky enough to reach that great balance of inner peace and physical exertion.

After my shower, but still in my post yoga calm, I chop up a half a pineapple, some papaya, a few bananas and squeeze some passion and citrus juice over the top. I fix my Sunday morning instant mocha (instant coffee, instant milk, instant chocolate, sugar, cinnamon and hot water). I take my breakfast and a relatively recent Economist that old visitors had left at the house and sit out on the porch to catch up on the worldly events and enjoy the morning light.

After reading about the election in Rwanda, blood diamonds in Zimbabwe, and about halfway through the article on American democrats’ ineptitude to lead in wartime, I start to hear the crackling of fire. It is a pretty common background noise, hardly registering in my brain. It gets a little stronger and I assume that it must be one of the guards cooking some breakfast in the fire pit near my house. When I finish the article, I decide to look down the rocky hill that falls off quickly about 4 yards from where I am sitting. During the dry season, the valley is on fire, the hills shrouded in smoke. People believe (falsely) that burning fields is good for the soil. They also believe that the longer your fire burns, the longer you will live. Or that the ability to light a fire is the hand of God acting through yours (but really, if we are going to get detailed here, isn’t it God’s hand typing with mine right now?). Anyhow, I decide I should at least just check and see if there is a fire getting close to the compound. I walk out to the edge and look over. There is a strong fire, and it is nearly at the foot path about three yards down hill. “Jessicaaaa,” I call to our house keeper “njoo tafadalhi! Haraka!” (come please! Hurry!) she peeks her head out the back door, wearing her apron over her nice church clothes “moto inakuju. Ina karibu!” (fire, it comes. It is close!). She looks over, “Hamnashida” (there is no problem) she says matter-of-factly, totally unfazed. She slowly saunters down the hill to walk along the footpath and examine just how far it goes and to make sure no children are in harm’s way. She pauses occasionally to unhook her skirt from the thistles of the bush. I take the moment to snap a few pictures.

This would be a good time to describe the surroundings. Our compound of three houses and the office is well maintained with the grass cut short. But just past our boundary, which is really just delineated by where short grass meets long grass or sometimes a bush line, is wild, overgrown and dry bush. At the best it is grass to my knee, at worse it is grass to the shoulders and brambly bush.

Jessica returns after her leisurely walk and tells us everything is fine, that it has slowed, and will stop at the footpath. She brushes it off and goes back inside to her work. I am not so easily persuaded. Maybe it is because I am from California where wild fires have claimed my favorite camping spot and nearly taken my family’s homes. When the fire gets this close, we evacuate. But here, in rural Tanzania, there is no fire department to call in to protect your home. Here, if you leave, you lose your home. And so, you fight. I start to think of all of the what-ifs. Of the millions of shillings of highly flammable product we have in our store room. The home that I have grown to love. The 400 artisans that depend on our poorly financed NGO. My livelihood. I decide to knock on the door of Heidi, the founder of my org, who is in town for the month and just ask her what she thinks. Worst case scenario, she laughs at me for being unseasoned, nervous about such a commonplace occurrence. Best case scenario, we save our compound from being burned to a crisp.

“Hodi” I call into her house. “Is that Rachel? I am in the bath” she replies. “Oh… okay… I was just wondering what you do if the fire gets too close…”, “is it near”, “well I think so”, “I’ll be out in a few minutes”. Ruth and I run back to the hill near my house. The fire has moved quite a lot, and the wind is picking up and it is moving close, it is definitely too close for comfort. “Jessicaaaa! Ina karibu SANA!” (it is VERY near). She runs out, looks down the hill, and without saying anything, runs to the nearest green leafy tree and with one swift movement rips off a young stem with a lot of leaves on the end. I do the same, though, it being a green tree and me being new to this, I struggle a little more. I say an apology to the tree for taking its life. But, I guess the fire would have gotten it anyway. A small sacrifice. She runs towards the bottom of the fire and start swatting it out with the green leaves. Hardcore. Mind you, she is a plump lady still wearing her apron over her Sunday bests. Definitely a sight. I stay top-ward and start mimicking her. It is definitely working! But the fire is faster than my incessant swatting. My mind is thinking, there has got to be a better way, but my survival instinct just keeps swatting. Eventually my leaves wilt off and I am not making much headway with the remaining tree stump and branches, and I realize I am backed against a rock face. I decide to get out and run up to the house to start fighting with buckets of water. About this time, Heidi walks up with her two kids, 3 and 5. We send the kids up to the balcony, yelling at them to stay put. I pass off the bucket and rip down a new green tree to start swatting again. Heidi decides to call for backup, because us four women are having a difficult time keeping the fire at bay. It has now reached the rim where I stood to look down at the fire – about 4 yards from the house, with nothing but dry grass in between. There is even a nice pile of dry trees sitting conveniently near the shack housing our generator and fuel…smart. I am running all over, swatting, calling for water when I hit rough spots, occasionally burning my feet (I am wearing chaco thongs. Didn’t have time to put on proper foot wear…). The smoke is intense. I am trying to breathe out while looking at the fire and breathe in facing away. Not much help. I am short of breath but keep swatting. Eventually we get this part of the fire at bay and head off to the end of the compound to check on it. Ruth stays back with the kids, and Heidi, Jessica and I walk to the end. The flames are big and hot, and moving fast. At this point, facing massive flames and heavy smoke, coughing, I flash back to a Grey’s Anatomy smoke inhalation patient and suggest wetting bandanas to cover our mouths. Manase, our back up arrives, and he and Jessica run off with their trees. Heidi and I don’t think we have enough time to swat out the fire before it gets to the house. I suggest we start digging (firefighters dig trenches right?). She doesn’t think there is time. So we start creating a water boundary. Eventually we call some other people in, and we swat it out, but it is now heading up the hill to the church compound. Heidi calls our friends up the hill to warn them. We keep swatting. Eventually we get it out. Kids come out and marvel at the mzungu female firefighters. We are a sight. We breathe a sigh of relief and head back to the first house to have some water, breathe semi clean air and assess our battle wounds. Thinking that we are safe now that the house is nearly encircled by charred earth, we relax. We take a celebratory picture of the firefighting team. Manase even heads home. We break out some roasted ground nuts and enjoy some homemade coffee icecream I made the night before. We joke around and drink gallons of water.

In about 30 minutes, Jessica bursts in and in frantic kiswa tells us the fire is back, strong, near the last house. Heidi and I, again, leave Ruth with the kids and take off at a run. Immediately we hear the crackling of the fire. Before we see it, we already know we are in trouble. As I run, I think about how my house could have burned down while we were eating icecream congratulating ourselves. When we get nearer, it is in an L encroaching on the house. It has jumped the ground burned earlier and is nearly on top of the house. It is more than we can handle. We call for backup and yell at the people up hill from us to grab a bucket and do something. We are about to lose my house. I run through bush and charred earth, burning my toes and hoping that all snakes have evacuated the area earlier. I swat like I have never swatted before. The fire is intense. The smoke is white-out conditions. Eyes are burning. I have to run out to get some air. We are not keeping up. My foot falls through a hole between two rocks. I keep swatting and hope nothing bites me. They yell at me to stop and reposition at the top. We finally get the big flames out, but it is a double front. It’s relentless! (yes, I actually yelled that) Half of us stay to finish putting out the first fire, and the rest of us go to the other half of the fire. I repeatedly curse these foolish people who light fires. Now that I am closer, I can hear the organ of the church uphill, playing like nothing is happening below. We have now put out the main fires and walk around, slowly, heaving for air, with buckets of water cooling off smoking embers. This time we are really done. Though, there are no news reporters updating the thousands watching on TV. There are no celebrating crowds. Just the calm of knowing we are safe, the pride of having done it with our own hands and the ache of our muscles and the smell of smoke that lingers on our clothes to remind us that it was, in fact us who did it.

Now that the fire is out, I can clearly hear the music from the church. The beat goes on. I joke about how the pious should be thankful for those unholy among them who don’t go to church. We just saved their asses.

Heidi and I don’t waste much time getting to the work we had planned for the afternoon: planning meetings and filling out our application for the World Fair Trade Organization. In a few hours, I am still light headed and just exhausted, so I head home. On my way home, Manase shows me a large snake hanging in a tree that he just killed near where my foot fell through the hole. I ask if it was poisonous. Very, he says. A shudder runs throughout my body that I can’t shake. What an insane life I lead.

Lunch today was much more spirited than usual. My neighbor Thomas came into the office, I have not seen him in two weeks, but I greet him with, “Yeah for World Cup starting today!” and a high five. This gets the whole team talking and arguing. Mainly about Brazil or Portugal. This cup, they are in the same group, which promises an intense head to head (June 25th). People here love Brazil, but they also love Ronaldo (Portugal’s star footballer), so there is a bit of a tension. I of course am loyal to Portugal (Santos family heritage). We all battle it out a bit, and then make plans for the opening game this evening. It is a rather uninspiring match up, South Africa v Mexico, but most of us support South Africa for patriotic reasons. All but Thomas. He says he loves football too much to support a team for patriotic reasons. I try to paint the picture of the hope and excitement the cup brings to this continent, and of how devastated we will all be if South Africa looses the first game of Africa’s World Cup. He will hear none of it.

4:30 rolls around and the 8 people going to town to watch the match from Murgwanza converge at the church compound to hitch a ride with the vehicle. There are some new faces, and I begin to ask “Portugal or Br…” they cut me off, “Brazil, of course.” I am most definitely out numbered. I feel myself getting more excited for the games to come.

We pull up to the Sky Giraffe, one of the two bars in town. By bar I mean a fenced in yard, with thatch roof covering a corner. Thomas has been promising me that they have a HUGE screen, biggest in Ngara. From my previous visits, I only remember a tiny little TV with horrible sound. We enter, and under the thatch structure is a big TV, about the size of most standard American household TVs, and rows and rows of men sitting in plastic chairs. We get some of the last chairs in the back. As it turns out, the one thing Tanzanians will be on time for is World Cup. The waiter in his usual dingy “kiss me I’m Irish” shirt comes around to collect our 300 shilling ($0.25) entrance fee and get us some sodas.

In the US, we would use the World Cup as a great excuse to start drinking beer at 10am. Here it is 5pm on a Friday, and not a single man has ordered a beer. Fantas and Cokes all around. Is this game too serious to drink? I find myself wondering. Being that I am sick and sitting next to the Vicar General of the (dry) Anglican Church, I follow suite and order a Fanta orange. The tension is mounting as we watch the national anthem. My heart is racing along is everyone in the room. The World Cup is officially open. I clap. Alone. It felt strangely anticlimactic. I wanted to yell, this is the World Cup people! Africa’s World Cup!

When we came in, it was clear that I was the only mzungu in the place, but as I looked around, I am also the only woman. So I guess I deserve all of the strange looks I was getting.

For the first ten minutes, Mexico dominates the field with a number of shots on goal. Thomas looks at me gloatingly and asks if I am in his camp yet. I go on about standing by your team, but the guy to my left starts wavering. Everyone seems really reserved. I expected much more excitement and involvement for the first game of this cup, Africa’s Cup. It turns out that I am louder, and perhaps more foul mouthed than everyone in there (I was trying to keep it under control, but it is second nature when the opposition is passing the ball through your defense towards the goal). Mexico scores and we all go silent (or more silent). I bury my head in my scarf and miss the ref’s offsides call, nulling the point. That gets a little rise from the crowd.

Half time rolls around, it is still 0-0. South Africa is on the offense a bit more, but still, nothing too promising. Everyone gets up, and it seems, decided that at this point in the game it is time to drink, they return with beer in hand. Thomas asks again if I am now voting (his word) for Mexico. South Africa has upped their game, I am not making any pronouncements, but it might be a draw.

About 10 minutes into the 2nd half, South Africa is aggressively sprinting down the field with the ball, the ball is expertly passed to the wing, and he shoots up and over the goalie landing with a swish in the upper corner of net. A Qwik Goal as my old coach would have said.

UPROAR!!!! We all shot to our feet, hands in the air, screaming and jumping. YEAH!!! People were literally hanging from the rafters. The joy I felt is difficult to capture. I think a lot of it was relief. It was important that South Africa got the first goal of the cup! We were now in the game for good. The tension was broken, I was no longer the only one yelling at the screen. Everyone was on the edge of their seat ready for them to do it again.

Mexico evens it out. We try to get a few more in, but they deflect off the goal posts. And, just like that, the game ends. Tied up, 1-1. Everyone gets up without saying much and leaves. In a hurry to get some food before the second game starts.

Today Pastor took me for a tour around Ngara town. Mainly it was really boring, shaking the hands of important officials and struggling to understand convos in Kiswahili.

As an aside, Pastor wanted to take me to a fancy hotel where important visitors stay, the Africana. It was previously run by UNHCR, it was the compound where all of the aid workers lived during the Rwanda and Burundi crises. It was built of old railroad containers, probably close to fifty little yellow bandas with thatched roofs. There is an open air cafeteria with a stunning view of the valley. The place is in shambles. Vines grow out of the fireplace that used to cast a warm glow over the expats having a drink after a long day at the camp. I can hear the hum of conversation and see the cigarette smoke.

The grounds are beautifully landscaped with equatorial flowers and trees – but everything is overgrown and dilapidated. The grass is two feet tall, the hedges are bushy, there are holes in the thatch roof. It is strangely sad to see that a place once so vibrant is now so dead.

We then go to visit one of the district commissioners whose office is housed in the old UN headquarters for the refugee crisis. The compound is sky blue and white, with white rocks lining the spots for ghost landcruzers. We walk over to see row after row of container offices, a small percent of which are actually being used. It amazes me to think about what was once here. What was once the biggest refugee operation in the world now amounts to a bunch of empty railroad containers.

I should be happy that things have improved enough that Rwandans and Burundians can return home, but I am sad. It feels like a ghost town. This place was built around tragic conflicts, but we have deemed everything good enough, packed up and gone home. Maybe what is so haunting about this, is this feeling that things are not ok. I keep hearing whispers from researchers and journalists, keep seeing buried headlines about the storm that is brewing in Rwanda. Unfortunately, it would fit with historical trends. The Hutus and the Tutsis tend to take turns ruling the country, separated by mass conflict. Some of us wondered if the ’94 genocide was brutal enough, that there was enough lives lost, to make everyone say enough is enough. But, seemingly, some things go deeper.

There is a part of me that resents everyone who left this tumultuous Great Lakes Region feeling like the job is finished. Maybe they didn’t feel that way, just the leadership of the organizations. There is still critical work to be done. Reconciliation is the most important aspect of a conflict and too frequently it receives the smallest amount of time and resources.

