Drunkards, bats, and proposals...Oh my!

Well it's only Wednesday but this week has already been quite interesting...

At about 1 am Monday morning, as I'm sound asleep, I am woken up by the beautiful sounds of a drunk man singing (screaming) at the top of his lungs as he's walking down the road outside my compound. After the chorus he apparently realized he was near my house and decided to start calling for me. As I laid motionless in my bed and hoped that he stayed on the road, he eventually decided I must be sleeping and continued on with his singing and wandered away. Fortunately for me, he was bound and determined to greet me so at shortly after 7 am that morning he came onto our compound (still drunk) and walked right up to my living room window, stared inside, and began calling for me. Again, I stood frozen in my bedroom hoping he would just go away but he was quite persistent and refused to leave until one of the mamas I live with yelled at him to leave. What made the situation even more entertaining was when I arrived at the office a couple hours later, half the people in town already knew about my visitor and informed me they were going to find him and beat him. So not only do I live in Kenya's version of Stillman Valley (because of how quickly word travels), these people are clearly quite protective of their token white girl...and I love it.

Now last night, I was pretty much expecting that drunkard to return to the compound because no one was able to find him that day and tell him to stay away. Sadly, he did not make a return visit but instead I had a small, winged creature who was very fond of my mosquito net pay me a visit. Now this bat was either incredibly fascinated with the net or with tormenting the human underneath the net. Since it was no where to be found this morning, I suppose I'll never know which one it was but I'm leaning more towards tormenting me because after entering my house and making a quick survey of the house, it swan dived directly into my foot and scared me into the fetal position in the center of my bed. After calming my heart rate, I discovered the bat was simply laying on the outside of my net either sleeping or dead after impact with my foot. My solution was to throw a book at it. It fell off and hit the floor and I only heard it's wings flap twice so I assumed it was dead and I would just dispose of it in the morning. But this little guy was resilient and not only was it not dead but it began to favor the area of the mosquito net closest to my head. At one point I'm pretty sure I yelled at it but I was sleep-deprived by this time and I really can't be sure. Regardless, I continued to hit it with the book until it stayed off the net long enough for me to fall asleep. Thankfully, but also unfortunately, it was no where to be found this morning so I'm just crossing my fingers it doesn't make a return visit this evening.

In other news, I was actually able to sit down with my supervisor yesterday and go over the outline I had wrote up for her about proposal writing. We were able to make decent progress with it and I told her I would throw together a rough draft and then we could add more to it before we submit it to the donor organizations according to their individual guidelines. Hooray for baby steps! Sadly, I think there is still a bit of a disconnect in regards to why I'm here but as long as she's happy, I guess I'm happy too. In addition to this minor success, I have also been able to meet or arrange to meet with all the principals of the schools in which I'm doing the library project to put together what types of books they want to order. Side note, I contacted the people from Books for Africa about sending books to their warehouse to be put on the container and they informed me that people will most definitely be able to do that but not until the fundraising phase is complete. So in the meantime, if you have books you want to send to me, just hold on to them until further notice. Also, keep in mind further notice may not be until well into next year and please accept my apologies for jumping the gun a bit on requesting you to send me books.

Finally, next week I will be going on a much needed vacation to the coast with some of the other volunteers for a little under two weeks. We are planning to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on an island near Malindi and then head down to Diani Beach (refer to photos in previous post) for the remainder of our vacation. I'm beyond excited to be away from site for two weeks, with my friends, and not be doing anything Peace Corps-related but I know that by the end of it, I will be more than ready to return to my community. But as a side note, I'm pretty happy that the weather is still so warm here not only because it means no snow but also because I tend to forget it's almost  Christmas and I won't be at home with my family. Just so all of you Werckles and Rippentrops (and all my other families) back in The Valley know, I am missing you very much and it's definitely going to be hard to not be spending Christmas with all of you but remember, it's only two years!

Evening out that farmer's tan

So I know how much you all love to hear me ramble on about this and that, but sorry to break it to you, I don't have much to talk about this week. I just wanted to let everyone at home know that while you were all enjoying multiple inches of snowfall this past weekend (not including Cass), I was lying on the beach trying to convince my legs to absorb at least a small amount of sunlight (those damned Rippentrop genes). The end result ended up being relatively successful with only a small amount of burning.

Another success story from the weekend...Lee Ann was able to convince me to go relatively far out into the ocean. Given that I've only experienced the abusive waves of the Atlantic in Martha's Vinyard and a brief encounter with the shore in Daytona Beach within the last decade, I was a bit weary about going in past my knees. Thankfully, I had Lee Ann there to laugh at me as I had a mild panic attack and eventually made it out as far as her. Sometimes it's shocking I'm 23 years old. But besides the small amounts of incredibly salty water that were accidentally consumed, the Indian Ocean was amazing. The water was so warm and almost clear. I cannot wait to go back. Actually, I may never go anywhere else in the country until my family comes to visit.

Cracker Barrel, I missed your country cookin'.

Well, my first major holiday in Kenya (sans American family) has gone and passed. While it wasn't too bad, minus the amount of delicious food I missed, I have a feeling Christmas may be a bit more difficult. Although, not having to rack up the miles on my precious Pontiac Sunfire driving to a handful of family gatherings was actually quite enjoyable. I spent the weekend with a couple other volunteers and surprisingly, we cooked mostly Kenyan food. Our Thanksgiving dinner was nothing compared to the one cooked at Jill's house which included a freshly killed, stuffed, and cooked turkey and other homemade American side dishes, but it was still delicious. Lee Ann kicked butt two days in a row making chapati, with the help of her devastatingly handsome assistant, Louis.  In addition, she made us fudge two days in a row. Glorious. I pretty much just stood around looking good and waiting for Lee Ann to tell me which vegetable to chop. I was also the self-designated dish washer since I wasn't helping with the cooking.

We stayed at DaMon's place which is located in the Taita Hills in Coast Province. It's absolutely gorgeous there. Everything is green and there are flowing rivers and waterfalls in every direction. I took a handful of photos on a hike we went on one afternoon but due to a problem with the internet connection recently, I won't be able to post them until I am in a bigger town/city with 3G coverage. But just take my word for it, it's awesome.

Speaking of awesome. I've noticed through recent status updates on good ole facebook that I seem to be abusing that word. I think it's time to start looking for another word from the 80's to use as a sentence enhancer. Yes, a sentence-enhancer. Much better than an adjective.

