Our lives represent a series of calculated risks. Everything we do carries some whisper of danger, generally at a level we deem acceptable in contrast to the rewards it offers. We drive ourselves to work or the gym, while somewhere in the back of our minds, we’re cognizant of the fact that over 30,000 motorists [...]
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I was walking home a little while back in the late afternoon; it wasn’t quite “sunset,” but rather that canary-lit expanse of time filmmakers will often refer to as “The Golden Hour.” I had had a perfectly pleasant day and felt completely unhurried as I picked my way over the coral-carved paths and alongside eerie, [...]
I know I’ve already done a lengthy post about witchcraft and the strength of its place in the cultural lexicon of Kenya. It never ceases to amaze, really. As a follow-up a colleague sent me, I’d like to direct your attention to the linked article, published several weeks ago in one of Kenya’s national newspapers. [...]
Journey To The Center of the Earth Lake Well, it took a lot of doing. A lot of doing, a lot of hustling, a lot of pleading, a lot of arguing with drivers and touts and conductors. A fair bit of swearing under our breath in several East African languages. But we finally – FINALLY [...]
**Bandits not included, call for special availability To the countless cartographers, surveyors, travel writers, and bloggers who refer to the road north from Kitale to Lodwar as “paved,” I have only this to say: liar, liar. Pants on fire. It appears that way on virtually all maps and in virtually all guidebooks, but like a [...]
I write this from my usual spot on my bedroom floor – the cement is cooler than sitting on a cushion, you see – as I load about 200 photos from my memory card onto my hard drive. You will see them; at least, you will see a few. Lakini bado. Not yet. My vacation [...]
Christmas in Kenya is a dramatically different experience than it is in the United States. Here, it remains largely a religious holiday, much as it was for the rest of the Christian world did before Charles Dickens convinced us to do otherwise. You’ll find tinsel and Santa Claus in some of the larger cities, but [...]
One morning, I was sitting with a friend who works in medical care, drinking hot tea and chatting about nothing in particular. With one hand she held a steaming mug close to her face, blowing on it to hasten its cooling, and with the other she supported a baby balanced in her lap. The child’s [...]
Hey you. Yeah, you. Did you get tested yesterday? Yes? Come over here so I can give you a hug, you big, brave warrior in the fight against HIV. No? Did you at least make plans for when you will be? Please do. I care about you, and knowing your status is your first step [...]
This week, I’m not only busy, but also inconveniently unwell, so I unfortunately don’t have as much time to devote to a long blog post about World AIDS Day as I would like. However, I would be truly remiss in my duties as a public health volunteer to forego mentioning it entirely. I’ve spoken a [...]
Standing at the front of a room full of trainees, describing the goals and responsibilities of the Diversity Peer Support Network I was asked to provide some assistance with the new training class, who will take their oaths of service next month. For this reason, I found myself back in That Dusty Training Town, only [...]
Well everybody, it’s the most wonderful time of the year: world toilet day. When we gather together with our families and loved ones to … Actually. You know what? You can make your own jokes here. Giving lectures about diarrhea to rooms full of giggling elementary school children is one thing. Unleashing toilet humor on [...]
It’s been an exceptionally busy, though joyously productive, couple of weeks for me. I was very relieved, then, when I discovered late last week that through a series of reschedulings and cancellations I had a *whole day off.* A weekday, too, so I could run errands to my heart’s content and not worry about everyone [...]
I opened an e-mail from a friend a couple of weeks ago. Inside I found an internet link, accompanied by the message, “Isn’t this super creepy lol?” The link led to a web story about a young woman named Courtney Stodden who had temporarily captured (seduced?) the pop culture media beat by raising ruckus about [...]
Back in America, my friends with small children told me how incredibly difficult it can be to do, well, anything. What with all that strapping of car seats and planning around nap times and making sure you bring enough apple juice to keep the screaming to a low-to-medium decibel threshold. And I most certainly believe [...]
Fall in the Hudson Valley is the most beautiful season of all, anywhere – if you disagree with that statement, then stop reading this blog. In fact, if you disagree with that statement, sit tight; I’m on my way to your house to drag you into an alleyway and shank you. It is an incontrovertible [...]
If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated since shaking you down for money a few weeks ago, you may be rest assured that it is *not* because I have been kidnapped by sea-roving bandits. (Although given how often I’m to be found singing “A Pirate’s Life for Me” or “Hoist the Colours” while going about [...]