After visiting the UN compound, we visit the one remaining functioning project from the crisis. Radio Kwizera, Radio Hope. At the time of the genocide, Rwandese were spread all over the bush and there was no way of contacting them about available food, shelter and assistance. They started a radio station and distributed solar radios to strategic locations. In Rwanda during the genocide, the radio was used as a weapon of war. It was used to dehumanize the Tutsi’s , to notify attackers of Tutsi hiding places. After the radio had been used to further the genocide, Radio Kwizera wanted to show the compassionate side of the media. To make it cliché – to use the radio for good and not evil.

The refugees have returned home now, but Radio Kwizera has not closed its doors. The station is received in Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern DRC. They are using their radio waves to promote peace and reconciliation. The Great Lakes Region is heading into a period of elections in every country. It is critical that people are discussing wide spread participation, informed voting, legitimacy and transparency, peace and unity. There is hope in this radio station. The mere fact that they are still here is a start.

It feels a bit trite to be writing about something that was so devastating to everyone here, especially when I was not. But, I am here now.

I am greeted at the Border with big hugs by three of my new staff members. We sit and have a drink overlooking the Rwandan hills and Tanzanian highlands. I am working hard to find a balance where I do not come off as too young, and where they do not feel threatened or tested. They slip in and out of Kiswahili. I can usually understand the gist of their conversation, but I am nowhere near where I was two years ago. My brain is constantly in problem solving mode, trying to bridge the gap over the words I do not know. Currently we are debating which staple food is better, matoke (mashed green bananas) or posho (maize meal). Unfortunately, I am in matoke country.

Before I know it, I have a 12 month multiple entry visa and we are in our Landcruzer whizzing down the tarmac towards my new home. The first short cut is impassable due to the high waters of the river. During low water levels, there is a pulley bridge. Basically a platform that you drive one car on to and the man at the other end pulls it on cables to the other side. So we take shortcut number two. We turn right off the tarmac onto a red dirt road. “If you ever need to get back here, just tell them to take you to the prison” Pastor informs me. I am immediately transported. I had spent the last 20 hours driving through cities and towns on main roads, now I was driving through serious bush. Occasionally we pass through towns. When I say towns, I am being generous. Really they are clusters of homes with the occasional church; they lack shops or trading centers. We crest over hills and get phenomenal views of the Tanzanian highland plains and dive down hills into the bush that is taller than the car. “Karibu Tanzania” says Mama Mpinizle. I breathe deep, not having the words to describe my enjoyment at that moment. Despite all of the beauty, there is a voice in the back of my head asking, “Ngara can’t actually be this small, right?” Eventually we hit another tarmac road and I breathe a tiny sigh of relief.

We climb, and with each minute, the view becomes more spectacular. The wind wafts the smell of eucalyptus through the window. This smell has always meant home to me. The road right off the freeway to my grandparent’s house is lined with Eucalyptus trees, so when I smelled them, I always knew we were close. Pastor points to a town on top of a hill and tells me that is Ngara. I had been told that my house has a porch with an amazing view, so I start imaging that one of the houses I see on the eastern side of the hill is mine, overlooking the amazing valley.

I am disappointed as we fork off down a small road, seemingly down into the valley. Pastor greets everyone we pass as they stare at the Mzungu in the front seat. In about 10 minutes we pull off into the WomenCraft compound. It is not the traditional compound in that it does not have a fence, but it is four houses spread out across the ridge of a hill. The last one in is my house.

From the outside, the house is very unsuspecting. It is a simple L shape with gray cement walls. The front view is a bit of a letdown. There is a huge water catchment with pipes and hardware, and a few windows. Nothing to write (or blog) home about. Pastor unlocks the door and welcomes me to my new home. The front room is empty, just red cement floors and an empty shelf. Disappointing, I thought the house was fully furnished. I slip off my shoes and walk down three stairs. My jaw drops. To my left is a full kitchen with dark wood cabinets and countertops, a full sink, full fridge and a gas stove and oven. And a sky light. In front of me and stretching out to my right is the dining room, office and living room, complete with a fire place. Windows line the walls. The furnishing is a mix of rustic and modern with African art, ceramics and woven crafts decorating the space. There is a small TV, DVD player and sound system accompanied by a vast DVD collection and a shelf full of books on Africa history, politics, and some top notch literature (maybe I didn’t need to bring those thirty some-odd books, but better safe than sorry!).

Between the office and living room there is a door that leads to my porch. I step outside to see sweeping views of the Rwandan hills and the river valley floor. I am in shock. I am giddy. I try to keep my cool while my coworkers help me bring my stuff inside, but I am bursting with excitement and disbelief. This is totally a house I would dream about living in. Oh, wait, I do!

The hallway is lined with skylights. My room is at the very end, the eastern wall is lined with wooden doors for closets and storage. The northern and western walls have 3 windows lighting the room beautifully. In the center is a double bed with a light down comforter, draped in a white mosquito net. There are many thoughts running through my head, but the most prominent is, man this sure beats my twin bunk bed that I could not sit up in and that was too short, forcing my feet to angle over the foot board and get tangled in my mosquito net.

There is a full bathroom, shower, hot water heater, the works.

There is a garden outside, that, in my future life I will visit with my kitchen knife, selecting romaine lettuce, French beans, cilantro and papaya for my dinner.

My coworkers are eager to get home, as it is 6:30pm on a Friday. We say goodbye and make plans to go to the weekly market that just so happens to be on Saturdays. As they drive off I let out a giddy scream, do a little dance and just revel in my new home.

This house just demands a nice glass of red wine. So I scour the kitchen, and what do I find…I bring my glass of cab and the letter from my predecessor and settle into the couch on my porch to watch the sunset. The light wind rustles the leaves of the faithful eucalyptus trees. The east is orange and the hills below blue in the fading light.

…

The founder of my organization is married to a UN worker who was here working in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the ongoing instability in Burundi. Currently they live in Thailand, but they keep this house as their home as it is where their kids were born, and it is heaven. They come home once a year for a month and allow the Director to stay in the house the rest of the year. I marvel at the idea that someone who keeps such a beautiful house would hire me to lead her organization and say a little thank you to the United Nations. I sip my wine.

Photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rksantos/HowDifferentLifeCanBeLifeInNgaraTZ#

I am in the kitchen cooking, drinking and listening to music. I hear Eileen open the door, and before I look at her I ask cheerily, “How was your day?” She turns the corner into the kitchen and I see it on her face. I see the mental and emotional exhaustion that comes from seeing kids living on the streets because their uncles can’t afford to take them in, women working on the sex market to feed a family left by the father, people bed ridden from curable diseases because they can’t afford the treatment.

My good friend Eileen is visiting, she wanted to do a photo project in the developing world. Last minute, I throw together a gig for her, excited that I get to spend a few weeks with an old friend. I would describe Eileen as a world traveler, and definitely someone I have always wanted to travel with. When connecting her to this orphanage for street kids in one of the many large slums of Kampala, I did not even think twice about whether it would be too much. She can handle anything. And, as it turns out, she can.

But those first few nights, after her initial exposure to the slums, it was disarming to see the tears in her eyes; the confusion, disappointment and helplessness. I pour her a glass of whatever I’m drinking, and we go sit on the roof to hash it out. She tells me about the people she had met, where they came from and the lives they now live. The things she saw as she walked through the slum. Overarching everything was this sentiment of this is just one orphanage, in one slum, in one city, in one country. She wanted to do something about it, but was at a loss.

As she talks, I don’t feel much except for her sorrow, the tragedy of the transformation she was going through from seeing this other part of the world. I feel bad that she now has this madness inside her. What I didn’t feel was sorrow for the kids, or the sick, or the hungry. What she was feeling was so raw, and I had none of it left inside of me - at least not in that form.

As she goes off to bed, I remain on the roof and wonder about this. When did I go from crazy college student shouting at the top of her lungs to get one person to know about what Darfur was, let alone care about it, from the personal breakdown I experienced after returning from Malawi – my first developing world travel— to this person, who can hear some of the most devastating stories, and not even feel the tug of a heart string or a turn of the stomach. How does such a transformation occur?

Maybe it comes in realizing your own capacity. In knowing that even if I gave a kid lunch today, he will still be hungry tomorrow. Even if I paid for the woman’s medical bills, she would still return home to sleep without a mosquito net or eat vegetables washed in sewage. At some point in the past, it became too much for me. Everything is interconnected and it is impossible to take it all on at once. There is a switch I flipped a while ago that enables me to live this life without that madness. I move through Kampala in a sort of tunnel vision – I listen without hearing, I think without absorbing, I walk without seeing, I live without feeling. I need to un-flip this switch, at least occasionally.

At some point I learned that a great deal of damage has been done out of the fear, sorrow and guilt of the privileged. In the face of our impotence to change these matters we hastily throw money at it, we have this need to give tangible things. But in the long run, what does it solve? Tomorrow a tourist is going to come and see the exact same sights, and try the exact same thing, and all it really achieves is a sense of dependency on part of the poor and an ease of the conscience for the tourist.

I choose instead to focus on the positive power of people here. I am constantly coming into contact with people who are taking action into their own hands. They are not waiting on handouts from foreigners, they are done relying on the government, instead they are coming up with creative solutions to their community’s problems. Even better, I found an org that empowers people to do just that.

Gregory David Roberts after experiencing a moment of profound human darkness says this, “There is a truth that’s deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever and the reality from perception. Were helpless, usually, in the face of it, and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn’t help us to love the world; but it does prevent us from hating the world.”

I am here now. Some of my colleagues would say I have seen too much for a twenty-five year old. I have seen things that would make a person give up on the world, give up on humanity, but knowing what you know, understanding this truth I find it impossible to give up. I have met people that will turn a heart cold, and experienced things that have eaten away at my love for humanity, but there is a reward to living this life; meeting those people who will save it, if only in their small corner of the world.

As I step off the boda on the tarmac and onto the eroded dirt road kids in ragged clothes and big smiles run and slip their hands into mine. They escort me to the orphanage I am partnering with, only really communicating through smiles and the swinging of arms.

Inside the orphanage I wander around the side where I find two teenagers playing a silver tuba and trumpet that look as though they have made a tour around the world before they made it to this orphanage. It is school holiday, so kids are running around everywhere, but these two boys are practicing. I explain to them my dad’s affinity for the tuba and how random outbursts of “Tuba Love” are relatively normal. They stare at me, failing in their attempt to mask the fact that they believe I might be crazy.

Two younger boys come and welcome me with warm hugs, grab my hands and help me find my way to the office. I am greeted by five twenty-something men, the founders and administrative staff of the orphanage, “Welcome Madame Rachel”. I am still coming to terms with being a Madame…

This is by far the coolest orphanage I have encountered – an orphanage for street kids by street kids. Everyone that works there and lives there once lived on the street - begging, collecting recyclables, fetching water, pick-pocketing or working as a house boy/girl.

When Bosco was 11 his mother, went to town and never came back. He heard through relatives that she had died in some vague accident. His dad was already gone, Bosco was left alone with his two sisters to look after. He spent his days collecting plastic bottles and fetching water for what amounts to about fifty cents. While scavenging in the Nsambya slums he came across some boys playing brass band – he was enraptured. It became his goal to be able to play as they play. It turns out these boys were practicing for a local school, so he asks the teacher if he could learn. The teacher refuses, the band is only for students (and street kids are rather stigmatized here). But he persists. He really wants to play. Eventually the teacher submits, and allows him to play as long as he pays 500 shillings(twenty-five cents) each lesson. Bosco agrees, and works harder to collect money in the slums so that he can raise his music fee and feed his sisters.

Eventually Bosco invites more street kids to join him in class, and eventually convinces a visitor to help him get a home to establish their own band. This visitor buys them five instruments and a two room house. One room for the boys and one for the girls. After raising his sisters, Bosco is hyper aware of girls issues, especially those struggling on the street. The house becomes a center and in time, a man from the UK buys them a larger house that is the orphanage and music school today. They write for corporate sponsorships and have band uniforms from MTN and coca cola and fundraise through concerts and playing special events. The house currently sleeps about 75, but another 75 street kids come on any given day to play music, sing, dance and eat. They are now a big family, calling the older boys Uncle, and me in my subsequent visits, Auntie.

What blows my mind here is Bosco at 11 thinking not just about himself, but about other kids on the street. Bosco could have just learned music on his own, and not think about bringing in other kids from the slum. When he was given a house, he didn’t have to invite others to stay. At 11 years old, he was thinking beyond his own needs about those of his community. All 75 kids living at the center have school fees paid for by fundraising and private donors. The staff all work for free in exchange for housing and food. And about once a month, the kids do community work. The community no longer looks down on the street kids as they once had. Bosco has built something quite remarkable.

The music program fills a very deep hole in the lives of street kids. It fills them with passion, dedication and drive. The kids are not forced to get their instruments out and practice, it is what keeps them going. As we finish up the tour, Bosco takes me around back.

The band has gathered in secret to surprise me. The moment we step around the corner they start into a rousing rendition of Silent Night. It begins slow and traditional, but after the first verse, the tuba steps in on a double beat, the choir sings faster and louder, the conductor’s body jolts full of energy and they all begin to dance to what will forever be my favorite version of Silent Night. I have the goofiest smile across my face and start dancing with the kids that remain on my arms.

He orders a double tequila and orange juice. I think, ‘wow I like the way he rolls, but it is 1pm’ and order a Nile beer. After all, it is 1pm on my first Saturday off in months. We are at a pool with a view, The Best View in Kampala in fact. It is up on the hill overlooking the edge of town and the start of the Great Lake. We are the only people at the pool - it is stunning, the beauty, the quiet, the peace.

In a break in our saga of life stories, the drinks arrive and silence follows. Absolute silence. There is not a church down the hill practicing the organ. There is not a man nailing iron sheets to his roof. There is not a matatu blowing his horn and kicking up dust, there are not kids calling to each other on the football pitch. SILENCE. I instinctively take a deep breath, a sip of beer and lay back on my recliner. This is the life…

It only takes a few minutes for this peace to turn to disquiet. An unknown tense anxiety rolls over me. I can’t place it. I walk to the end of the pool and look out over town. I expect to see tufts of smoke rising over burning Kikuyu businesses and homes. I am taken back to Kenya two years ago. The quiet in the days following the election was deafening - thick with tension.

I am sitting out back of Marcus’ apartment anxiously pretending to read a book about a travel journalist in East Africa, hoping the neighbors will turn on the international news. Kenya broadcast TV and radio have been shut down. Waiting. Every hour or so Nate would check in on me and see if I heard anything. I was going mad - I felt the madness of the country. It wasn’t even my country, but I felt the pulse of the people - quickening. I needed to stop thinking about the what-if’s for a moment, so I walk to the road just as the cops shoot tear gas at empty shops where one too many people had gathered.