Work wise, I was able to discuss different funding options with my supervisor, finally. She claims we already have proposals written and it's just a matter of some minor editing and then we can send them off. Great. Now I wonder if I'll get said proposals sometime this week... In addition, I'm becoming the annoying mzungu who sends multiple e-mails in a week and also makes at least one to two phone calls a week to the same person/place with hopes of getting a response in a decent amount of time. Just so you know, this isn't working very well but I'm going to continue to be annoying whether they like it or not. Annoying is practically second nature to me so they really have no idea what they're in for.

Marking my Territory

So I realize it's been a while. I apologize. I'm just so darn busy reading books and watching movies I can't seem to find the time to write on my blog . But anywho, this week was relatively eventful.
 
Quick recap:

1. Spent a ridiculous amount of time in the office getting angry with my internet connection.
2. Finished the third season of Friday Night Lights and as a result, I'm now alternating living as a 23 year-old in Peace Corps Kenya and a 13 year-old teenage girl with completely unrealistic crushes on two of the main actors on that show.
3. Got really sun burnt on the right side of my body and mildly sun burnt on the left side.
4. Re-taught myself how to jump rope.
5. Finally called embassies and other large, slightly generous organizations to see if they would accept proposals for funding for my organization. Got one yes, one no, two no answers, one voicemail, and a partridge in a pear tree.
6. Called an organization called SACDEP to see if they could come talk to my community about how to better their already existing greenhouse and fish ponds. Still waiting for the call back I was supposed to receive yesterday.
7. Beat my high scores for every level of difficultly in Snake on my phone.
8. Made a new Kenyan friend that is actually my age.
9. Got the leaks in my roof fixed and some cement poured in front of my door to close off the gap where small (and not so small) reptiles and insects enter.
10. Carved my initials in the wet cement.

Phew. This week was a doozy.

But most exciting part (no, not my outstanding Snake skills) is that I made a new friend. Unfortunately she doesn't live in my village but rather in Nairobi. She's my counterpart's sister's friend's daughter (did you follow that one?). Her mom and dad are missionaries for Kenya but they are Kenyan. They lived on and off in California and Kenya for many years but they haven't been back to the states in a while. Her English is incredible. I can speak at a normal speed and like a (somewhat) normal person with her and that's awesome. Remember, it's the little things that make me happy these days.

I've finally decided that I will be doing something for Thanksgiving. Planning on heading to another volunteer's house for the weekend. Thanksgiving dinner won't even be close to what I'm used to in the states but at least I'll be with some fellow Americans. I will be missing Thanksgiving breakfast at Cracker Barrel though and that bums me out quite a bit, surprisingly enough. Gotta love that country cookin' and the Bosecker boys struggling through their day after Snakesgiving. I love my family.

In other news, I'm still working with the other girls to finalize the library project. Hoping to get it up on the website before Christmas to try and get people to donate while they're still in the giving mood. We plan to meet again in a little less than a month and iron out all the details (hopefully). Twice this week I secretly disposed of the goat meat on my dinner plate to first, a four year old seated next to me and second, to the cat. We never have meat at the house so I'm just banking on that being a rare event. My stealth skills are steadily improving. The greenhouse is almost ready for it's first harvest! I'm pretty excited about that and I've already declared I will be a regular customer. Can't wait to eat tomatoes like it's my job. Also, there's a hole in one of the couches at the main house that the cats climb in and out of and the other day one of the cats climbed in there and gave birth to a litter. I think there's only two or three kittens but that's just guessing by the meowing because the mama cat hasn't brought them out yet. I'm totally taking one.

Finally, to my family, I miss and love you all. This time of year is definitely going to be the hardest but we made it through the 4th of July and Halloween just fine, so Thanksgiving and Christmas should be a piece of cake.....right? :( I'll be thinking of all of you and incredibly jealous of the delicious foods you are eating. I can't even bring myself to think of Sara's ham at Christmas. It almost brings me to tears. I missed it last year so that will make it three years in a row. Pretty sure I'm going to need my own personal ham my first Christmas back. I'll be so used to gaining weight at that point I won't have any shame in eating an entire ham. Again, love and miss you all and I think of you all every day.

But let's end this on a happy note... Dad, this one's for you.

I'm so three-thousand and eight.
You so two-thousand and late.
I got that boom boom boom.
That future boom boom boom.

It's the little things.

I absolutely love it here. Overwhelming heat, language barrier, constant heckling, and all. Two years of all of that and more and I may not love it as much as I do now but either way, I'm pretty content with my decision.

Andrea and I went into Nairobi last week to do some work. Meaning I had to get a letter from Peace Corps to send to my student loan company. Spent an arm and a leg DHL-ing it to Texas but hopefully that satisfies them so I can defer it for the two years I'm here. Aside from that, Andrea blew out her flip flop in the middle of downtown Nairobi so she bought some replacement flip flops that most Kenyans wear as shower shoes. Needless to say, she felt as though every Kenyan was staring at her feet (which they probably were) so we quickly found her a shoe repair guy and an hour later all was well again. From there we went to a place called the Kenya Book Foundation which was quite an adventure to find. We were told this place was on the basement level of the building we went into but really it was in a parallel universe through a maze of dimly light hallways, parking garages, and eight foot tall stacks of office furniture from the 1970's. When we finally found the place it was mainly (entirely) textbooks for all grade levels but no novels. So while it wasn't a complete waste of time, it wasn't all we had hoped it to be. But the iced coffee, chicken pita, ice cream brownie cookie sundae, and Mountain Dew at the movie theatre (!!!!) were all I expected them to be and more.

The next day we began our journey to Jill's for the weekend. It's incredible that she and Clare live in the same province as Andrea and me because their part of Eastern is almost entirely green while ours portion is incredibly brown. On the drive up we saw fields upon fields of rice paddies and banana trees in every direction. Unfortunately, we couldn't see Mt. Kenya but I've got a little less that two years so I'll see it eventually. Jill lives in a town called Maua (Ma-ooo-a) which isn't exactly the most pleasant place to visit. There is an overwhelming number of men in the town and very few of them have anything nice to say. On top of that, there is a large number of boys ageing from about 7 to 13 who walk around huffing glue all day and when you walk along the streets they run up to you and ask you for money while they hold their bottle of glue in their hand. Thankfully Jill lives on a Methodist hospital compound and once you walk through the gates it's like a completely different world where everyone is nice and no one bothers you. And Jill's apartment is fantastic but the best part is the kitchen which has a fridge, stove, and oven and is where we spent a good majority of our weekend. On the menu was BBQ meatballs, baked potatoes, peanut butter cookies, banana pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, vegetarian chili, butternut squash au gratin, brownies, stuffed bell peppers, and some more baked potatoes. Not to mention cold milk to go with the cookies and brownies. We also made ice cubes which Andrea almost cried over (it's the little things that make us happy).