Kenya is a youngish country with a brand new Constitution. And as you’ve probably divined both from this blog’s existence (I’m filling a service/informational gap in the Public Health sector, when I’m not battling centipedes or buying lesos) … Kenya has issues. EVERY nation has issues, no place is perfect. But the people of Kenya [...]
Welcome back! This was originally written as a single behemoth o’ bloggery, but given that it was over five pages single-spaced in Microsoft Word, I tried to improve its readability by chopping it down and posting its parts on adjoining days. If you’re just joining us, start back at Part 1 before you jump in [...]
I originally wrote this as one monstrously long entry, but have decided to post it in two pieces to save you considerable eye strain. Please enjoy, and stayed tuned for conclusions tomorrowish. –M My primary workplace sits just over the invisible, unofficial borderline that separates the “local” and “tourist” regions of my district. If you [...]
Once upon a time there was a little girl who tried the play the violin and couldn’t. She wasn’t particularly untalented. She was second chair in her school’s modest strings group, but on that particular day, the notes kept swimming into indistinct swirls, and everything seemed out of tune. After class, as she knelt in [...]
A Walk By Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Robert Bly My eyes already touch the sunny hill. going far ahead of the road I have begun. So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has inner light, even from a distance- and changes us, even if we do not reach it, into something [...]
In return for our blood, sweat, and tears, Peace Corps gives all volunteers a precious gift to commemorate one year of service: a physical exam. So after a week of learning about gender-based violence and HIV prevention on the sunny Mombasa coast in a PEPFAR-funded seminar, we all retired to Nairobi to be poked with [...]
So! I had my family vacation! It was lovely! And now I’m home, but only long enough to charge my Kindle and do a couple loads of laundry. Today – in a few hours, in fact – I’m leaving again to attend a workshop in Mombasa about preventing gender-based violence (domestic abuse is staggeringly prevalent [...]
I’m certain you’re all waiting with bated breath for “Kenyan Schoolchildren Say The Darndest Things, Part 2″ but I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a bit longer. My AMERICAN FAMILY is going to be arriving NEXT WEEK (!!!) So I’ve been trying to finish up a few things at the clinic in anticipation [...]
In addition to teaching health classes to primary school students, outreach techniques to community health workers, income generation basics to people living with HIV/AIDS, and neighborhood kids about why it’s unwise to follow random white people around asking for candy (it usually only takes getting chased with a wooden spoon once or twice to fix [...]
I keep a file on my desktop labeled “Blogress” – shortened from “Blogs in Progress” – where I store half-baked ideas for things I want to post about. Today, while trawling through it, looking for something that could fill my latest blogging void with minimal effort, I found this write-up of an event I did [...]
———————- “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is utterly meaningless.” - Ecclesiastes 1:2 [NIV] ——————— I have been quite busy the last two weeks or so, and thus I haven’t had a chance to blog. Heck, I’ve scarcely had a chance to check my e-mail, so I’m using the newfound block of free time I had previously devoted [...]
This time (more-or-less) a year ago I went to a small gathering of PCVs on the beach. I had been at my site for less than a month, and I was near-giddily grateful to meet even a handful of local volunteers who had been ensconced in their villagers longer than I had. Who had known [...]
I’ve now done three Moringa plantings, totaling over 30 new trees augmenting an otherwise dry and largely treeless landscape. Two have been with student health classes at different schools, one was with community health volunteers tasked with overseeing general health and nutrition issues in their villages. It’s something to be proud of, although my kids/vols [...]
Mephaquin is a drug that, when taken once weekly (or a half-dose twice weekly for some), can help to prevent malaria. Peace Corps Volunteers in malaria-endemic regions are required to be on some prophylactic against the disease and for many, this is the first go-to option. It’s great, really; very effective. However, it tends to [...]
I was milling around outside the other day, watering my leftover moringa seedlings, when my neighbor approached me excitedly to ask a question. “You have not met my sister, isn’t it?” “I don’t think so. Why?” “Oh!” The neighbor exclaimed. “She is coming from Machakos next week. You must meet her. She is so fat, [...]
Most of my neighbors only feel the need to own one or two tapes of their favorite songs and play them on repeat endlessly until either a) the tape breaks or b) their mzungu neighbor next door loses her mind from listening to the reggae remix of Celine Dion’s Greatest Hits too many times, causing [...]