It wasn’t my country, but that day when I heard the election results announced on the radio in favor of Kibaki I started crying. The country had stopped, held its breath, waiting, praying that this would not be the result. People knew what was coming long before the announcement. I go inside to tell my friends the result, they don’t believe it. Charles chuckles cynically, knowing he had just won 5,000 Kenyan shillings in a rigged election.

Without really thinking, I immediately leave- I need to talk to people. To get a sense of the destruction that was to come. People that voted for Kibaki were afraid to tell me, and were just as upset by what had happened. They knew that their man had stolen the election, and they too were scared, not just for repercussions of having supported Kibaki, but the repercussions of a government that is derived from corruption. I walk out to the road where I have a decent view of Kericho. It is burning. I hear the pops of gun shots in town. Right in front of me, I see men hoping over fences-running.

I find myself on a rooftop, watching Kenya burn as the sun sets. The people in the apartment nearby invite me in to watch the inauguration of the President. This is thirty minutes after the results were announced. The ceremony is in secret, only about twenty of Kibaki’s closest party members are present. Only one TV station is covering the event, but it is the only thing allowed on air, so there is no real difficulty finding the right station. There is no pomp. There is no circumstance. Just making it official. I felt dirty watching it. I cried with the people gathered in the small room. A few shook their hands at the TV crying, “The blood is on your hands.”

People had hope for this election. They finally had the opportunity to express true democracy. They no longer had to live under a dictator, and they no longer had to make alliances they didn’t believe in inorder to depose that dictator. They had a choice, and looked to the future. But the ruling elite didn’t like their version of the future.

Morgan inquires after my sudden solitude. I begin to go into the moment I was just in but feel myself sinking. I dive into the pool and return to my beer.

“Whoever gets education may also become strong leaders, may learn to change things, but the rebels did not want the war to ever end.”

This quote is from Benson Wereje, a refugee from Congo, describing why the Congolese rebels attacked school children, attacked his school. Benson’s life and dedication has become one of the deepest roots of Educate!. Every mentor and every student that passes through our program reads his story, and after they meet him for the first time, a little fire is lit inside. I met Benson for the first time this last weekend. Though, when I met him, he was no longer the frightened young boy running for his life through the Congolese forest towards some unknown destination that had to be better than his burning village. He is now a strong young student at one of East Africa’s best universities and the president of a successful refugee organization who returned earlier this year to his home village to establish his community development organization at the request of President Kabila. Shaking Benson’s hand, a fire was re-ignited in me.

My Peace Corps experience and the aftermath of the Kenyan election made me a cynic. I continued pursing this line of work because it was at my core, this belief, and because to not try was unimaginable. But Benson, Benson gives me hope, he brought out the dormant in me.

After an overwhelming day like today-that started at 9am with me leading a 3 hour meeting with our six Ugandan mentors and went straight into creating the weekly newsletter, holding one-on-one meetings with my mentors, dealing with demands from the state side of our operation and ended at 7pm (only because I made myself stop) with me working on a white paper for the ministry of education-Benson’s story reaffirms why I am here - Why I moved across the world, away from every person I love, every comfort I enjoy and fast internet.

Education, civic empowerment, social responsibility. These ideas really can revolutionize the world. I believe in it, and in my three weeks here I have seen it .

I have returned. After 2 days of never ending flights and everlasting layovers, I step off the plane and am hit with the hot muggy mid-afternoon African air. To my right is the airport terminal, not be confused with a 3 door crumbling strip mall, and to my right the vast lake Victoria. I have returned. Jua Kali man. The sun is still so strong. I sleep walk my way through customs, crack a smile as I always do when I see my luggage on the belt (this simple joy comes after my first trip out here where I spent the first week without luggage) and wander my way to the arrivals gate where someone is to be holding a sign with my name on it. It almost felt like the corporate world where people in suits hold signs with the name of other people in suits. But then the non suit-wearing man holding the paper with my name on it gave me a big hug, and all felt right in the world.

Peace Corps was more cush than this. Emma, my greeter, and I immediately get on a matatu (minibus-public transit). The conductor decides to jam my two large bags in the back, where they of course do not fit, but maybe repeatedly slamming the door on them will work. At this moment, I am glad for my gut instinct that told me to keep the bag with the $700 camera in it with me. Apparently slamming the door on my bags eventually worked, because we are quickly speeding down the roads, through the hills that surround Lake Victoria. As we climb one hill, a matatu speeds past us honking and pointing to our rear. The back door had come open, and all of my worldly possessions threatened to spill out the back of the matatu. We stop to slam the door a few more times, and continue on.

Through the window I watch the women carrying water in their bright kangas, the mzee pushing his bike with bedroom furniture stacked over the back, the school kids drinking fanta outside shops and the street hawkers with their abundant collections of worthless shit stitch into the red African soil and the outstretched fingers of the great lake. Nimerudi.

The matatu stops. I am back at the old taxi park – Kampala’s chaotic, vibrant, potholed answer to NYC grand central. I help Emma into my backpack, grab my timbuk2 and duffel and we make our way to the final leg of my trip, another matatu, though this time, we opt to put the luggage on our laps.

We alight at a dirt road marked with an official Educate! sign. As I am led into my compound, my mouth drops. In front of me is a beautiful yard with mango, avocado and orange trees and a HUGE house with an external spiral stairway leading to the rooftop deck. The house itself is also the office. There are two large bedrooms, I share one with Maggie, a volunteer who arrived 2 months before me, and my boss, Angelica, has the other. There are two smaller rooms which serve as offices, a large common area which is the main office/meeting space and a large yet very ill-equipped kitchen. Out back there is a boys quarters with two rooms where Connie and Barbara our office staff/mentors and Joe, the Business Coordinator, stays along with whatever male visitor happens to be here at the moment.

I’m greeted by Maggie, who turned 24 this day. She has one of those kind faces and a voice that even when angry still carries joy. I drop my shit in our room and step into the hot shower. I let out a big sigh - in addition to the last 48 hours of airport grime, I wash away the incredibly difficult last year and a half of my life. Nimerudi…

Joe gives me a brief tour of our immediate world. We have electricity (most days), flushing toilets and a hot shower. As well as a man, Emma, who cleans, does dishes, and washes clothes. When I first heard this, I vowed to not have him wash my clothes. Then I realized that when I am lucky enough to find myself with a day off, I do not want to spend half of it scrubbing my clothes and wrists raw.

After living and working here for 3 weeks, the house seems much smaller than it first appeared.

The neighborhood is confused. There is a lot of building taking place. Big houses strewn about haphazardly intermixed with small wooden dukas (shacks that sell veggies and staple food items). When feeling ambitious enough, there is a big hill for me to run up with a breathtaking view of the lake. And gasping for breath I tend to be. Rolex’s are huge here! There are about three stands in 100 yards where a man occasionally sits with his jiko, and makes omelets rolled in chapatti (I ate two today). A few days a week, the morning hours are filled with the sound of weed-whackers. Yes. The people out here are rich enough to grow and maintain green lawns, but not rich enough to buy a proper lawn mower. So. The landscapers cut vast lawns with one tiny weed-whacker.

The power goes out. Maggie and Joe take me up to the rooftop to gaze at the dark sky, talk of African politics, enjoy some tusker malt and smoke. I decide not to start that last habit just yet…

Sweet Lamu.

On our way to the airport, crammed into a matatu, Nate busts out three boxes of teatree toothpicks. They are gifts for our month and a half journey together. Throughout our eight months here, these tooth picks have taken on a great deal of importance for us oral fetishers and smokers. Every time we are together, we are chewing them. To the point where back in Kitui, a Kenyan was trying to describe one of my friends and said ‘you know, he always has a stick in his mouth.’

We get to the small airport and check in, our baggage consists of a small backpack each and 3 shopping bags of alcohol. Being a Swahili island, Lamu does not sell alcohol- good thing we knew to stock up before hand. Sitting in the airport, a man in a nice suite is ushered through the small lobby surrounded by airport staff and other suites. Charles says, isn’t that one of the ODM guys?(ODM is Odingas party) In fact it was Saitoti, one of the head ODM MPs in a contested seat. A few wazungus(white people) in fancy sunglasses and pull luggage walk through, each with a Kenyan guide. This is not how we are used to travel. Sitting in fancy airports watching fancy people led around. Our flight comes. It is a 20 seater plane, we are 3 of the 6 people on this plane. It is more like a private jet. I say we are not used to traveling this way, but this is the 3rd private plane we have been on in less than a month.

The plane lands on a field. Literally grass. There is an airstrip, but it is under construction, so we taxi along side it on the grass. Everything in Kenya, especially roads, is under construction. Climbing off the airplane we are hit by a blast of scortching hot and muggy air. Just to give you a climate reference, we are on the border of somolia. we grab our stuff, walk out of the airport(a field with a shack) and down to a dock where we climb on a canopied wooden boat that taxis us up to the part of the island where our house is. We have no idea if this house/apartment is going to be complete shit, we have negotiated to pay 2000 Shillings a night total, about 8 dollars each, so we don’t expect much, though, tourism is in the shitter, so we had no idea. The boat pulls up to the shore, but the tide is out, so we take off our shoes, the guys roll up their trousers. We are greeted by 2 young men in flowy white shirts and blue shorts-they turn out to be our house boys-they take our bags, against our insistence that we can carry it. Steping out of the boat, I feel the cool water on my calves and the sand in my toes. I instantly smile. I don’t really care what the house looks like if I get to have this sensation for a week. The boys lead us barefoot through a maze of shaded narrow walkways and allies full of arched doorways covered in bougainvillea. I am in heaven. constantly remarking- this is gorgeous! I just love walking barefoot through exotic locals. It makes it all more intimate. They lead us to the ‘apartment’ we have rented. It is a 5 story building and we have the top 3 floors. Most of it consists of out door balconies and sitting areas with a gorgeous view of all the cement houses with thatched roofing that we had just wandered our way though, the brilliant ocean spotted with dhows(sailboats), and the mangrove island offshore. We are flabbergasted. In shock. We have these absurd smiles on our faces, the kind of disbelief as if we had just won the lottery.

We spend the next week laying around our balconies sunning, enjoying the breeze, swimming in the crystal ocean, eating good seafood and a lot of beans with tropical salsa. My favorite day was spent wandering alone through lamu town, through their narrow alleyways just getting lost. Turning corners and running into women in boi bois, full muslim dress of black flowing robe with colorful headscarves, men in white robes and skull caps, and young boys and girls in minature costumes. When I get far enough away from town center, it is quiet, all I hear are the people chatting on their door stoops, kids chasing eachother and the occasional call to prayer. Architecturally this place is a mix of the greek islands and the Italian coast but with a heavy muslim influence. tall dirty white walls warn by the sea air. It is beautiful. old. warn. Remarkable. Gorgeous and wrapped in culture. I just wander.

At the end of each day, at about 4, we all reconvene on our middle balcony with drinks where we just sit and talk and laugh for 3 hours as we watch the sun drop over the ocean. Nate and I set up beds and a mosquito net on the balcony and sleep under the stars in the ocean breeze. This is paradise.

We weren’t used to this type of travel, but man was it nice. For a week in paradise, we spent less than 200 dollars. The rest of our trip will not be in any kind of comparable luxury, but I like that even better I think.

In other news, our fabulous trio is now just an awesome duo. Early last week charles decided that he just needed to get home. I am disappointed to see him go, as I love him dearly, but I understand, as I cant wait to be home also. For now, we are playing around mombasa, saying goodbye to the coast of Kenya that has treated me so well for so many months and trying to arrange a sailboat to Zanzibar. Ok, until next time.

Today i am officially an RPCV. Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. no longer employed by the peace corps. i have completed service. ive only been here for 8 months-you all thought you had another 19 months without me. well, no longer, im coming home. a week ago i would not have been able to tell you i was leaving so soon. ive been playing with the idea of leaving for some time now, but it was in the future. the last few weeks have been some of my hardest here. since returning to voi from evacuation in tanzania, i went through severe depression. i couldnt eat, couldnt sleep. couldnt do anything...but cry. i was paralyzed. i couldnt stomach being back in voi, back in this small bubble seemingly untouched by the devastation the rest of the country is experiencing. i couldnt even fathom waking up each morning and reading about the gang rapes, the homeless families, the lost relatives and livelihoods just a few hours away and me, going back to life as usual, to talking to kids about aids and how to make decisions for their futures. futures that at this moment are so uncertain. i contemplated just quiting Peace Corps and walking up to one of our haphazard displaced persons camps and just saying let me help. i want to be talking to those affected, i want to hear their feelings about the people who put them there. i want to start thinking about the reconciliation process that is going to have to take place here. my brain is capable of so much more than what i was doing in voi.

I had been planning on quitting peace corps in a few months, to freely travel and to begin pursuing work i am interested in, work that stretches my brain. more challenges. ive just realized a great deal about myself and what i want to do with my life, and staying here and living in voi just for the sake of finishing peace corps is not enough. i want out. i want to start taking control of my life and not have this safety net of peace corps behind me. im ready to be scared. im ready to not know the next step. im 23. this is the only time i can really be so reckless. so peace corps, we are done. tumemaliza.

Peace Corps has closed 2/3 of this country. all of my best friends were sent home a week ago, they told us 2 days prior to their flights. my site is still open and i dont want to be there. everyone in this country has been granted the option of Interruption of Service(IoS). it means that there are circumstances beyond my control that inhibit me from working. it reads as a completion of service. i can go home, hang out for a bit and if they find a better option they will bring me back, otherwise, i am just done. and damn it feels amazing. i chose to take IoS for a number of reasons, some of them practical like health insurance for a year, others like having the option of Peace Corps placing me with a humanitarian relief org out here. id still be a PCvolunteer, but it really would be an opportunity i cannot pass up. so we will hold our breath for that option. they told me to go home and wait. but im not going home...IM FREE

the day after i decided to IS, i was feeling pretty shitty because i thought i would not see any of my best friends for a long time. i received a text from Charles (one of my best friends in nairobi) telling me that we are offered the option to cash in our tickets and go travel. i responded back 'want to go travel, im only half serious, but could be talked into it.' he writes back that he will think long and hard about it. I text nate in Tanzania 'do you have the option to cash in your ticket? if so,want to play? if there is momentum, im there' because nate is in tanzaia, the text didnt go through for hours. before he had received the text, he calls me and asks me the same question. and i say im there. we both start screaming with excitement, he calls charles and the terrific trio was born. we're going traveling!!!!!!!! i couldnt be more thrilled, and really couldnt have asked for better partners for adventure. we spent some time emailing from our 3 locations and decided we need to be together and plan. we are now in nairobi and after much deliberation, we decided on this rough route through east africa.