We stayed for one day longer than we had originally planned because we went and met up with an education volunteer who lives nearby. His name is Matt and he is working on starting a library for the school he works at and asked if we would come help him sort through the boxes and boxes of books he got. Since I am interested in do the same I thought it would be a great opportunity to pick his brain about the logistics of the whole ordeal. This is where I learned almost everything there is to know about an organization called Books for Africa. It's pretty awesome really. What they do is pack a huge shipping container full of books, throw it on a boat, and ship it this way. All of the books are donated and the only input of money that is required is the shipping costs. Now that number is a bit high but Matt did this project with three other volunteers and between all of them, their communities, and friends and family back home, they were able to make the amount needed. Clare and I are going to team up and try and do this. We're hoping to enlist one or two other volunteers from our class who either live on a school compound like Clare does or are involving themselves with the schools like myself. Now I realize I've already sent out a request to all of my readers to start gathering books to possibly send my Mom's way BUT with this new development I don't know if I'll be having you do that. Instead Matt informed us that there was a large amount of empty space in the container when it arrived and said that Books for Africa allows you to ship items to them to be put in the container. So once we get the ball rolling on this project any of you that were planning on sending books can just send them directly to their company and they will thrown them in the container and they will all get here at once. I'm really excited about this and I have yet to talk with the principal about everything but I've discussed it with my supervisor and she thought it was a great idea.

Speaking of my supervisor...SHE'S ALIVE! And talking to me again! Wednesday was Kenya's independence day. It was previously called Kenyatta Day but the new constitution changed the name of it to MashujaaMashujaa Day with her on Wednesday where my DO, chief, and some other big-wigs were in attendance. Of course, in typical Kenyan fashion, they had me get up and introduce myself to the crowd. My chief prefaced my introduction with about five minutes of talking about me which only increased my anxiety but I finally got up there, rambled off my name, where I was from, etc. and then quickly returned to my seat. Aside from my brief moment of humiliation, overall, the day was pretty cool. It was no 4th of July but still pretty neat to see how they celebrate their independence (and I got free lunch!).

I met up with my supervisor again the next day and even though we just sat in the office all day, I'd still call it a success. I looked up places we could send proposals to and we had quite a few good talks. Highlight of the day was when one of the village crazy men tried to steal our office's broom so my supervisor told him to take her phone to go have it charged and when he walked towards her to get it she stood up and he turned around, dropped the broom, and ran away in fear. Pretty awesome. She's got some serious authority in my village and many of the areas around it.

Most exciting part of the week though was it rained yesterday. A lot. It started raining around 5pm and didn't stop until the early hours of the morning. The rain on my tin roof sounds slightly like there's a hurricane outside but I loved it. Although, I quickly realized that my roof has more than a few leaks and I may need to invest in a couple more buckets before the rainy season is in full swing. Downside to the rain is that when I opened my door this morning there was about a billion ants marching in a line around the perimeter of my house. They weren't entering my house, thankfully, but no matter how many times I've swept them away, they still return. Upside to the rain was I was able to walk into town today without getting my feet covered in dust. Remember, it's the little things.

Well, here were are again with not much to discuss.

It's still been pretty slow moving since I've gotten back to site. And I mean slow moving in every way possible. The temperature has increased by about 20 degrees since before IST so now I be sure to take my time when I walk into town or anywhere for that matter. It's really the Kenyan way to walk incredibly slow so no one judges me for moving at a snail's pace. In addition to the heat that rolls in around 10am and sticks around until about 10pm, the sun seems to be a bit more harsh than I remember. It doesn't take any longer than 10 minutes in direct sunlight for me to notice substantial progress on my farmer's tan and an increase in the number of freckles on my face. Honestly though, I thank the Lord that I'm semi-required to wear skirts every day. It's like environmentally friendly air conditioning.

Mango season is right around the corner. 

 Still have yet to sit down in a meeting with my supervisor and counterpart to discuss what the h-e-double hockey sticks I'm supposed to be doing right now. I've tried telling my supervisor I would like to meet with her on more than one occasion but she always seems to be doing something out in the field or needing me to type up something for her like I'm her personal secretary. Regardless, I'm trying to keep myself busy. I visited one of the secondary schools in the next town over, Kakuswi, and spoke with the principal there. He's slowly becoming one of my favorite people in this area. I talked with him about teaching a class on life skills and picked up the text book from him so I could look it over and also discussed teaching a computer course. He was thrilled that I was willing to do this. I was thrilled at the thought of having something to do one or two days out of the week so all in all, it was a good day for the both of us. I also threw it in there that a lot of the adults in my town, including my supervisor and counterpart, are very interested in learning how to use a computer and was wondering if I could start a class for them sometime when the computer lab was available. He also thought this was an excellent idea and agreed to allow me to do this and also to let the adults do this free of charge. He then told me I was now one of the staff and they were going to make a spot for me in the time table. Then he took me into the teachers' lounge and told me to sit and have tea with the teachers and have them designate a desk for me. Due to my love of Kenyan tea, I was more than happy to stay and chat with the teachers although it's becoming increasingly more difficult to slurp down a scalding hot cup of tea when it's 90 degrees outside. On a previous visit to this school, I told the principal and a couple of the teachers that I studied Biology and Psychology in college, so they also want me to help teach Biology but I'm thinking I'm going to try and get out of that one. I'm happy to teach the life skills and computer classes because they don't exist yet so I'll be the one making up the syllabus, lesson plans, etc. whereas if I was to assist in teaching Biology, that wouldn't be the case and I think I might end up pulling my hair out.

My two favorite ladies on the compound, (from left) Stella and Gladys. 