I spend a LOT of time complaining about the bugs on my blog – the ten-inch centipedes, the cockroaches the size of Bic lighters, the spiders the size of MY FACE and like to build webs across my bedroom doorway just to make my mornings a little harder. But there are cool bugs, too. Don’t [...]
It takes my rotating fan 21 seconds to make a full 180-degree pass. My Kindle gets excellent internet reception in my sitting room zone, but none in the kitchen area. The bedroom falls somewhere between these two extremes. Cross-stitching needles eventually go dull, even if they’re only used in gauzy fabrics. Avatar is the longest [...]
My weekend was … well. Hm. As far as I know, a multi-day funeral is no one’s idea of a good time. But for a certain segment of the community to see no more constructive an outlet to their grief than to transmogrify it into a force of retaliation against those who they perceived have [...]
In the absence of context, most colloquialisms are murky at best. They defy explanation at first glance, teasing you into further analysis and critical thought until they can intuitively click into place. The following Giriama idiom is no exception: Wet like a death message. Wet? Really? Wet? Was drowning somehow involved? Is the afterlife in [...]
The nursery school kids at one of my schools take advantage of a rare break in the rain to build sandcastles in the schoolyard.
It’s Friday in Watamu, a day on which I rarely have scheduled engagements and am thus content to devote it to things like Peace Corps paperwork and grad school research. On this particular day, though, I feel restless and needy – after watering my Moringa seedlings, I pace the smooth concrete floor of my living [...]
Holy centipede monsters, it’s been a long time since I updated this thing. Oi. A great deal of endless back-to-back travel (with just enough down time in the middle to get me out of The Zone and make it feel like a hassle again) has left me feeling like I spent more time on a [...]
Remember when I showed you a picture of a lovely shaded avenue and warned you that 90% of my area doesn’t look like that? Here’s the rest. Yep … that’s most of my commute. Rocks, sand, and scrubby low-growing vegetation that needs minimal water. But hey, it’s home Anyway, it’s exam week, so I’m running [...]
There was a really interesting article in Foreign Policy about how lifesaving cholera interventions have come from developing countries to the developed world, not the other way around. Pretty timely, given the world water week festivities I’ve been participating in/blogging about (did you notice? Did I tell you? World Water Day was Monday.) I’ve done [...]
Missed part one? Click Here! Missed part two? Click Here! “Holy mother of Moses, Megan, that’s horrible,” you’re thinking to yourself. Too much water washes waste and chemicals into the wells, causing child death and widespread ill health. Not enough water leads to poor hygiene (and accompanying illness), as well as hardship for families who [...]
Need to catch up with Part 1? Click Here. In the last entry, I mentioned two sorts of water problems in my area: not enough and too much. “Not enough” refers to the drought we’re facing following the complete failure of the “shorts rains” and insidious delay of the “long.” Too much … well, in [...]
—————————- ”We shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or any other infectious disease that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking water.” – Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan —————————- When’s the last time you had to think about where you water came from? If it was safe? [...]
Hey ladies and gents, Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. Things have been a little intense here – the end of the term is coming, the rainy season is almost upon us, and I’m up to my eyeballs in things to think about. Also: taxes. (FYI, watch this blog around tax day, and I’ll [...]
More elusive than sasquatch, flightier than a flock of hummingbirds, the Peace Corps Volunteer is rarely captured on film. Taken from a concealed location by a skilled observer, we witness here a 20-something female imparting wisdom to her young. (More specifically, discussing how to prevent and treat intestinal worms with like eight different sections of [...]
In the past week, I’ve gotten over half a dozen blog hits from people who arrived after googling “Is the Peace Corps still necessary/relevant?” or some variation thereof. A lot of it probably stems from either the recent (misguided) Foreign Policy on the subject or the ongoing battle over budget cuts that include a loss [...]
I’m standing before a class of about forty sixth-graders, their laser eyes drilling boreholes into the back of my head while I write on the chalkboard. “Does anyone remember our theme for this term?” A pause. Silence. “Anyone? We talked about it last week. Actually … we talk about it every week. I write it [...]
Photos taken last week at my Dabaso child health outreach. This was the cutest herd of little girls in the Southern hemisphere. I had a hard time getting a good picture because every time I pointed the camera at them, they all froze up and started giggling nervously. Check out the one hamming it up [...]
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