1.28 Depart for Lamu Kenya

2.4 Lamu to Kilifi to visit current volunteer Darcy Dodd and Dan Hekkel

2.6 Kilifi to Mombasa Kenya-hang with more volunteers

2.9 Mombasa to Dar Es Salaam Tanzania

2.12 Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar Tanzania

2.14 Return to Dar Es Salaam

2.15 train from Dar Es Salaam to Mwanza Tanzania(abt 3 day train ride)

2.18 Arrive in Mwanza Tanzania

2.21 Depart Mwanza on Ferry for Bekopu Tanzania

2.22 Bekopu to Kigali Rwanda

2.24 Kigali for Nyungwe National Park

2.26 Depart Nyungwe for Mt. Elgon National Park Uganda

2.28 Depart Mt. Elgon for Kampala Uganda

3.3 Depart Kampala for Jinja Kampala

3.4 White Water Rafting on the White Nile in Jinja

3.6 Depart Jinja for Kampala

3.7 Depart Kampala (by air) for Nairobi

3.9 or 3.10 Depart Nairobi for NYC via British Airways

3.11 Arrive NYC

Play around NYC and Wash DC for a week or so. if you are around, send me an email with your contact number, would LOVE to see you!!!

3.17 or 3.20 Arrive Sac Town

so our trip is filled with activities like renting a condo on the beach on the island of lamu for a week, eating fresh sea food, drinking fresh tropical juice, drinking in general, dancing, sailing from mombasa to zanzibar, overnight ferry across part of lake victoria, hiking through montane rainforests in rwanda, climbing mt elgon in uganda, rafting the nile, historical museums and remembrance walk in rwanda and soo much more. about 6 weeks of overland travel in 4 countries. ill try and keep you all posted.

if youve been to any of these countries and have tips for us, send me an email. geeze..what a post. i have soo much more explaining to do and i have many posts to catch up on, so they will be coming through as time allows. hope youre all well. namaste.

hey all out there in blog land. im alive. not well. but healthy and ok. im not posting my thoughts on the blog as i fear a lawsuit from the american government and or repercussions from the kenyan government. im also struggling to get past a point of mental paralysis from this waiting game that has soo many potential consequences and organize my thoughts during this ever changing situation. so. if you have not been getting my emails and would like to, send an email to rksantos@gmail.com and i will add you to the list. also, Nate has been keeping a relatively good log of what is going on in our direct lives so if you want to check out his blog http://natyb25.travellerspoint.com.

please be well

I spent a good part of October assessing the health education at primary and secondary schools around the district. I did so much work related travel that friends and acquaintances began referring to me as the District Officer(equivalent to our governor). The structure of these trips involved me traveling for hours, many times by foot, to visit with the head masters of the schools. During these meetings I asked a lot of open ended questions regarding how health is taught and how much detail and support is given regarding different topics such as HIV/AIDS, sanitation (washing hands, using latrines -diarrheal disease kills a large percentage of our children here), sex and puberty(some girls just don’t go to school when they begin bleeding…). I learned a great deal from these meetings and the conversations I’ve been having since arriving in Kenya.

Regarding HIV/AIDS. Every headmaster I met with told me with confidence it was taught-it is in the government curriculum. When I asked about how frequently and in what detail it was taught, they said it was discussed maybe twice a term. Teachers tell children it is contagious and it is caught from sex. It was a consensus that not much more detail was given to the students, as teachers didn’t feel comfortable talking about sexual issues with students. Depending on the school and the grade level the biological progression of HIV was discussed. Not the majority though. Social issues were not discussed. Sex not discussed. Care for the sick not discussed.

PROBLEM: Parents don’t feel comfortable talking to their kids about sex. They assume other respected adults will talk to them about it. Teachers (other respected adults in child’s lives) don’t feel appropriate talking to their students about sex. Kids are told having sex is a sin, and the teachers feel they’ve done their part. Condom use is not taught in most schools because the kids aren’t having sex (because they know it is a sin). Girls are coming to school pregnant, consequently getting kicked out of school and sent home to be a mother and dependant on someone else for income and some degree of stability for the rest of their lives.

FRUSTRATING STORY # 1: My PCV friend is a teacher at a local secondary school. The school held a talk on HIV/AIDS and asked her to lead the discussion. When the talk ended, the students asked questions, one being “is there a cure for Aids?” My friend begins to respond that there is not a cure but that there are ways to live long lives after being diagnosed through use of anti retroviral therapies and healthy lifestyle. At this point the head teacher interjects and tells them that if you are HIV positive and you devote your life to God, he will cure you. I kid you not this is what was said. All you have to do is ask God and all your problems disappear. Lesson: have as much sex as you want kids and when you are done, just find god and all your promiscuity is wiped away. All my friend could do was talk about how physiologically it was impossible for that to happen…once again the collision of science and god. At some point the same man insisted that condoms themselves were infected with HIV.

FRUSTRATING STORY 2: I spend a good amount of time with another friend who is a 40 year old Kenyan teacher at a primary school. She told me that now they are encouraging the students not to share their water bottles and things because you can catch HIV…I explain to her that this is not the case and make a mental note about the miseducation of teachers and therefore students. In another conversation she was starting to say how the white people who come to teach at schools are bad people because they talk about condoms. Condoms are sinful etc. At this point I very politely asked how many girls come to school pregnant each year. She said there were always a few. I told her these kids are already having sex, regardless of whether it is sinful or not, the least we could do is give them some of the tools to protect themselves and enable them to live healthy lives. She understood, she is also a mother.

DEPRESSING STORY: Another friend of mine is a teacher at a different secondary school in a very remote area. Note-most secondary schools here are boarding schools. November marked the end of the school year so all of the students sit for exams. Exams here are a HUGE deal. Starting from primary school the results determine whether you will go to a good secondary school or university-competition is high. The Friday evening before the exam is to start, a Form 4 (senior) girl left campus alone and found her way to an isolated bunch of bushes. A female teacher saw her staggering out there and followed her. When she arrived she found the girl in labor. This girl had gone out into the bush to give birth alone. I cannot begin to imagine how scared this girl must have been, how alone, how unprepared. Did she walk out there knowing she might die. Alone. It makes me nauseous. It makes me cry. This is structural. Education is all kids have to even try for a better life and she was going to lose it if she was known to be pregnant. All she had left was to finish her exam, and for her, this was not something worth sacrificing. Her plan was to sneak away into the bush, give birth and leave the baby to die. The teacher called for help and they birthed the baby together in the bushes. The girl begged them to kill the baby, but they did not. When I imagine this scene, it is too much. This is not a movie, this is not some dramatization. This is happening all over this world. To compound matters, it is known(but not known with enough evidence for justice) that a teacher is sleeping with the students. It is whispered that this teacher might be the father of this baby. The school decided to kick her off the grounds but allowed her to finish the exams. Some of the woman teachers took her in and fed her for the week she sat for exams. ...

Here education is the golden ticket. Because of this, teachers are given a lot of respect and power. With this comes responsibility. When a teacher tells a kid who knows nothing about sex that condoms are infected with HIV, they’ll believe it. They do. The problem is, it doesn’t stop them from having sex. They just don’t use a condom. Kids are learning about sex by doing it. This post holds too much already so I’m gonna wrap it up. Long story not so short, I’ve decided that one of the most lasting projects I can undertake here is a teacher training where I will hopefully set some of the facts straight and give teachers some tools regarding talking about sex and puberty with students. It will take a long time to finalize the curriculum, but I think it will be incredibly beneficial. I don’t want to provide the bandaid fix by spending my 2 years talking in schools, reaching only those students that are here for those few years and further enabling teachers to hide from the sticky subjects of sex. I feel it important to educate those educators who will teach generations.

I remember 5 months ago sitting in an oversized ballroom at Sheraton hotel in Philadelphia at the event Peace Corps refers to as ‘staging’ and being asked the question ‘Why Peace Corps?’. We all were thinking and saying things like- ‘I want to live abroad for 2 years’, ‘I want to learn a new language’, ‘I need someone to give me development experience’, ‘I want to spice up my resume’, ‘I want to save the world’. Being in this room with this eclectic group of individuals and having undergone the many activities I had that day, I was in a particularly patriotic mood. I raised my hand and posited that we all might believe that America is an amazing country in theory, that we might at certain times be proud to be an American, and that we might (gasp) want to serve our country but not agree with contemporary foreign policy decisions, further, we might actually want to work towards creating a corner of the world that does not think America represents all things capitalist, imperialist, hypocritical and tyrannical. This has little to do with my main decision to join, but I was feeling every word at the moment.

Every Peace Corps Volunteer receives a subscription to Newsweek (I DESPISE their journalism but it at least keeps me up with some stuff in the world). Usually I read them front to back reading fluff about Sarkozy’s approval ratings with European leaders, or the new cultural centers of Qatar. I read every article-except those about Iraq, and for those of you who pick up this worthless weekly publication, you know that such articles comprise about a third of the magazine. I didn’t really realize I was doing it until today. Today, while on a matatu to Sagalla, I looked at the article (on Iraq), and had a debate in my head on whether to read it. Finally the voice screaming, “You should know of the destruction your country is imposing on others, Do you think antiwar protestors during Vietnam didn’t read the news because it depressed them too much?! Saddle up!” won. So I did. About halfway through the article I had another realization-the world didn’t stop because I came to Kenya. Horrible things didn’t stop happening in the name of justice, imperfect capitalism didn’t stop oppressing, people didn’t stop dying, poverty didn’t stop killing. I think I felt that because I wasn’t screaming at the top of my lungs about divestment and peace keepers for Darfur, fasting for peace, hosting vigils, writing press releases and opinion pieces that this had all stopped. That Darfur was getting better. That we cease to be bombing the shit outta Iraq and that numerous civil wars are not raging because of us. Maybe Palestine and Israel actually worked things out. Well, ill tell you. Its not true. I’ve finally had some internet time to do some real reading of international news(not NW) and our world is worse than ever. I feel that claustrophobic panicky feeling rising up in my chest and beginning to take over my entire body. That emotion I thought I was escaping when I got on the plane to Kenya.

I receive many emails and letters telling me that people are proud/impressed/inspired by me. While its nice to hear, and I’m happy to give someone some inspiration, you really shouldn’t feel all of these things. I’m a bit of a fraud(to be dramatic). I’m running away. Well I thought I ran away. I was fleeing this helpless state of living in a country perpetuating so many problems. I thought that being here, by choosing to leave that country, by giving up all things excessive and comfortable- that I could wash my hands of that tension and sorrow. That contributing to the improvement of peoples lives abroad would alleviate my guilt. Not true. All it does is create a bubble where it is easier to ignore all of these things (making me more typical American ehh?). Being here I have begun to realize more than ever how American I really am, I cannot divorce myself from that fact. No matter where I run, I’m still American, my country is still doing so much to harm and so little to help. For me, its truly maddening.

PICTURES!!!!! The moment some of you have so patiently waited for has arrived. It took me a really long time to figure out how to do this and get the technologies in order, but here they are. There are kind of a lot, next time, I promise there will be a more manageable amount. Also, sorry for their size, I had to resize them to save me some money.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rksantos/KenyaTheBeginning

Almost every letter I seem to get from home talks about the weather, so maybe I will give some insight into my weather.

I woke up this morning to pattering on my tin roof. If starts off soft but steady, and progressively gets harder to a level of sound you just cant sleep through. The rain blows what is left of the warm air from outside through my windows and it soon begins to cools off. I’m smiling as I wake up and look around for someone to share this peaceful moment with. There is nobody(of course). I lay in bed and forgo the morning run in order to revel alone in the welcomed change in weather and the rain I love so. Just as I begin to get excited for a rainy day at home, the rain stops. But it carries on in maybe 30 minute intervals throughout the day

So that was actually yesterday morning. This morning it is once again sweltering! It is so hot these days that even a light cotton sheet seem to be too much cover at night. This isn’t even the worst of it. Supposedly come November/December is when shit really hits the fan. Not looking forward to it. The weather is really quite ridiculous and rather unpredictable. One day it will be cool(enough to put on a light long sleeve shirt in the evenings) and other times, I am trying to see how little I can wear and still be societally appropriate. … I went on an amazing adventure last weekend, but unfortunately all I can really say for now is that I have gathered just one more great story to add to my book of life. What else can I say- I successfully retrieved my computers from Tanzania, the sun is strong when you are out in it 3 days straight, my kiswahili is ok enough to talk myself out of some potentially sketch situations, Mt Kilimanjaro is GORGEOUS and I found the most brilliantly blue fresh water lake but could not swim in it because it was infested with crocodiles. The rest will have to wait until I am out of Peace Corps to share. I have a feeling I will have a bunch of such stories that we can share over cocktails in a few years. [Its funny how I miss fine things like a fancy cocktail in a chic bar(which I rarely frequented in the states anyhow…dive bars…mmmm), the sophistication of a wine glass, pencils skirts and pumps. Man, I’m gonna stop this tangent now…]

I am happy. Yesterday marked the first week since being here that I truly felt happy continuously. This past week also brought my 2 months at site mark! I truly do feel like I am starting to make this place home and it feels DAMN good. I had been quite unhappy for sometime leading up to now, and that is probably a result of just resenting where I’m at because its not where I expected to be, and also partially due to being sick for 2 weeks and not being able to make any progress towards this allusive goal of happiness. But I am, I feel I am on the path, the yellow brick road (as symbolized in the original Oz, not the Wicked version as that would be leading to death, destruction and tyranny). This happiness is coming about due to a great many things. This past week I have had a series of meetings and discussions that have really made me realize there is some really really crucial work to be done here and that I am needed in voi and its surrounding villages. During this past week I have been able to sit down and outline some ideas for future projects and I have received some great feedback. I also essentially told my office that I will not be in too much as I will be spending time getting to know these communities. I think the most exciting discussion I had was with my supervisor in Peace Corps. I have been dreaming about moving out to sagalla or some other small village, but I wasn’t sure that it would fly with PC. Through the conversation, my supervisor essentially said that once I get settled here, I’ll probably be spending 3-4 nights a week out in the bush! Hearing her say that just made my day. If this is the case, then my site truly is perfect. Well nothing is perfect-but, I will get the best of both worlds. I will get to live in that small community(and BEAUTIFUL sagalla!) and also have my town with quasi modern conveniences and volunteer contact. It feels good. Additionally, I have been just blown away at how I am able to keep in contact both with those Peace Corps Volunteers in country who mean so much to me, but also, with all my loved ones at home. I really do not have the words to express how important you are all to me and I really really appreciate you not letting me fall off the face of the earth. You sustain me. So thank you.