Another thing the principal and my counterpart, who's the chairman of the PTA at this school, discussed with me is that they would like to start a school library. The principal is asking every PTA member to donate at least one novel that they have lying around. Naturally, they asked me if I had any books I would be willing to donate. Unfortunately, I don't think any of my books would 1) interest a Kenyan high school student and 2) be at a reading level suitable for a high school student who's first language isn't English. But I would also like to see Kenyans read for leisure more often and it's better to have them start now while they are in school rather than expect them to pick it up on their own after they're done. So, I'm going to Nairobi this Thursday to visit the Kenya Book Foundation. Supposedly they have many books to look through and they sell them for a pretty low rate. I mainly just want to go and see what they have to offer and how the school would go about registering with them. Hopefully it's a trip well worth the money I'll be paying for travel, food, etc. In addition, I've sent an e-mail to the superintendent of good ole Meridian C.U.S.D. #223 to see if he can perhaps put the word out there and possibly throw together a care package of old books from any of the schools or libraries in the district to send to the school. Which brings me to my next point, I'm willing to accept any donations of even just one old novel that would be suitable for a high-school aged student or younger. The book doesn't have to be in mint condition, by any means, but having all of its pages and covers intact would be greatly appreciated. If this is something you would be willing to do, please shoot me an e-mail at ljrippe@gmail.com first because if I get enough offers to help, I'll just have them sent to my wonderful Mom's house and then her and I can work out the details on shipping (hope that's OK, Mom!).

How people in my community get water.  

This last Sunday I moseyed on over to Andrea's side of the river for the day. Neither of us had anything going on so I figured I'd pay her a well-deserved visit since she's always coming my way. I got all tourist-y on my walk over there and took a handful of pictures until my camera died and once I arrived she handed me quite possibly the greatest thing anyone has ever given me since I arrived in Kenya. A plate full of no bake cookies and a glass of milk. I savored every bite and then wept slightly when there was nothing but crumbs left on the plate. On our stroll through the bush over to her supervisors house we were initially greeted/yelled at by a man who could clearly see us because he was yelling "mzungu" over and over but we could not see him at all and then shortly thereafter we were not so pleasantly surprised to run into a 3 foot long snake. In traditional American way, we stopped dead in our tracks, screamed, grabbed onto each other, and then quickly walked/ran away. In traditional snake way, immediately upon realizing it was not alone it slithered away into the bush before we were even done shrieking. Upon arriving at our destination, we found her supervisor's husband at the gate of the compound explaining that he heard us scream and thought we were in trouble so he was about to come save us. Being the smart cookies we are, Andrea and I both carried a stick with us on our walk home as a weapon of defense against any other reptiles that we might encounter. Thankfully, we made it home without having to use them.

On my way to Andrea's...

As I said before, I'm heading back into Nairobi on Thursday to run some errands (nothing like taking a 3+ hour bus ride and booking a hotel room solely to run errands) but on Friday, Andrea and I are heading up to the other part of Eastern Province where our friends Jill and Clare live to spend the weekend with them. It's another 5 hour bus ride to Jill's but she's got a posh apartment complete with stove and refrigerator so I'm willing to make the trip if I get to have cold beverages all weekend.

Back at site...

…and feeling a bit out of sorts. After making a short pit stop in Machakos for a bit after leaving Nairobi, I returned to site earlier this week. It’s been a rough couple days back. Speaking real English for two weeks did absolutely nothing for my Kikamba and my community is making me very aware that I’ve forgotten a great deal of it over that short amount of time. On top of that, I haven’t seen or talked to my supervisor since I’ve returned and my counterpart is MIA more often than not. And the icing on the cake is, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Before IST I was constantly trying to put together information for my needs assessment and while I realize I still have plenty of information to gather on those matters, I’m quickly realizing it’s a little hard to find my footing and get back on track.

Oh yes, Nairobi. That place I went on and on about for blog post after blog post. Aside from the formal training, I had a blast. Not to say training wasn’t interesting…well, no, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Training was incredibly boring and out of 9 full days of it, I can safely say 2 ½ of those days actually presented useful information. It’s not that Peace Corps didn’t try, because they did. Each and every day was packed with speakers from some organization or field trips to places in and outside of the city but it’s the type of training that was endured that was most painful. Most/all of the speakers came in with a very well thought out, formal lecture on what their organization does and some of them even attempted to involve us in activities in order to learn specific things. Unfortunately for them, this isn’t what we were expecting or wanted. The majority of these activities involved teaching us things we already learned during our two months of training and the lectures were more often than not incredibly dry and hard to pay attention to for longer than 10 minutes. There was a glimmer of hope when we told one of the organizations that we really wanted an informal discussion on specific and culturally appropriate ways to talk to women and girls about sex and STIs. Everything was going great and then after lunch break they went right back into having us diagram the causes and results of teenage pregnancy on a problem tree. Not helpful. So this is how the days went. But the nights and the weekends, well they were the best part.

There were so many pizzas, sushi rolls, burritos, toasted sandwiches, iced coffees, and drinks in combination with good conversations and great company during those nights and weekends. The creative people in our training class got together and organized a toga party and a mock-prom, complete with a prom king and queen, during those two weeks. It’s difficult to put into words exactly how much fun it was to be with all of those people again and also sad to think that it may be the last time I see some of them before we end our service in two years. Regardless, plans have been put into motion for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. There’s discussion of renting out a house on an island off the coast for New Years…that would pretty much top any and all previous New Years celebrations I’ve attended.

In other news, I received a glorious package from my Mom, Michael, and Kait on Wednesday. Hot Cheetos, Chili Cheese Fritos, Cherry Sours, granola bars, Clif bars, Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal, clothes, nail polish, makeup, and pictures from when Kait and I were youngins. I felt as though it were Christmas in September. I’m taking extreme caution to ration my binges as I need this to last me for some time but surprisingly enough, I’ve ate more of the Clif bars than anything else. Most likely because I haven’t gotten a decent amount of protein in my diet since I left the states. Also, when I got back to site, my counterpart informed me that the electricity at the main house on the compound was disconnected at some point last week and they were working with the power company to get it turned back on. On top of that, he failed to mention till 8:30pm on Wednesday that “they” (whoever they is) announced the entire district would be without power for all of Thursday. So needless to say, my phone died around 9am Thursday and I restricted my time on my computer to the bare minimum so as I could watch an episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” before I went to bed last night. Thankfully, power was back on in town today (still not at the main house) so I paid a whole 10 shillings (that’s 8 cents) to get my phone charged and I’m currently sitting in our CBO’s office charging my computer. I may be able to watch two episodes of Sunny tonight.

As a final note, at IST I was able to swap out some of the books I had read for books from other volunteers (mostly my friend Clare) and one of the books I got was The Art of Racing in the Rain. Now we sold this book for months while I worked at Starbucks and even though there’s a cute dog on the cover, I never thought to pick it up and read it. But it rained here Wednesday morning so I cracked it open…and I read the entire book before 5pm. Now, I’m a dog/animal lover, we all know that but this book was like reading our late golden retriever’s mind. I laughed. I cried. It was a great book and if you have some free time on your hands (if you’re anything like me you’ll only need one rainy day), I highly suggest reading this book, especially if you are an avid animal lover. And yes, it’s ok to cry.

Dear Nairobi, I can't wait to see you.

Well to start things off, let me extend my apologies for not writing a post last week. I'm sure you were all on the edge of your seat anticipating a new post and then I let you down. But as I suspected, last week did go as planned. Not even close.
So let's start at the beginning and I'll try not to ramble on. At the start of last week, I sat down with my supervisor and said, 'Ok. I've got two weeks before I go to Nairobi for two weeks. Let's make a work plan." She agreed and we laid out a schedule for the next two weeks. I went home that day so excited and thinking there was a slight chance I may actually gather a substantial amount of data before I went off to IST. So Tuesday, well, Tuesday was great. I went to the group I was supposed to go to. Got all the information I needed from them and then interviewed a married couple. I was so pleased. But then my supervisor called and said that they needed me to attend a meeting at her house the next morning (not in the work plan) in order to help them type up some things that needed to be e-mailed to some man, who was unbeknownst to me, by the end of the day. Now I was supposed to go meet the District Education and Social Service officers in a town called Mbumbuni (boom-boon-i). I simply needed to do a meet and greet which would've taken a whole hour out of everyones day. But instead, I sat at my supervisors house while everyone spoke/yelled in Kikamba to each other for three hours and then they handed me the papers to go type. Rather than boring you with the mundane details, I'll just say that I didn't get home that night until about 5pm and I had left my house at 9am. Oh and I probably did a total of 3 hours of work.

Later, I received a call from Andrea saying that we (myself, her, and another volunteer) were going to be learning Kikamba from Friday through Sunday. Oh, and everyone was going to be staying at my house. Great. Now, on Thursday I was supposed to go meet with another group to get some info from them but my counterpart, who was supposed to take me, informed me the night before that he was going to Nairobi for the day. At this point I threw the rest of the work plan for that week out the window. I decided I would go meet Andrea in a nearby "bigger" town to pick up a mattress for my house guest who was arriving that evening and some actual food. The other volunteer, Brian, arrived that night and given that it's a common trend for Peace Corps Volunteers to be a bit on the strange side, there were many awkward silences between him and I for the remainder of the evening. So this language training, while incredibly helpful, threw a bit of a wrench into my work plan because instead of going from Friday through Sunday, it was actually scheduled to go from Friday through Tuesday. Which meant Monday and Tuesday of this week were also not going to go as planned.

Finally picked up some speed on Wednesday though. I again guilt-tripped my counterpart into escorting me to one of the schools in town so I could talk to the principal. He took me there, introduced me to the principal of the secondary school and then hit the road. The school I visited is called Yangua (yan-goo-a). There's a pre-school, primary school, a secondary school (or high school), and a polytechnic school (where you learn specific trades like tailoring and dress-making) all on the same compound and there's only enough classrooms so that each grade has one room. I didn't get an opportunity to visit the polytechnic this time around but I'm hoping after IST I'll be able to meet with some of the staff from there. The secondary school just opened last year and currently only enrolls Form 1 and Form 2 students (9th and 10th grade). The Form 3 and Form 4 student attend school in the next town over called Kakuswi (ka-ku-see) which I visited after I left Yangua. Kakuswi also has a pre-school, primary, and secondary within the same compound but they seem to be a bit more developed, so to speak, than Yangua. I'm hoping that I will be able to do something in both of these schools throughout my two years here because not one of them, out of four different schools, has HIV/AIDS education. The principal of Yangua Primary and another primary school teacher were trained on guidance and counseling for the orphans enrolled at the school and they occasionally work together with my CBO to do HIV/AIDS awareness within the community but that's as close to HIV/AIDS education as I got. The principal of Kakuswi Secondary was very interested in having the students take a life skills course which teaches them about water, sanitation, hygiene, and HIV/AIDS but he doesn't have a teacher to teach the course so that may be an opportunity for me in the near future. Kakuswi also has a computer lab and he really wants the students to become more proficient in typing and I said that many people within the community also want to learn how to use a computer so there may be a project there too.

Thursday and Friday were a bit mundane. I met with the District Public Health officer on Thursday. Sat in on a meeting with their Comprehensive Care Clinic which focuses on those living with HIV/AIDS in the community which was actually quite interesting since I am here for Public Health and all. But after that I just headed back home and didn't do much of anything. Friday I went to a meeting for a couple minutes in the morning. The group members tried to give me an entire fish. I may or may not have freaked out a little. They all laughed and they took the fish back and brought me an avocado. This I could handle. Then I went into the office, attempted (and failed) to write my CNA, talked about what foods we grow in America with our project manager. Ate some food and then went home.

Speaking of the fish, I forgot to mention what happened late afternoon on Tuesday. Some of the ladies from one of our CBO's groups came to my house and every single one of them brought me some form of food, including a live chicken and a foot and a half long papaya. Again, they tried to hand me the chicken, who was tied up, I put out my hands and then quickly pulled them back, freaked out a little, and then they laughed and said they would hold onto it for a bit. Then I made too strong of tea and completely butchered a loaf of bread as I attempted, and failed, to slice it with a relatively dull knife. I'm almost positive I could've done a better job had I just used a butter knife. After they left I took inventory of what they brought me and I had: 1 live chicken, 2.5 kgs (5 lbs) of rice, 4 papayas (1 of which was that giant one), more peas (some in the pods, some out of the pods) than I knew what to do with, and 9 eggs. Literally, the only things I ate were the papayas and the eggs. The rest of the stuff I ended up giving to the mamas on my compound. I realize I could've kept the rice for a rainy day or for when I have no food but these women feed me (most of the time against my will) almost every day so I like to give them things like this every once in a while. The peas would've gone bad before I could have even eaten 1/4 of the amount they brought me so I just got rid of those too. Now about this chicken. I'm apparently supposed to be the one to slaughter it, de-feather it, and cook it. I'm incredibly surprised that they actually seem to think I could do any of those things since they all think I need to sit down as soon as I arrive somewhere because the 10 feet I walked must have really tired me out. Just in case you were wondering, it's still alive and I've offered to buy all the fixings to make a delicious meal if they help me with making it and mainly, killing the chicken.

Tomorrow I finally head into Nairobi for IST. I'm beyond excited to see all my friends and eat delicious food (PIZZA!). Not so excited about the training but I will make do. While I'm at IST I turn two months old meaning I will have been an official volunteer for two months and been in Kenya for four months! Crazy! Sorry, no pictures this time around because my camera has been out of battery for the past week but I did take some good ones of the kids today so I will be sure to upload those on my next post.