Exciting developments/projects I am beginning to work on.

I am helping establish a rountable banking scheme with a group of our peer educators(about 10). Essentially, every month they contribute 100 shillings to a general fund-In similar schemes this money is used as like emergency loans-but we are going to use it to begin a collective small business. Overtime as profits come in, we will reinvest it, and hopefully, if successful enough we will prove our worth to a lender and apply for a loan to establish a more formal business. This is all just in the discussion stages, but people are excited and eager to get it started! Once we see how this works on this group, and tweak it a bit, we will begin applying it with our other groups.This month I will begin to meet with headmasters/mistresses of our secondary(high) schools about beginning after school girls clubs. In talking with young women and also old women for that matter, it seems that people know about HIV/AIDs, but the problem we are seeing is that they are not able to incorporate that knowledge into their daily lives. Mainly this is a result of disempowerment. SO, I’m thinking to start up weekly clubs with young women where we will talk about all ranges of issue, relationships, sex, family planning, life goals, financial independence- really just providing an open forum for discussion, because talking about these things is really the first step. We will do empowerment activities, working on asserting our rights and our own decisions, and maybe in time we will start a mini sports league amongst the clubs. I am really excited about these projects as I feel that in myself, this is one of my strengths. I am a strong independent (and stubborn) woman. I have been meeting so many young women who are strong and intelligent but just don’t know it. If you don’t know it, you can’t capitalize on it, so I’m excited to bring it out! Along similar lines, one of my counterparts here in APHIA II wants to work on a girls leadership camp of sorts. PC actually has an annual camp countrywide and they are looking to train individuals to do local camps, so I plan to do that, probably not until spring of 2008.I will also be attending monthly clinics out in remote villages giving health talks. Essentially, we have a traveling clinic and before they hand out meds and such they want me to give a message. It will be on anything from clean drinking water and rehydration practices, anti malaria techniques, hospital usage, nutrition etc. I am begining to help set up a Big Brothers Big Sister type program for our street boys here in Voi. Also in the early stages but i suggested it to my friend who works with this population and she LOVES the idea. The idea is to give them someone to talk to and to give them motivation to go back to school or in some cases back to their families. to see that their futures can be so much more. i have a strange affinity for street kids. maybe its that once you get past them begging, you realize all they really need is some love. and i like to love.

Today I will start up(again) my Kiswahili lessons 4 times a week. I have been really frustrated at my lack of progress the last month and am excited to get started again.Along non work lines- I’m taking my first mini break this week to a town called Taveta with a renowned market where I will meet up with my friend Lindsay from the states whose working in Tanzania and where I hope to do some beautiful hiking and maybe get a glimpse of Kilimanjaro! I’m having a Halloween costume party for PCVs and my friends in voi (we are getting a keg!!! WOOOoo. And I think I’ll be dressing as the Hyper Hypo!! HAH!(Mike Myers Nicole Kidman SNL skit) For thanksgiving, USAID and embassy families open their homes in Nairobi to us and invite us over for the night and feed us delicious meals. Around this time, my man friend Nate might also come visit me in Voi. First week of December my entire PC class heads to Nairobi for a one week training. We are all looking forward to this reunion! Following that I have 2 weddings! One is of a PCV friend whose fiancé is visiting from the states and they want to have a true Islamic wedding in an old mosque and they want me to be their photographer (EEK!) just following is my friends brothers wedding way way out in the bush and it will be just so amazing. He is already teaching me the dances and songs. I guess the men and women have this sort of dance/sing off. MAN IM SO EXCITED! Then just following that a bunch of us are renting a house on the beach for Christmas/new years.

Kwa sasa, maisha ni mzuri. For now, life is good. I have a buttload of work to get started on and a bunch of events to be excited for in the coming months! Hope all is well on the home front.

Things that fit nicely into letters (I’m throwing discreet out the window here!)

• PICTURES!!! Pictures of you and I, pictures of you in beautiful places, pictures of beautiful places!!

• What else is thin and cheap to send? CD’S!!!!! Don’t go out and buy anything new, just burn me a mix of what’s hot now or some of your favorite classics. In particular, I’m really jonsin for some good jazz, blues, soul etc. don’t assume I have any artist, even the classics, because I probably don’t! Also, if anyone has a copy of Stings new cd with the lute I would love a burn. Also been hearing a lot about Angie Stone’s- The Art of Love & War Kanye West’s- Graduation. Rock on!

• What’s not so cheap to send but rocks my world?!?!!? BOOKS!!!! Again, anything-im running low. used/recycled is ideal! Would love some books on development theory and philosophy. Also just classic literature, ground breaking new authors and/or your favorite author. Again, don’t assume I’ve read it because I probably haven’t. and if I have, ill read it again! Best way to send things is in envelopes of any size. They are cheaper and actually get here pretty fast. Thanks bunches!

Many people here in Kenya, Africa and really most extremely poor countries see America as this haven where all problems disappear-where you have money enough for everything you could desire. Whenever people approach me with this belief, I always work to dispel this sensation by explaining that life in America is hard for many, that many are going hungry and that, infact, many who make it to America with that sentiment end up severely disappointed and troubled. These numerous encounters have however made me reflect on what it means to be born American. When travelling I always scoot across borders through inspection lines, while friends with Haitian or even French passports are hulled up and questioned for hours. In hospitals here, I present a card that says I'm US Peace Corps and I get the special treatment- pushed through to the doctor, no payment necessary. But being an American is so much more than being a citizen of the most powerful country in the world(powerful at least for the moment). It’s so much more than comfort and the abundance of food and material things. We have choice. Partially a result of being raised in an environment of relative comfort, but largely because of our surroundings-we are socialized into the notion and expectation of having the power to decide. Growing up in American society choice seems innate, built in, an inalienable right to human existence-and to a certain extent you can argue that it is. Maybe what is uniquely special about being born an American is the degree of these choices. It goes beyond the glorious decisions like should we have catfish or soysauce chicken for dinner-or should we scrap the whole thing and eat out? If we choose to eat out-what type of food –Chinese Mexican, Italian, Indian, Ethiopian…(can you tell I miss food variety?!) It goes beyond this to bigger more important choices. To issues like should I send my child to elementary school? Which highschool should I attend? What about college? What should I get my degree in? I don’t really like this decently paying job I was just offered, so I think ill hold out for the next. To CHOOSE to put all of this on hold and move across the world for 2 years. Its remarkable!!!(I do understand that for many in America choices are much more limited than those I have been afforded.) No matter how bad life gets for me here, I always have the choice to return to America-home. In fact, it is inevitable that I will (even though my mom still isn’t convinced). Just this fact alone sets me apart. I can try as much as I want to live as the average Kenyan, to wash my clothes by hand, to take bucket bathes, to fetch water, to eat sakumawiki and ugali. I can be miserable because Voi is relatively ugly, I'm not doing the work I wanted and I don’t have those I love most immediately near me. I can feel trapped by my determination and this 2 year commitment I have made to stay here. The thing is, I'm not really. Trapped. People here live the meaning of this word every day. For some, there isn’t the option of sending kids to school. If they do, who will walk the 3 hours to get water for the family each morning? Who will spend the 2 hours it takes to cook each meal three times a day? Who will harvest the shamba? If there is an important agricultural show in Nairobi that might potentially revolutionalize my farming techniques and possibly put me at a surplus, I cannot go-too many people depend on me here to leave for a day. Its not a decision of which nicely paying, benefited job to accept, its hoping that maybe today someone will select you to pay an exploitive rate, maybe then today your family will eat. For most, there isn’t the option to fly away to a comfortable space when things get bad or you just need a break. You just go to bed and hope tomorrow is a better day. I want so badly to fully understand this existence. The thing is, no matter how hard I try to experience and live the way the majority of this world live, I wont ever. I always have America.

I think that perhaps the most important thing I got out of being sick is the realization that I am creating that community I so long for. Yesterday was a market day. I was still feeling pretty crappy but I was going stir crazy, I had no food and I just love market days, so I headed into town. On the way in, I ran into Hilda and her sister who were just so excited to see me as they hadn’t seen me in a week or so. A few weeks ago I befriended their family and they have been good to me (although I do think I might have been a little disrespectful in a religious debate with their uncle, but that’s for another day)Anyhow, I apologized for not coming around and explained that I had been sick-they get really concerned and apologize for not coming to visit me. They also chastised me for not telling them and insist that next time I call them so that they can come take care of me. I continue to the market. I start with the second hand clothes market so I don’t drop all my fruits and vegs while bent over a pile of old t-shirts. I hear “MWANAFUNZI RACHEL” ahhh, mwalimu! Its one of the shop keeps I joke around with-he says he missed me at Tuesdays market. We chat some more until I cant think of anything more to say and I move on down the row to greet some of the other shop keeps and bargain for some cool shit and get my way! [One of the main reasons I love markets is I love winning the battle of the bargain!] I go about 3 steps into the food/produce market and run into Mama Rachel (people here re-name themselves after their first born) ‘you have been soo lost’ she says-I usually hate it when people say this to me as it plays on my insecurity of actually appearing like a lost tourist-but today I accept the sentiment (Kenyan English for-I haven’t seen you in a while). She insists I go visit her husband and I do as I was already headed there. Mama Rachel and her husband Vincent were possibly the first friends I have made here. They are maybe 40 or 50 and sell produce on the ground -everyday same spot. They have taken me in. I see them almost everyday and they check up on me. When I get to where Vincent sits he was so concerned about me, he said all week he was worried and had no way to contact me. He gives me some rockin oranges (that rival California’s!) and tries to give me the potatoes too, but I insist on paying for them and remind him for the 5th time that if he is going to give me something, he has to also allow me to buy something. So then he gives me twice as much as I want and tells me to pay him 5 bob, I give him 20. He’s my favorite, just truly genuine and caring. Final stop is Prucella –she too has missed me. She likes me, I don’t know why. She was the first vendor to gift me something (mangos!) and so I go back to her each market day. She always tries to overcharge me for her fruit, so I always only buy garlic-we might play this game for 2 years! I see Joy (from VYF) we talk about Ramadan and this past week we have missed together. [The other reason I love market days - I get to see friends, make friends, talk with people, learn from people, speak Kiswahili and get delicious fruit!] I’m exhausted but need eggs and bread from the supermarket. I go see Jayesh, he owns one of the supers and generally looks out for us. Every week he holds a curry dinner with a bunch of his friends – old Indian men- and whatever foreign volunteers happen to be around. We eat great homemade Indian food and drink beer for about $6. It’s a treat, anyhow, he tells me I look like shit and that I have lost too much weight (I always hate being told I look like shit when I already feel it!) I joke that I haven’t really lost weight I only cut my hair off. He is concerned that I am so sick and says he’ll have his wife make me chicken soup and tells me to always call if I need anything. The soup got me. When I’m really sick in the states my mom always brought me matzo ball soup. I felt a bit at home. I leave to go home and run into my favorite street boy Emmanuel who I haven’t seen in 2 weeks or so. I buy him bananas and we talk. This kid is struggling-he’s wearing this school uniform that looks as though it has been repeatedly splattered with muddy water-but he’s trying-his smile takes over his face and he has the kindest most innocent eyes for a boy who has seen too much in his 10 years. Shamefully, I think I like him so much because he reminds me of Sampson-one of my boys from Malawi. All this is to say I’m finding it here. It may not look like what I expected-but I’m building a community of people who I care for and who care for me, to share with and learn from. After yesterday I fell looked after and feel as though maybe Voi can be my home-eventually.

*Disclaimer, this entry is by special request by those who love me enough to want to read this much detail. If that’s you, read on.

I wake up at about 6:15 am hop outta bed before I have the chance to internally debate the delicious thought of laying in bed awake and dreaming an extra 30 minutes-throw on some clothes and my running shoes. I leave my house, greet my guard who is watering what exists of a garden and I head out into the sunrise. Its gorgeous, the red dirt roads and the red rising African sun. The only people who seem to be awake are calm and greet me respectfully. By now they have gotten used to the crazy white woman who runs uphill and turns around and runs down at an hour when she should be fetching water or cooking or sleeping for that matter. I return home to shower. Now as a peace corps volunteer, I am blessed to actually have a ‘shower’ but it isn’t what you might imagine-or maybe it is. It’s a head that dribbles out cool water. Damn cold water actually at 7am. Every time I step under it my breathing becomes rapid and shallow and I am reminded of running into Lake Tahoe and coming out panting but refreshed. The shower situation is probably largely responsible for me cutting my hair off(don’t worry, its not boy short, its chin length and a rather nice cut for having done it myself.). ahhh as always, I digress. I pick out the least wrinkly clothing that doesn’t smell, throw it on and head to my kitchen to make breakfast. Most days its oatmeal made with powdered milk, cinnamon and about a half cup of sugar with a banana sliced on top. Its rather tasty actually, I find myself looking forward to breakfast. Also I wouldn’t be in Kenya(or a former British colony) if my meal didn’t include a large cup of chai. This is really just milky sugary tea. But I drink a lot of it, like about a half litre each morning. During my meals I read whatever book I'm on at the time. Right now it’s The End of Poverty (not sure how I feel about it yet, but its still early). I brush up, grab my CAPSES bag and head out to the office.

Its about 830am. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to walk to the office. Along the way I listen to the goats bleating, the wind in the trees an greet the few school kids who are running late to school and then I'm hit with the main street crowded with people, cars, tuktuks, hawkers-most mornings it seems like everyone and everything is yelling. I arrive to the office to check in and usually there are only a few people around. Kodi is sure to be there. He has grown to be one of my favorites. He is just genuinely friendly, loves to talk but keeps you entertained while doing so, and usually he is educating me on things like trapping animals or the uses for different types of trees. He has also taken great care of me while I have been sick these past many days. From here the day can take on any turn of events. Usually I hang around till at least 930 reading the daily paper and chatting with all the people who work at VYF and who are gradually becoming my friends. I could really spend all day doing this, sitting in the office talking-this seems to be what most of our members do anyhow…that’s for another rant. At 9:30 I will either be heading out to do an outreach with Allen in any one of the 5 main communities we work in. Outreaches usually consist of a lot of dancing and singing, a couple skits about specific health issues and then a question and answer session. A lot of what I did in Malawi, but here all I get to do is dance and I don't control the message that is being given(good and bad in different ways). OR it could be a day where I will work on my community assessment. These are the days I like most right now because they require me to think and I get to interact with a variety of people. To keep it short, these days I am mainly walking around observing the conditions, the available resources and interviewing people (in a way such that they don’t know I'm interviewing them) about their household roles and practices, about their problems in Voi, what they have and what they need. I learn a lot on days like this and my brain starts working overtime thinking of the reasons for these things, the implications and what I can work on for the next few years.

At about 1230 I will break for lunch. If in town, ill head to one of 3 restaurants I frequent and usually ill have beans in coconut milk, chapatti and a coke. Sometimes I eat alone sometimes I run into someone I know. After lunch I usually go say hello to Vincent and Mama Rachel and Jayesh. If it’s a market day ill head into the market. Then ill eagerly check my mailbox to see if anyone decided to make my day. Usually it’s a sad day at the Posta. Maybe ill head back to the office, maybe back out walking, maybe ill sit in on a session a co-worker is holding, maybe ill head home to do some writing/brainstorming. I usually cut out at about 500pm to go buy whatever I need for dinner and head home. I arrive home, have the same conversation with my guard I have every evening- maybe shower again depending on the sweat level of the day-change into my comfy cloths and throw some chai on the stove. This is probably my favorite part of the day. I take my delicious half liter of chai, my journal, book and phone out to my patio and spend the next hour or 2 just sitting and decompressing – digesting the events of the day, writing, reading, talking on the phone to volunteer friends or family and watching the sun set casting beautiful shadows over Sagalla mountain. Usually one of the neighbour women will stop by and say hello. When the light starts to fade and the swarms of mosquitoes come out ill head inside to cook dinner. Maybe ill put on my ipod for some jazz while cooking. Maybe its not as classy as jazz all the time…maybe its RENT. By now its probably near 7pm. What’s for dinner… Its totally dependant on what I have but usually it is a bunch of vegetables put together in some way accompanied by rice, mashed potatoes or if I am feeling super fancy sweet potatoes and coconut milk(SOO GOOD!) I’ll have desert of an orange or banana. A nice thing about Kenya is we’ve got a BUTT load of spices and a great variety of fruits and veg. I have yet to get too fancy or too Kenyan with my cooking, but in time. At 8pm ill sit down again with my book and eat dinner. Then ill do dishes wash up and get in bed and write letters or in my journal. I wont go to sleep for a few hours still, but I enjoy reading/writing in the comfort of my mosquito net.

So that’s an average day, however, it will all be changing soon (hopefully) as I get under way with some of my own projects and as other things arrive like my computer…and a yoga matt. Weekends hold any number of visitors, maybe a trip to Mombasa, cleaning house and doing wash, or events in town-futbol matches, maybe an event at the stadium celebrating literacy, family health, anything really, every week there seems to be some national day of sorts.

Days seem to be pretty full and I have the benefits of electricity and running water. In households without these things it is truly a full time job to keep the house clean, do laundry, got to market, fetch water and firewood and cook meals. Just to repeat the same tasks the following day. I realize how important electricity and running water are/have been in relation to women’s rights. Another something to chew on.

As I look around this country going through an economic transformation, as I begin to get to know my surroundings a bit, I observe this trade off. This country is beginning to boom – beginning. From the big business and foreign investments all the way down to the individual coal makers, the environment is being slaughtered. Mainly what we have around Voi is the small scale business, where people are able to collect local resources add a value and sell it to make a living. We have people who cut down trees, treat the wood and sell the charcoal for cooking. We have people who dig these massive ditches collect water and bake bricks. Both of these are resulting in massive amounts of erosion, decreasing soil quality, and are contributing to desert encroachment-just to name a few issues. I don’t really know enough about environment and local ecologies to be able to get into the details, but its serious here. Do we condemn people and tell them to stop these practices? What if it means that they are unable to feed themselves and their families? What if it means another generation without access to secondary school? In a country with a 7% growth rate last year, millions are living in poverty and little is being done about it. So for those that are industrious enough to find a way to make it-should we turn a blind eye and allow them? Crazy difficult questions. If we think about it, most industrialized nations have gone through a period of environmental exploitation to get to where we are today (hell, we are still doing it!). Have we learned our lessons? Have we learned any lessons? Where we are today, a place where we have lost a great deal, and stand to lose a great deal more(in terms of our environment) all in the name of economic growth and power, do we feel it has been worth it? Is it our place to tell people they cannot grow at the same rate we did, they cannot feed themselves, because we have the benefits of hindsight and maybe we have learned a few lessons? I don’t have the answers, just the questions for now. … Interestingly, shortly after finishing journaling about this, I read an editorial in the daily paper addressing the environmental woes of Kenya. The man was asserting that the church, more the mass conversion to Christianity and the throwing away of old tradition, is to blame for the environmental state of Kenya. Essentially (for those who don’t know) many of the old traditions, animism especially, have a devout respect for the earth and its elements. Inanimate objects like rocks and trees were respected as living spirits. People sacrificed to the earth and their ancestors that walked it before them. They would never imagine cutting down a tree just to sell it off. This is what I love. Everything is connected. Economics, religion, environment. Its huge. Ignoring these connections is where many programs - developmental, social, political, economic- anything - go wrong.

Maungu is a ghost town, a town of seemingly abandoned bars, restaurants and hotels- a town of old men and unchaperoned children – a town of clouds of dust storms as cars whiz through it along the highway from Nairobi to Mombasa – a town I would have no idea existed if I were not visiting our sexworker peer educators. At night, this place is cracking! The dirt strips that border the highway turn into a tent city of hundreds of trucks. The bars are lit up and bumping loud bonga music and thousands of men and young women engage in business transactions. During the night, Maungu is a town of men and women congregating in the noisy bars and hotels. Come morning, the truckers leave town, sometimes taking a woman along for company, and the women sleep. Come morning, the kids wake up and play or wander about, many without meals, waiting for mom to come back awake. Maungu is a town built around the transient nature of the two most at risk groups in Kenya. It thrives, it truly does. In Maungu, a quick time(a single orgasm) goes for about 50 Kenyan Shillings (less than a US dollar), if without a condom, a woman can be offered upwards of KSH 2,000. That’s forty clients-more than can be made in one nights work. In Maungu, condoms are present, available and free, but the knowledge of benefits and appropriate use is not. This surprised me to be honest. In talking with people all over Kenya, it seemed like most had this knowledge - most knew the benefits of condoms and most even knew the proper steps of use. Kenya is inundated with aid agencies, many working around issues of HIV/AIDS, but it seems that maybe this population has been ignored. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I do find it interesting how we come in(we being aid workers), preaching to people to abandon all of their stigmas about sex and disease, and we ourselves cant get over our stigmas around sex workers. It makes me a bit sick inside. These women are incredible, really they are. In Maungu, we are seeing the HIV infection rate climb. We are having a difficult time recruiting people to work as educators to their peers, and an even harder time, maintaining them, as they leave town rather frequently. How to you achieve behavior change when you cant meet with a person more than once or twice? This really cannot be ignored as these men go home to wives and families and these women have futures.

A Kenyan colleague of mine said this to a group of mamas in Sagalla. Women should enjoy sex too! The looks of confusion, delight, discovery, guilt and relief on their faces were just priceless. It was like watching the movie Chocolate, a group discovering pleasure. Their eyes just lit up. Its as if they had been waiting for someone to tell them it was ok for them to enjoy it - in fact it was their right to enjoy it – some had been waiting to be told how to enjoy it. There was an excited quiet commotion and slowly questions started coming out like, ‘what if he goes flat, what do I do?’ Ah! Another great moment.

Step by Step. I began today fighting back tears and ended today with sheer joy. Its true what they say about PC – the highs are so high and the lows so incredibly low.

Today after some errands in town, I headed out to visit my friend Tori in a village about 1 hour away called Boguta. I boarded the matatu this morning tearing up, just wanting to lay down and cry and sink and release. I was one of the last passengers to fill the Nissan 14 seat bus, and I remember thinking that this was quite possibly the most incapable vehicle(if it could be called that) I have ever been on. It was rust eaten with random holes, parts were re-saudered back on, the sliding door didn’t close, and the cushioning for the seats were ripped open and exposed at every seam. The tout rode with his head out the window staring towards the back wheel as though he were watching to make sure things weren’t falling off the bus yet…what could I do? I closed my eyes and endured the ride. We sped rather smoothly down the tarmac. After about 20 minutes or so, we hit the turn off onto the dirt road that leads out to some of the more remote villages. Because of the condition of the road, there was no closing eyes and resting, no pretending you were somewhere else, infact, gripping onto anything possible for dear life is more like it. At this point, the matatu is at full capacity. Because of relatively recent Kenyan laws, matatus are regulated to 14 passengers, each wearing a seatbelt and must be driving under 80 km/hr. For a large part these laws are enforced along the main highways… and really enforced is relative because many police can be bought off. All this is to say, I thought we were at full capacity, but man was I wrong. Just shortly after we left the tarmac we stopped and added 9 more passengers and some large sacks of grain and tree seedlings on top. Meaning an extra person on each bench seat, a few standing hunched over the seats and 3 men hanging out of the now open sliding door. One of the touts yells to me in Kiswahili from the window opposite, “here in Kenya, we get close!” everyone on the bus awkwardly laughs. As we continue on, a smile begins to creep across my face as we weave around rocks, potholes, carriages full of water jerry cans pulled by bulls and sometimes boys and their herds of cattle and goats. The driver honks wildly as we pass through towns informing residents that we are infact approaching and to prepare to board because we are just barely gonna stop. You cant help but laugh at the ridiculous spectacle. Then the driver lays on the horn and slams the breaks-usually this indicates that a herd of cattle is in the road and you see the boys running frantically beating the cows to get them off the road just before our matatu swerves on by. (This could be a video game here) This time though, it’s a bit different as we come to a complete stop and then a gradual creep. Im stuck in what feels like a permanent hunch, so I maneuver my way to looking out the window and I see these long legs, hundreds on them, moving at a mechanical pace. I see a couple baby camel run by and realize that I am driving through a huge herd of camels. It was really a kind of magical moment-as we all stared out the window I shared in the moment with the young girl in a purple satin dress with puffy sleeves squatting over next to me. We both remark in a certain awe at how many there were. It made me feel better knowing that the crazy mzungu isn’t the only one who thought this was damn cool, the 12-year-old Kenyan did too. By this point, a smile had fully taken over my face. I then realize that this seemingly innocent 12 year old schoolgirl had a wedding band on her finger-amazing-I tried not to let the reality of this practice and its societal implications seep into my improving mood. We continue on flying and swerving down the road horn blaring. We stop to let some passengers get off and I breathe a sigh of relief and begin to take back some of my good ol American personal space. Again, a little premature on my part. Some get off, but we add another 6 to our previous total. I end up with a woman’s legs between mine and an ass in my face, again back in that hunched position because of course, someone is also leaning over me. One man climbs on top of the car, another hangs off the side ladder and there are now 5 men hanging out the open door. We start up again at the same clip, and im thinking what a tragedy this would be if we got into an accident. It starts to rain steadily-coming in through all of the open doors and holes-im flat out laughing at this point-Karibu Kenya. ...

I arrive in Boguta, walk to the nearest duka(shop) and ask in Kiswahili where my friend Tori lives. She is the only white face in the village, so they point me down the road towards her house. After repeating my questioning a few times, I find where she stays, but she is not there. One of the men sitting idly nearby gets 3 young kids to take me to where she is leading a session on water sanitation issues. These kids take me gladly, holding my hand and leading me down the path, giggling an barefoot. We say hello to everyone we pass and I can read the looks of confusion on their faces at the presence of another mzungu in town. Tori is just finishing her session and is delighted to see me!! We head back with the kids and along the way, the sky opens up again, we all begin running and laughing down the pathway through homes until we read Tori's house. It was just a wonderful moment to share, a bit of the glimpse of feelings to come! At Tori's house, I unpack the gifts I brought for tori. ‘baked’ chocolate oatmeal cookies (now chocolate crumbles), oranges, a mango, an avocado that has exploded everywhere in the bag and a flattened banana. We both start into a fit of laughter-without explanation, we both knew that the matatu ride had decimated everything in the bag, and really, what can you do but laugh?...

In the afternoon, tori and I head out for a walk into the hills around Boguta with no real destination in mind but the hills, and perhaps, if it worked out, we would stumble upon a group of women who dance traditional Druma dances every evening. Perhaps. We start out of town and end up on this bright red dirt road surrounded by plains, a few rolling hills and even scarcer mountains jutting up for dramatic effect. Because it is a rainy day and because we are in Kenya, the cloud formations are just incredible, casting amazing shadows over the brilliant landscape as the sun comes out. A lighting scheme similar to those you might encounter in the Southwest. It was absolutely gorgeous, I had that goofy grin across my face-you know the one- its frequently accompanied by me remarking how everything is just gorgeous in the ever changing view. I was in the ‘I love it’ mood – everything was incredible. Man it really was. It felt good to be out there, to discover, relax and begin to experience a bit of the beauty this country has to offer outside of its sprawled urban and peri urban centers. It started to rain a little just adding to my state of wonder. We continued walking and soon the red dirt road narrowed to a red dirt pathway and we wound our way up into the druma hills. Because the pathway we were on was the only real walking path/route along this hillside, we soon found ourselves in the middle of a homestead comprised of 4 mud houses with straw roofing. Being 2 tall white faces, they knew we were coming before we knew where we were going. They ran out and met us on the path with greetings and insisted on carrying our nalgenes. They bring out chairs for us, we engage them in conversation, again pretty brief as our Kiswahili is still young… when we lose the ability to communicate in a common language, we just stare at each other for a little while, maybe a few of the girls in their bright kangas will come over and pet our hair. As we get tired of the staring we tell them that we are in search of the Druma dancers and they point us in the right direction-really the only direction along the path other than where we came from. We repeat this interaction a few more times at each homestead we happen upon. Eventually we reach the compound where the dancers meet just as they were beginning to congregate for the evening. They were overjoyed to have us. They sat us down and fed us roasted corn as they finished the preparations. As my hungry belly enjoys the snack, im taking in the gorgeous landscape. We are on a hillside that looks out over the green and red plains and sharp mountains in the distance. You can see for miles. Its my favorite time in the evening, the sun is just beginning to lower creating that warm glow and contrasty long shadows. The wind has picked up – but only a little- just enough to isolate the sound of the wind and those sounds we were creating as the only audible sounds around. As more people come, the women begin dancing. The leader, the chiefs son, begins to sing in a call and answer pattern. The women answer in their high an raspy yet full voices. As the instruments show up, they add into the rhythm- a couple hand drums, some overturned jerry cans, a metal bicycle rim and long bolts, a wooden flute and two maracas made of metal cans that gave the moment a mesmerizing intensity. They all begin to find their unity, their sound, and the women begin their slow, slow dance-small steps, maybe a little hip motion, but mainly a whole lot of shoulder and breast shaking. But slow. I remember just sitting there stunned by the beauty of the moment; the landscape, the low sunlight, the raspy voices of dancing mamas, the intense beat of the drum, and the brightly colored fabrics caught by the wind as the mamas danced rhythmically. It was one of those moments where nothing else in the world existed, a moment that cannot be captured by any media because it consumes all of the senses, a moment that went on for the next hour as the mamas invited us to join them – we sang and we danced, smiled and laughed. I was bursting with joy. Tori said she kept looking over at me and I was just overwhelmed with goofy happiness. High. A high only Africa can give me. For the next hour we just shared with the group, embracing people as they joined in the circle and slowly migrating to the drum in what can only be described as local dance-offs. Everyone in the area found their way to us and sang and clapped and watched. Ahhhh it was just glorious. We stopped only when our bodies were too exhausted to find another muscle to isolate rhythmically. The mamas fed us some more roasted corn. We all hugged and said our jubilant goodbyes, them insisting that we return, and us promising we would. They sent us down the path towards Boguta – I was nearly skipping down the path as the sun set. I had found it, why I returned, that Africa high, the shared joy with complete strangers. I had the moment I was waiting for, confirming I still had that happiness inside of me. It’s here - I’m here.