PB & J, buttered noodles, and Ramen

First things first, I sadly had to change the background of my blog because I unknowingly copied my friend Porter's blog, to a tee, so since he made his first, I opted to change mine. Also, the photos in this post are simply there because I promised photos. They have no relation to the written content of the post.

In comparison with the last two weeks, this one was incredibly productive. Needless to say, accomplishing something has left me quite pleased with myself and gives me hope that I will actually be able to accomplish something in my two years here. Unfortunately, I can only assume that this coming week will be a bit of a let down and I will hit another road block. But in the famous words of Chumbawamba, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down." ... oh nostalgia. You know I've been practically alone in Kenya for over a month when I begin quoting songs from fifth grade.

If you read the post about the greenhouse, then this photo speaks for itself.

Now when I say this week was productive, I mean Tuesday and Thursday of this week were productive. I honestly cannot remember what I did on Monday so clearly, it's irrelevant. Wednesday my counterpart and half his family (also half my compound) when to a funeral for the entire day. I didn't have enough water to wash my clothes. My phone was dead and my laptop was trailing close behind and there was no electricity until 8pm so I twiddled my thumbs for a good portion of the day. Mixed in with a little sudoku and some light reading. And Friday was recently declared a national holiday because it was the promulgation day for the new constitution. So everyone was either glued to the TV or radio for approximately 5 hours out of the day.

So now for the "productive" part of my week. I do remember that on Monday I sat down with my supervisor and showed her exactly what I needed to accomplish in these next three weeks before IST and that seemed to help move things along because she picked up her phone, called my counterpart and said I needed to go meet the chief and the District Officer (DO) this week. My counterpart claimed he was unable to take me but he volunteered one of the village elders, who can't speak a word of English, to be my escort. That evening I discussed with my counterpart how Tuesday was going to work and he informed me that he had forgotten to call the woman who was supposed to take me so he would just call her in the morning. Surprise, surprise. So the next morning, I again asked if he had gotten ahold of this woman and he proceeded to tell me her phone was off and he couldn't get through to her. Fantastic. At this point, it can be assumed I was a bit irritated so I simply asked if he would be able to take me later in the week since he had things to do today. He danced around the topic for about five minutes by rambling about absolutely nothing. Finally, I just said I'm going to my house. You can find me there if you figure something out. Twenty minutes later he showed up in different clothes and said, "Let's go." Glorious. I didn't even know I was quilt-tripping him but somehow I did.

Checking out a tree nursery with people from Nairobi and our donor.

We arrived at the chief and DO's office, breifly met with them, then walked next door to the hospital, met with the Public Health Officer (PHO), then walked back past the chief's office and met the commanding officer at the police station, and then strolled down to Tawa Market to stop by the post office and get some lunch. We did all of this in about two and a half hours but I still felt quilty about pulling my counterpart away from whatever it was he had planned for the day, so I bought him lunch. But wait, he was the one who was guilt-tripped into taking me so why did I feel guilty, you ask? Oh because he made me pay for his bus ride there and back so then I felt as though I was really inconveniencing him by having him escort me. Basically, it works both ways. Good to know. While Tuesday was more of a meet and greet, I did get everyones phone numbers and my DO told me to give him a call anytime I needed to get any information, so on Thursday, I did just that. Now my counterpart and supervisor tend to keep me on a pretty short leash and don't like me going places by myself unless it's to Machakos for the day but I told my counterpart I was going to the DO's office and he said, "Ok, see you this evening." So I made my way there, listened to my DO ramble about nonsense for quite some time, sat through a meeting with him and the people from the town social hall, listened to him ramble some more but this time the topics were a bit more interesting, then he took me to lunch, then when we got back I explained to him what I needed and 10 minutes later I was holding the population statistics for the area in my hand. Success! Please cherish this moment as I did because it was the highlight of my week. Actual cold, hard, data, in my hands. It was a glorious feeling. Then I listened to my DO ramble some more and then began my journey back home. As a side note, in the ramblings of my DO, he used the phrase, "They don't just give them away to any Tom, Dick, or Harry" and also reminded me I am in the same country and the Tsavo Maneaters and actually about a two to three hour drive from the Tsavo National Park where these "maneaters" reside. Ultimately, my DO is a pretty cool guy, he just likes to talk a lot which gives me a break because we all know how much I like talking.

From and outsiders POV, I realize you may be wondering how I could call this week successful just because I got population statistics and met a few "big-wigs" in the community. Well all I can tell you is to go back and read over my previous posts and it should all make sense.

My new best friend and biggest enemy.

In other news, I finally got a 100 liter water tank for my house to store water for washing clothes, bathing, and most other activities involving water and last weekend when I was in Machakos I finally purchased a 24 liter container that filters my drinking water so I no longer have to use the PUR packets Peace Corps provided us with. The last two days I've spent basically staring at both of the containers because I don't know what to do with this much water but today I washed all my clothes without having to make any trips to refill my water "can" as I previously did and let me tell you, that was a good feeling. Also, I would like to add that it's incredibly beneficial to my health that I was two weeks out of college before I moved to Kenya because since I moved to site, I have been living off of cereal, peanut butter, and noodles. Recently I acquired some honey so I have been able to switch up the usual PB&J for a PB&H which is a nice change of pace. For dinner I often eat spaghetti coated in butter and garlic which raises my cholesterol and keeps people from invading my personal space due to the stench of garlic seeping out of my pores. But the best part about my Kenyan dinners is the "Ramen" noodles that are here. They are all either from the middle east or Vietnam and they put the Ramen noodles in the U.S. to shame. Last night I dined on some chicken curry flavored noodles. My taste buds were practically dancing they were so pleased. If I ever actually get a kitchen, or what I would call a kitchen here, I think I will react how I did with the water tanks. Just stare for a couple days and then actually start cooking but I will most likely still eat the Ramen noodles a couple times a week.

One week closer to IST and pizza

As hard as it may be for most of you to believe this week was again, rather uneventful. I know, I know. I’m in Kenya. How could it possibly be as I say it is? Well to set the record straight, it’s never boring. It’s just that my CBO hasn’t made a work plan for me since I got here and that was only for the first two weeks. As I mentioned in my last post, all of the people at my CBO are under some pressure in trying to meet an August 25th deadline for about five different projects so I’ve been trying to stay out of their hair and just go where I’m told to for the time being.