This has been one crazy ass week, a week that for the majority of time I have been trying to quiet the voice inside my head that has been screaming “this isn’t why I came here!!! IM NOT HERE FOR THIS!!!” This loud emotional voice is mainly a result of sitting in the office constructing weekly work plans with my colleagues(which I am no expert in as im not an efficiency consultant), the bureaucratic structures our group finds itself tangled in (see blog entry on funding vision) and the chaotic periurban lifestyle that makes up my day to day life. I have become a bit disillusioned with my post. I realized this week after nearing tears of frustration countless times, that yes I came to contribute, yes I came to be challenged, but I also came to slow down, I came to put a little bit of peace back into my soul, to live how the majority of the world lives, to find my beauty again. I realized I set aside these 2 years of my life to live in a rural setting, to be surrounded by community and customs – to live the beauty that is Africa. I have the rest of my life for efficiency, long workdays and comfort. In fact, im sure that’s what a good part of the rest of my life will look like (remember, comfort is most definitely relative!). This realization came to a head as I went with a woman from the APHIA II office (one of our partner orgs) to visit a remote hilltop village that we work in. Even just driving out of Voi I felt the change of pace – just small things life women carrying water on their heads down the dirt road or men walking their bikes because the large load of wood sticking off the back is impossible to balance. We wound our way up the mountain and already I was fantasizing about moving out to one of the many remote homes tucked into the hills. I even got as far as to make a plan of action for moving my stuff from voi and my first steps towards community integration. It all just made more sense to me – it seemed more tangible, more along the scale I imagined living life these coming years. All of this before we even reached our destination of Sagalla. Then I stepped out of the car and into this hilly, lush absolutely serene, peaceful and intimate town of Sagalla. It was as though time stopped briefly. I stood still and listened-I could hear the birds, the wind, the children playing and the soft conversations of people working, almost hushed though it was so calm a pace. I stood and I watched – I saw men and women working in the green fields, mamas fetching water, people meandering through the terraced hills and others engaged in conversation as they patiently waited to be seen at the medical compound. The air a little cooler and more crisp to touch. It was a moment similar to when you are heading up to your favorite campground for the first time in the summer. You have been away so long, you have been waiting to be reunited, you step out of the car, you see familiar beauty and you smell the air-it travels through you and with that first breath, your disposition changes, you are more at peace, more calm, comfortable, you are home. My eyes teared up as I thought “this is what I came here for”. It is saddening how right it felt, just knowing that the atmosphere and the sensation do exist, and that it is not where I am posted. We spent the day in a training session for mamas from 13 neighboring villages who would essentially become health advisors in their respective villages. They are not given actual medical training but are taught to recognize signs and symptoms of troubled pregnancy and are charged with referring these mamas to the hospital.* So they are educated on matters of family health, HIV/AIDS, STI’s, cancer, violence against women and female empowerment. This training will go on for a week and in the coming year, these mamas will be given further trainings for their communities benefit. We are essentially doing this in maybe a dozen communities and within different populations(youth, sexworkers, mamas, mzees(old men)…) Its really quite a great program with a rather large scope, and I was finding it a bit difficult to wrap my mind around how I can contribute. Having a hard time deconstructing the issues of so many communities to a digestible level. How can I create something new in these communities to have ownership of? It seems the work is already done. I saw myself mobilizing women and youth and giving them training on health issues, but we already have incredibly well informed people in the community to do this, and in much better Kiswahili than I could ever achieve. Maybe what I am here to do is just contribute to the trainings. Maybe this ownership of my own project is just BS that I have been socialized into thinking is necessary to be a successful human. If everyone in a community contributes their specialized knowledge to a project, it will be accomplished to its full potential. So I wont contribute on health issues I don’t think, they seem to have that covered. I’m thinking business and income generating enterprises. In talking with community members, colleagues at Voi Youth Forum and APHIA II, this is where there is a gap. We have already discussed the economic situation of many in my community and the massive amounts of free time they have. It seems that I can be effective in helping people get the money they need to start up small businesses, teaching people to do market assessments (so that they aren’t starting a business to make coal when there are already 10 people in their small town making and selling coal), write business plans and grant/loan proposals. There really isn’t anyone doing this with these populations. So maybe ill be a business volunteer, its what I really wanted to do anyhow…I have some educational background in this field, not much, and no actual real life applications, but this is Africa, and everything has to be relearned to work in this particular environment anyhow. This is what peace corps is all about-literally starting from scratch.

*side note: it is super interesting that on some levels, infrastructure like hospitals is present, but now people need to be educated on how and when to access these institutions

They say give a man a fish an he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish an he’ll eat for a lifetime- but what if he doesn’t have a pole, or net or boat or crumbs from his table to use as bait – what good is a skill or has knowledge if you don’t have the capital to put it into practice? I think I came here expecting to do a skills transfer of sorts. Even in training when dealing with income generating activities they were sometimes discussed as though we would train the community how to do a certain activity that would earn them some income. But I imagine that many people have the skills, its just a matter of getting started. So I have been thinking about these issues all week, what it is going to take on my part and what these communities have/need. The past few days I have also been finishing up Muhammad Yunus’ book Banker to the Poor on microcredit (talk about timing!!). He articulates a point that I imagine many of us have thought about, and provides a constructive solution. Yunus states that the main reason why the poor are poor is not because they do not have the knowledge or skills to earn a living, but more that they are stuck in this system where they cannot get the money to start up business on their own. Essentially, the poor become trapped in a cycle where they are beholden to those middlemen who exploit this problem, by lending out money or supplies in the morning and expecting to receive it back in the afternoon tenfold, forcing people to give up any real profit they make and just barely keeping them from starvation so they keep coming back the next day. Yunus clearly illustrates throughout the book that it is not the skills that are needed, but the startup cost for a small business, and nobody had been willing to lend to them. I have studied many aspects of micro credit and have really heard all this before, but it takes on a new level of magnitude living in the community I am in. So here I am, in Kenya, in a community with thousands unemployed-trapped in this cycle of poverty. We have some lending institutions in place that might lend to some of these people granted they present their ideas and projects appropriately. Hopefully that is where I can help, help people take their ideas and make them reality, help people get that fishing pole. We shall see. Ive got a lot of learning ahead of me.

I sat in on a training last week that was funded by APHIA II which is directly funded by USAID. This training was on health issues for peer educators but we spent a good 3 hours of the day discussing data collection. Essentially for reporting purposes, the donor agencies need to know how many people were reached by certain efforts and to what extent they were reached(level of information distributed). Additionally, this week in talking with members of my org. about projects not dealing with peer educators(where the funding is coming in), it seems that they cannot get anything off the ground. Again, its not because the ideas aren’t there, they say they have all of these ideas but the decision making structure being as it is in our office, decisions are made collectively and people can not get a sit down with decision makers because they are too focused on these peer education sessions and reporting for donors.

It seems the focus of the org is shifting. It seems that my org has become tunnel visioned- focusing on those issues that bring them funding. I understand that every org as it grows necessitates funding but I am wondering if it is good for the org and does it really have the communities best interests and needs in sight? (I myself have no opinion as this is a public blog and I am an employee of the US government.). Is it possible that this small grassroots org is being co-opted by national and international agencies? If so, what does this mean for my org and the community? It’s an interesting moment for VYF.

Yo, i have a new address

Rachel Santos

Peace Corps Volunteer

P.O. Box 763

Voi, Kenya 80300

All mail that is sent to the previous address will be forwarded so no worries.

Also, note about cell phones in Kenya because i think it is still a bit unclear for some.

If you call me, i do not pay anything to receive a call or txt, so dont feel like you are charging me to call or that you need to wait for airtime on my phone before you call. The only time i need money is when i place a call to you fine folks. in case you forgot my number is 0729571953

Pia, thanks for the emails and comments, its nice to hear from you all.

In just the week that i have been here, i have encountered numerous international and domestic organizations, including my own, that are devoted in part- if not entirely-to the creation of football leagues and matches. they have taken this on in an effort to get young adults thinking and acting in a healthy and productive manner. the idea is to give people something to plan around, to train for, to watch and perhaps most importantly, to be proud of. To get them off the streets so to speak, steer them away from thinking about and engaging in sex and drugs, and exhaust the hell out of them so that when they are done, they go home and sleep instead of heading to the bars. so the other day, i found myself looking for something to do with my time other than head home to my lonely octagonal palace(as PCVs are beginning to refer to it) and i stumbled onto a match at our stadium(dirt field).

I was sitting waiting for the game to start and i noticed first, that i was the only woman sitting in the crowd and all around me are about 100+ men sitting - waiting. 100 or so men just waiting for a game to start at 4pm on a Wednesday- 100 or so men who are out of work, day laborers and idle for much of their daily lives. I struck up a conversation with one of the young men sitting next to me. I asked him what the hardest thing was for him about living in Voi. He, a young man of about 22 and a form 4 leaver(highschoool graduate), answered work. he said he has been out of school and trying to get a job for the past 1.5 years and cannot, thus working as a daily laborer-spending all day working jobs like construction for about 150 shillings(about US$2). this is a good day, because competition is tough out there to get these informal jobs.

Actually, the first question i asked him was 'unafanya nini?' what do you do'. he said 'I'm a footballer, i play football'. its an interesting concept-giving youth some agency in their lives by giving them sport. sport because they cannot be given jobs that don't exist, jobs that many of us use to define ourselves, our contributions to this world, our relation to others and even for some, happiness. These 100 or so young men represent probably upwards of 5,000 people in my town and i have no estimate for what it means on a national scale (though i have heard informally that national unemployment is around 50%). Needless to say, its a big problem for thousands of men and women-who for now-are proud to be footballers.

...

a few more technical side notes-these day laborers are not paying taxes, pointing to another large problem in this country, taxing the informal. additionally, in those areas where they do pay taxes, like at the supermarket and petrol stations, they are enraged. here over half of the country is jobless, thus food is scarce, many do not have access to clean water and electricity, road accidents are a top killer here due to the poor condition of the roads. the youth (quite rightly) don't feel that their money is coming back to them at all... i wont go into a rant on inefficient and corrupt uses of government funds...but its there.

also, about a week ago, an economist from the American embassy came and spoke to us. he mentioned that many companies are interested in moving their call centers to Kenya because people like the Kenyan english accent better. However, a really large problem this country is facing is infrastructure...once again in my experience/research it boils down to infrastructure. problems surrounding telecommunications, internet, reliability of electricity- all this is problematic if you are an investor looking for stability. call centers would create thousands of jobs...once again tho, we are paralyzed by infrastructure.

Yesterday I sat in on a training session for peer educators(people who work within their peer groups to teach them about any number of the issues we work on), this session was for sex workers and matatu tauts. first i found it pretty interesting that when talking with the group, the women were shy to discuss their work and the rates they charge, but the men, the men were free and willing to discuss the rates at which they get sex in voi. the reason this came up -- the leader of the session was trying to make a point about pricing. he mentioned that many tour guides have stopped staying the night in a nearby town because sex is too expensive, but they have found that sex in voi is cheap and we now have upwards of 400 tourguides(for neighboring Tsavo park) in town sleeping with our women on any given Friday. The session leader was trying to encourage the women to raise their prices so that it would drive this clientel out of town. i find this an interesting suggestion in that my organization works with the sex workers to encourage, and provide tools for them to live healthier lives. we also work to give them alternative occupational training, but we recognize that this is a business transaction and that there are many forces in the economy that create this market. It doesn't seem conducive to business for these women, who need these clients and their money to survive, to drive out these men. just a bit to chew on, still figuring things out.

so i wrote this a few nights ago on a friends laptop, things change by the hour and are looking up.

I don't know if I have ever been this scared. Actually, I know it, I have never been this scared, Im damn terrified. Im not afraid of being attacked, im not afraid of the many critters/reptiles living in my home, im not afraid of getting sick or injured in anyway. This isn't that kind of fear. This isn't like jumping out of a plane, where you have no control over what happens to you in the air and you know you are safe when your feet hit the ground, this isn't like the most important interview of your entire life or a final where you know you just need to power it out for a few more hours and it will all be over. There isn't a rush involved with this fear. There isn't any deadline or set moment when this fear will subside. I'm scared of daily life, im scared I won't be happy, im scared I won't actually be effective, and most of all, Im scared of loneliness. Im scared of all im giving up to be here, im scared of losing a man who has come to mean a great deal to me and is now across the country. I usually seek out a certain degree of fear – I think in those types of situations you learn the most about yourself, those around you, and life. You experience things many run away from and they can turn out to be magical and beautiful. Right now I just want to say to myself, fuck all your mantras. This is nearing paralysis here. I woke up this morning and for the first time in all of my travels I thought, fuck, im in voi. This isn't a reflection of my site (Voi) sucking, but more a reflection of today being another day(day 4 alone at site) where I will not have the possibility of seeing anyone I love or remotely care about (other than the degree to which I care for and regard all people). Another day of not seeing anyone who knows me, knows how to make me laugh, knows how to challenge me and comfort me. Really, it has only been 4 days, so you are all thinking, suck it up Rachel that's like a long weekend. What is so daunting is the possibility of feeling this way indefinitely. Its pretty impossible that in 2 years I wont meet someone who can do all this in voi…but right now it feels possible.(sorry for the double negative) I feel incredibly alone and I feel like this will last for 2 years, which at this point in the game, seems like forever. I will now give you the disclaimer. I am currently in day 4 of what every Peace Corps volunteer refers to as the most difficult 3 months of their lives. Things might get a little dark. Don't think you are losing me or that I am becoming a depressed cynic, just know there is a lot I am struggling with. I want to vocalize them so that you can have an idea of what I am facing. Pole. Right now, I am alone and not really contributing anything substantial to this world, so I am absent some of that passion that usually lights me up. Its there, it's just hiding while I figure out exactly what all this means and how best to use myself to benefit my community. Today did however end up much better than it started off. I went into the office and mainly just hung out with the many people who swing through our office and resource center (vice president of ministry youth affairs organizing a big march of the youth and area clean up, young women who are forced into sex work to finance their education studying in our 'quiet' resource room, vocational trainers, human rights activists researching and monitoring the public spending of local governmental institutions among many things, environmental activists working to preserve the last remaining bit of forest in the area, peer educators, and really any other number of folk. This was just today.). You can imagine the variety of conversations I was able to have today. So that was uplifting and I believe it gives you a taste of the organization I am working with. It is called Voi Youth Forum and its goals are basically to empower the youth (in Kenya, this category is stretched a bit to about 30, so congrats to all you 28 year olds fretting about turning one more year closer to 30, you still get to check the youth box - in Kenya at least). It started as a few people coming together and realizing that this country's future is bleak if society didn't start addressing the issue of out of school and or unemployed dis-empowered young people with little to do but drugs and drink. We have 5 areas of focus, AIDS and reproductive health, gender equality, environment and wildlife conservation, child advocacy (child labor/sex work are HUGE issues here), and eradication of corruption/creation of good governance. All in all I am thankful to be working with such a great group of motivated and caring people. I am a little surprised by the structure-- I imagined living in a mud hut with no real organization to be working for and really just talking to people to figure out what it is that is needed. Which is still a little true, I will take the next 3 months to get to know the rather large town and the half dozen or so interior villages that I will be working in, try to do some needs assessment, and figure out what I can do from within the organization to help, and what some other side projects might prove beneficial in the coming years. What I know of voi town thus far, it is big. Like damn big. Much bigger than Davis. We have a dance club, a store devoted entirely to wine(smiles, I feel like the force above was really looking out for me, I mean really, how many stores are there in east Africa with a name like 'wine makes the world better'), we border the largest national park in Kenya thus get a lot of tourists, people mainly speak Kiswahili, people are crazy friendly and patient with me as I accost them on the street and exhaust my Kiswahili in a desperate attempt to start feeling like I belong, voi town appears relatively wealthy because of the numerous international aid agencies and NGO's, but on the outskirts and dipping into the interior, we see most people living in abject poverty. The town is beautiful, it is a merging of many things, rich poor, peri urban clutter and peaceful landscapes, cultures from all over Kenya, Africa and old England(boo colonial legacy)…I could go on. Lastly ill talk tonight about my house, because it is noteworthy and absolutely not what I expected. Things I love about my house (initially) It's a huge octagon. It has character. I have electricity and running water. Each room is uniquely shaped, has tons of windows, killer kitchen with 4 burner gas stove/oven and tile counter, vaulted-esq ceiling with skylight, many a wooden doors and beams to give it the rustic feel, 12 floor to ceiling wooden folding doors – with great lighting potential, and its only a 10 min walk to town. From pictures it looks almost like a vacation cabana. ALMOST. Things I don't love about my house It's too much space for me-compounding the loneliness issue. my toilet leaks- i miss my choo. The shape lends itself to many nooks and crannies for bugs and bats to live in. The windows are slat windows, therefore never fully close, therefore permitting every noise within a mile radius to enter and sound as though they are taking place in my house, also creating some terrifyingly loud wind suctions. Kitchen is still cool, though one of my burners is broken and stuck on, creating potential headline "PC Volunteer decimates entire small Kenyan town in gas exploosion accident"... My skylight has been covered by landlord in order to kick out birds that are nesting and making a mess. Wooden doors and beams are infested with termites and the 12 doors, in addition to providing the perfect environment for upwards of 20 wasps nests, in addition to being slatted and contributing to the noise/wind problem already mentioned, they don't actually really open. So really I have 4 doors that open…oh yeah, and the 10 min walk from town (which is in a smallish valley essentially) means every single noise in town comes through clearly here…this is not my quiet place. Actually surprisingly, right now, at 9pm on a Sunday, ray lamontagne is coming through clearly with little background noise. Ahhhh.

i think ill call it a night. i have great access to internet, so ill try and post some less emotional more substantive writing soon. please continue sending mail, it makes my life.

I am going to take one more email to just get some of the nitty gritty details out and then, hopefully, i will be able to start writing some substantive emails. I just want to all to have a base understanding of what the day to day is for me- and it involves a whole hell of a lot of peace corps- the good and the bad. first let me just say, that last email, was me incredibly giddy to just get on the internet(having time, electricity, shillings etc.) and letting my fingers dance across a keyboard once again-it was pure excitement to feel connected. What made my day, following my lesson the afternoon i wrote the email, i went to collect my mail and had an outstanding letter from one ms. frances ruth lessman which closed by saying "I am just dying for your first letter/email... I cant wait to get everything in scattered great detail! The Rachel way!" it made me laugh and know that this email will be along the same lines, nothing poetic, so skip it if you so desire.

Peace Corps...I have now finished week 5 of my training, and you would not believe what an accomplishment that feels like for some. structure- we spent 3 days in Nairobi doing admin junk and a crash course in kiswahili, and on our first Sunday in country, we headed to kitui where we are currently enduring 10 weeks of Peace Corps Training. throughout this time we are doing language anywhere from 2- 6 hours a day, technical training on issues such as healthy diets for positive people, solar cookers, water purification etc., medical training on volunteer health and personal issues (these sessions can be mighty scary(the mango fly is sooo much scarier than even imagined...if you are interested in vomiting, go on google and find a picture of the eggs as they hatch in your skin bleck!!!), absolutely entertaining (the sex discussion was a riot!!!), or positively boring (what is HIV and ARV's etc and how can you as a volunteer protect yourselves...) yeah.) In addition, each volunteer has a primary project and a secondary project. for me, i have been working on a sub surface dam with a community group, and my secondary project is working on income generating projects with a womens group. all in all, i love these projects and am learning a lot from them. So evenings and weekends are spent studying, reading, hiking, playing/watching ultimate with friends and spending time with the family which means cooking or church going. needless to say, we are crazy busy and exhausted and in some cases, we are just plain tired of dealing with PC and cant wait to get the heck to site!

so, this brings me to the FSV(future site visit (everything in PC is an acronym, it can get a little tiresome, even for me) FSV what has been this guiding light for the last 5 weeks, whenever we are sick and tired of kitui town and PC bullshit is piling up, we look at the calender and count the days to FSV. This is in week 6(YES TOMORROW!! AHHHHHHHHH) and all 48 of us travel to Nairobi, party hardy Sunday, and Monday, WE ARE TOLD THE LOCATION IN WHICH WE WILL SPEND THE NEXT 2 YEARS!!!! and on Wednesday after some workshops, we travel to this future site and kind of do an assessment of the local, living conditions, apparent community needs and our counterparts. The decision of where we will be placed lies almost entirely in the hands of 2 people whom have our resumes, aspirations statements and our wish list and whom we have all had brief interviews with. I really do not know how to articulate the magnitude of this information. so much lies in the hands of so few- it is a matter of being somewhere where kiswahili is actually spoken(coastal/eastern) as opposed to the majority of the country where vernacular languages dominate the majority of the conversation. this is important because most volunteers not on the coast do not learn another language, instead, they communicate in english...that just sucks. this decision dictates whether i will continue to live in produce heaven or whether i will possibly get scurvy as a current volunteer did (HAH!!). Finally, this decision outlines my relationships with fellow volunteers for the next few years. will i be placed near those incredible people whose conversations and alternative thought processes i cherish, who i have been waiting to meet for years, and who i have come to depend on - or will it be near those incredibly obnoxious people who are so lost and out of touch with themselves that they join the PC and say things like, "when im drinking, i sleep where i fall!" and think they have won the non-existent popularity contest. yeah, these are just a few of the things running through my head right now. needless to say, i cannot wait for tomorrow, when i will be in Nairobi, eating cheesy everythings and drinking passion fruit mojitos an wine and then Monday, when my future is handed to me.

Ok, briefly, Peace Corps review time. I am going to start by saying that there are days when i am glowing and cannot imagine any other organization i would rather move to Africa with this early in my career. I am impressed by the extent of medical coverage, access, information, and care - our nurses hug people for gawds sake, they are like our mamas. I am impressed by the massive amount of materials that is given us so that we will succeed when on our own. we really have access to anything we could think of pertaining in any way to our projects. we are surface trained for everything in the public health spectrum from needs assessments to HIV/AIDS to water catchments to solar cooker construction to income generating activities, its really damn awesome. i feel as though so much of what i am learning now and am being trained in now is sooooo applicable to my future career and once again, i am full of this energy that tells me i am doing what i am supposed to be doing at this moment in my life. its really quite phenomenal. Additionally, i have met some wonderful people who are beginning to occupy a very special place in my heart. I wont go into the details of the people, but just know they rock big time, and ill share as these years unfold-we've got nothin but time.

Ok, now that i feel i have sufficiently talked up peace corps, let me tell you, sometimes i just want to scream at the bureaucracy. it is truly amazing some of the ridiculous hoops we have to jump through all so that PC Washington can cover their ass. there are days where i feel i am getting dumber and am in utter need for mental stimulation. days like this, at least we have eachother and our plethora of development/Africa books we all have brought along. right now though, i am on a peace corps high so i dont want to search for the negative just to explain to you how much it sucks sometimes, just trust me - kweli kabisa!

Kiswahili rocks, i love it, i just sat down on a one on one with my instructor and spoke for a full hour...it felt pretty incredible and i had this goofy glow about me because i just spoke in another language for a solid hour.

the generator is running out of fuel and i am losing your attention i am sure, but know that i am well, fulfilled and happy to be here. I miss the heck out of all of you and love hearing from you. please send letters. also, if you are sending food, do not mark that in the customs slip, just lie and try and conceal it. also do not send alch or sexually explicit material. everything gets opened.

love you all,

yeah, i have a cellular phone. the number is 0729571953. i believe that you dial 011 254 729571953 to get to me. I am a texting machine (did you ever think you would hear those words come from my mouth?!?!?) anyhow, if you call me and it doesnt go through, send me a text because it probably means that my phone is off(conserving battery), and i wont get the mssg that you called, but i will get the txt mssg when i turn the phone back on. so this is going to be the fastest email ever as i only have a short break between kiswahili lessons. Language is rocking, my group is rather advanced so it is keeping me insanely busy and very challenged, but the thought of being fluent in kiswahili is just incredibly amazing( i have a mini bottle of red wine that i saved from the airplane(free alch on international flights) that i am going to drink the day i have a full in depth conversation in kiswahili about something that truly matters in this country(not my name and where i come from and what i am doing here HAHA!)!)

Ok, this is going to be a bit cut and dry, overall things are going great! i have a very nice family here, we have a rather large house(compared to my time in Malawi) no electricity and no running water. Our toilet is called a Choo (teehee hee), and if i have ever seen a 'thrown', this is it. it is this cement masterpiece that demands some of my yoga skills every time i hop on top. the dimensions are about 2 ft tall by 1ft wide and 2 ft back with a slit of maybe 3 inches running down the center - the pit beneath runs about 20 ft deep and just gets covered when full. if lit well, it could be a sculpted piece of art- you just have to breathe through your noes.

so kenya, and in particular the area i am in is rather wealthy, i say this in comparison to malawi and by using indicators such as cement homes, corrugated metal roofs, daily protein intake(while still rather low, it is present daily), the amount of sugar and tea purchased per household, batteries for listening to the radio etc. so my family and most in the area have all of these, we are definitely above the poverty line, but still poor. i live on a rather traditional compound with all of the brothers of my baba(dad) and his mother. so there are about 6 homes of the brothers, their wives and families. I am living with the first born, so my household carries a lot of weight (mainly my mama, being the wife of the first born because my baba is just a drunk(thats a whole other bag of issues for me...)) my family is known and respected throughout the area and everyone knows i belong to them, and when i say belong, i mean it, sometimes i am treated like a child and it blows the big one. anyhow, what i was trying to say, is that i really becoming a part of the community, in part due to my attempts at communicating in kiswahili with everyone i pass on my hour walk home, and in part due to my family spending 2 weekends taking me around and introducing me to this uncle, that grandpa- literally, i am related to everyone in my area in some fashion, its awesome and exhausting.

Kitui is, i would say in the midlands, i dont really know, but it is hilly and lush and absolutely beautiful. i live about an hours walk out of town, so i absolutely love love my walk home everyday. because of our location, we have an astonishing array of fresh tropical fruits. One day as i bit into a salad of cut up papaya mixed with fresh juice of a passion fruit, a little lemon and some sugar, i thought to myself, i have died and gone to produce heaven! REALLY! I have avocados on just about everything, they cost about 5 cents here AHAHAHAH!! my family here flipped when i told them how much we pay in the states. come mango season, people just sit under trees and eat mangoes like you have never had before in your life-all day long- people dont cook. there are hundreds of these trees all around town, and it doesn't matter if it is yours or not, because there are too many mangoes-is that possible?!?!?! apart from that, the food is absolutely wonderful, a wide array, from ugali(nsima (made from maize meal -kinda like polenta but much much finer and moist) meat stew, peas gallor, kale, greens, chapati, chips, EVERYTHING IS FRIED (another indication of wealth as oil is not cheap) Kenyans are incredibly proud of how they welcome and treat their guests, so it is important that guests 'increase' during their stay(gain weight). we are almost forced to take second and third helpings. Luckily it is fabulous, but i am fighting the weight gain and the eating-until-sick-all-in-the-name-of-politeness game with all my might and have developed a number of great strategies.(i also walk anywhere from 12-25km a day, so that helps a lot.)

ok, anticlimactic ending, i gotta go nitahitaji kujifunza kiswahili(i need to study kiswahili) KWAHERI!! i cannot wait to get to the internet and really give you some color and a true taste of kenya, consider this a primer. kenya is wonderful!!

--

Rachel Santos

Peace Corps Trainee

P.O. Box 30518

Nairobi Kenya

"If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill that part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic- the part of yourself you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity in tact? If everyone resigns themselves to cynicsm isn't that exactly how vulnerable millions end up dead?"

~ Ken Cain