On Monday of this week all of the groups came to my counterpart’s house to begin digging the beds for the greenhouse. As they were digging the two foot deep beds with large hoes and shovels and a tool that resembled a pick axe they continued to emphasize how hard they all work and how they were sure I had never seen anyone work this hard. I’ve attempted to explain multiple times, including this day, that people in the U.S. do do manual labor. But the majority of them still believe that everything in the U.S. is carried out by machines and no one ever puts in a hard days work. To make myself feel better I always try explaining this concept at least once before I just give in and laugh along with them. One of the men from the group asked me if I’d ever used one of these tools before and I told him I had used both at one time or another. He laughed and told me it wasn’t possible and that my arms would start bleeding if I tried to work like they do but they wanted to see me try so for their amusement, I showed the man how to work my camera, picked up one of the hoes, he snapped a picture, and then I brought it down on the ground in the same manner they were all doing...but it didn’t matter. I was still doing it wrong and it was incredibly entertaining for all of them. Job well done on my part.

As a side note, and I don’t know if I’ve previously mentioned this fact, but the large majority of clothes that Kenyans (especially those in rural villages) wear is secondhand picked up at markets. This leads to a considerable number of people wearing random t-shirts plastered with NFL and MLB teams, musical artists from Brittany Spears to Eminem, and pretty much anything else that’s ever came out of the U.S. It’s pretty exciting to see that one person wearing a Bears fleece or an Illini t-shirt but the unfortunate part is they have no idea who Forte is or where U of I is located, they just buy the clothes because they are in good condition and they probably like the colors. The reason I’m explaining this is because one of the men digging a bed in the greenhouse was wearing a fantastic ensemble that I must describe. It consisted of a straw cowboy hat, pink sweatpants that were cut-off to be mid shin length, and if that wasn’t good enough, he topped it off with a Depeche Mode t-shirt from their 1988 U.S. tour. While me attempting to use a garden hoe was entertaining for Kenyans, this man’s outfit absolutely made my day, if not my week. Also, if you’re wondering why in the hell he was wearing pink sweatpants it’s because there’s no such thing as gender-related colors here. When I first met my three-month old host brother he was dressed head to toe in a light pink fleece track suit covered in elephants.

I spent a large amount of Wednesday hand-washing my clothes again. I really need to start doing my laundry more often so I don’t have to spend three hours outside in the blistering heat and sun my clothes and more recently, the skin off my knuckles. I try to hide this fact from the people around me because they already think my hands are too delicate to do anything besides write with a pen or pencil.

Thursday was rather exciting in comparison to the rest of the week. Two consultants (still not sure what exactly they were consulting) and a representative from my CBO’s donor came to visit. I was under the impression the meeting was supposed to begin at 9 am but at about 8:45 I was told it wasn’t starting until 10 am. So at 10:!5, my counterpart came and picked me up at my house and we walked into town. We met with my supervisor, the project manager, and a couple other people from my CBO at the office and then they all began running around, cleaning the office, taking things here, bringing things there, all while I just sat and made a bracelet. At 11:30 I said to my supervisor, Wow, they are running late, huh?. She said, Oh no. They aren’t going to be here until 1. We are just preparing. Good to know. When one ‘o’clock finally arrived and our visitors still weren’t there, I was told we were going to go meet them in the field so the eight of us hopped on a matatu and headed out. We finally met up with them and then quickly visited a site where a youth group makes bricks, a tree nursery, one of the toilets that was built from the previously mentioned bricks, a sand dam, and finally a primary school where my CBO had donated two 6,000 liter water tanks. All of these shenanigans took about 3 hours all while the representative from our donor was rushing us from one place to the next. The consultants never even got to see the JIKO that was in the plans. Around 4 pm we all made our way back to the office to discuss the projects we had just seen, some challenges and future plans of the CBO...which was all supposed to be done at 9 am. After the donor’s rep rushed us through that discussion my supervisor twisted their arms into staying for an incredibly late lunch. But my Lord, what a feast they had prepared. Luckily I hadn’t eaten since 8 am (not counting the three cups of tea and bread I ate around noon) so I was able to eat two full plates of food, pleasing my appetite and everyone around me. There was chicken, potatoes, beans, fresh veggies, soup, some mystery meat (didn’t touch that), kale, and the traditional Kenyan dish, ugali. Now, ugali is just corn flour mixed with boiling water until it becomes somewhat of a solid, cake-like consistency. It is eaten with cabbage, meat, kale, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. It really has no flavor whatsoever but when eaten with the right thing, it’s actually not too bad and it sure does fill you up. Needless to say, I wasn’t all that hungry at dinner time but the mama on my compound made chapati, which is like a cross between pita bread, a tortilla, and a pancake, and I can never say no to chapati, so I ate again. When I finally rolled myself into bed I was pretty positive I would never eat again but I’m always surprising myself.

Today was a slow day. Not much to do and my counterpart disappeared bright and early to go do some odd jobs around town and his house. I washed a couple articles of clothing. Struggled through my bed sheets again. Washed my dishes and bathed all before 11 am. I finished my third book in four weeks. First I read, Life of Pi, then The Other Boston Busing Story, and just closed the cover on Everything is Illuminated. All of which were excellent books and I plan to start my fourth this evening. I’m in direct competition with my friend Porter who has already finished six and a half books since he got to site. Not sure how he did it but I’m trying to convince him to go outside and do get distracted by something so I can surpass his book count. It doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Machakos for the day to spend some time with Andrea and another girl, Julie. Haven’t seen Julie since we left Nairobi a month ago so it will be nice to spend time with her and hear all about her site. On top of that, I get to eat hot dogs and drink cold pop, which may not sound exciting to any of you but it’s like Christmas in August for me.

Also, I don't have enough credit on my modem to post pictures this time around. I know, I know. I promised I would try harder but I'll get more airtime tomorrow in Machakos and try to come back and edit this post with pictures. Thank you for your patience.

Over the river and through the Kenyan bush...

This week turned out to be relatively uneventful when comparing it to the two previous weeks but nonetheless, it was an adventure. I began my week by visiting the eighth and final group that is affiliated with my CBO. Not all of them were able to attend but those that did were, as usual, incredibly welcoming. They gave me multiple cups of tea and a delicious lunch as well. Everyone is still trying with all their might to make me increase (gain weight) but I keep telling them I physically cannot eat the amount of food they put in front of me. They always laugh at my inability to eat monstrous servings and then hand me another plate to dish up the amount I want. Tuesday I attended a meeting at my CBO with all of the members of the project implementation committee (PIC). At this meeting I sat and listened while everyone else discussed the progress we have made as an organization, how much money we have left from our donor, and what we plan to do with this money over the next couple months. They ever-so-kindly held the meeting in English, even though it was difficult for some of them, solely so I would know what was going on.

Wednesday turned out a little differently than I expected but karibu (welcome to) Kenya. There wasn't anything in the work plan for me that day, so I headed to the office with my laptop and a stack of Peace Corps manuals to try and lay out an outline of my Community Needs Assessment (CNA) that is due during IST (disclaimer: in case you haven't noticed, Peace Corps loves acronyms). My supervisor and the project manager were in the office so I chatted with them for a bit,shortly thereafter my supervisor left, and then I got to work. Around noon, my supervisor returned and the first thing she said to me was, "Mutheu, can we go?" So, without any knowledge of where we were going, I said sure and we went. I found out we were going to attend a women's baraza about 10km (about 6 miles) down the road that was being thrown by the Africa Brotherhood Church (ABC). A baraza is basically just a term for a gathering where a specific topic is often discussed or brought to attention. For example, some of the other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) attended a baraza when they got to their sites in order to help them meet the people of the community (i.e. chief, district officer, etc.). This women's baraza was being held to not only raise money for the different ABC churches located in the surrounding communities but also to provide HIV/AIDS awareness. Now, I was expecting a large turnout because I know that there are many ABC churches in the area but I wasn't quite prepared for the 300+ women and girls of all ages that were in attendance. It's quite surprising how quickly word travels that there was a white person there because within twenty or so minutes of my arrival, every other person was turning around to look at me. We stayed until about 4pm and then got back on the matatu to head home.



Thursday was a perfect example of how most meetings go in Kenya. I don't believe I've explained the concept of "Kenyan time" but it's definitely something that's going to take some getting used to. Americans function on monochronic time. For example, if a meeting starts at 8am, you better get there by 8am because it's going to start then. Kenyans function on polychronic time. Here, if a meeting starts at 8am, that gives you about a two to three hour window to finish your household chores and then begin your often hour-long walk to the site of the meeting so you arrive somewhere around 11am. So Thursday, the meeting was scheduled to begin at 9am at my counterparts house. Two members from each of the eight groups (so sixteen people), my supervisor, my CBO's project manager, and the officer for the Ministry of Agriculture were supposed to attend so everyone could learn how to set up and care for the greenhouse that is being built as one of my CBO's projects. My counterpart and I waited until 10am til the first person showed up, then at 11am two more people, 11:30 one more, then my supervisor and the Agriculture officer, then the project manager and around 12:30, we began the meeting. I learned all about how deep to dig the beds, how many liters of water the plants will take at different stages of growth, etc. and then I headed home around 4. The greenhouse is going to be growing tomatoes as it's first crop (they learned about the importance of crop rotation too so in a couple years they will grow something different). By building the greenhouse, not only will the groups be able to grow tomatoes year around and in abundance but it will also allow for a large amount of income to be generated for the group members. This coming Tuesday the frame is scheduled to be covered in a UV-treated, plastic "tarp" and soon after the tomato seedlings will be transplanted into the greenhouse and growing will commence. I am very excited to see the turn-out and to have so many fresh tomatoes at my fingertips!

Finally, the weekend arrived. Friday I hopped on the matatu around 9am and went to a town called Masii (Ma-see) to meet with Andrea (one of the other PCVs near me) so we could pick up our bicycles. The man from an organization called World Bicycle Relief was supposed to meet us there around 12:30pm to deliver the bikes we had ordered and then Andrea and I were planning on putting them on a matatu and then heading home. Once the "bike guy" got to Masii he overheard Andrea and I discussing our plans to put them on matatus and he informed us he thought this was a home delivery and he didn't realize we were going to have to put them on the bus to get them home. We explained our logic in having him meet us in Masii (i.e. it's along a paved road, Andrea and I live on opposite sides of a river, etc.) but he still kept saying he was under the impression he was doing a "home delivery." So, picking up on his concern for our well-being, we proceeded to ask him if he could give us and our bikes a ride to Tawa and then we would just ride the 7km (4.3 miles) back to my site from there. He kindly agreed to do this for us and gave us a ride in his nice, new, Ford truck (yes, it was a Ford and I was just as shocked as all of you are and quickly complimented him on it) to Tawa. On the ride back to my site, Andrea and I served as top-notch entertainment for every Kenyan along the way. In Kenya, people don't learn how to ride bikes at a young age because the bikes that are available here are more often than not too tall of a frame for most adults to ride, especially women. And as if two white, American girls don't attract enough attention in Kenya, throw them on bicycles and you should've see how many children and adults flocked to the side of the road and/or out of their shops to watch us ride by.

Unfortunately, Andrea and I didn't exactly think through how she was going to get home once we got to my site. By the time we got back it was close to 3:30pm so we just accepted that we were going to have a sleepover that night. What we weren't expecting was my "family" to practically kidnap her until Sunday after church. Since neither of us knew how to get her home by foot or bicycle, we were kind of trapped in my village for all of Saturday. Luckily, we were able to make the most of our time and I took her on a tour of my village, we bought some fresh vegetables and made a delicious feast when we returned home, and then relaxed and watched a movie on my computer. Today after church (and lunch) my counterpart finally decided to show us the way to Andrea's house and we all three set off on our bikes. Now, I haven't rode a bike in quite some time but let me just say, riding one on the dirt/sand roads here in Kenya isn't exactly the best way to get your sea legs back. On top of that, we had to cross the Thwake "river" which right now is practically dry so we can just walk across it but there is water within digging distance below the sand so it's a bit of a struggle to walk and push a bike through. On the bright side, Andrea and I discovered we are actually quite close to each other. We are about 3km, or a 30-minute bike ride, away from each other and now that we know the way we will be able to visit one another much more often. But as this blog post's title states, it is over a river and through the bush but again, karibu Kenya.
 
Side note, I tried to upload pictures but it didn't work out very well (as you can see) but in next post I will try harder.

As promised, a bit more detail.

I realized that in my first blog post I recapped the last two and a half months here but I didn't really say what I have been doing on a day-to-day basis or too much about my site which is where I will be living for the next two years. Sorry if I repeat things...my memory is failing me in my old age.


So, let's start with my site...

I know I already mentioned that I'm located in the midst of a bit of a mountain range but I feel the need to emphasize this fact. It's incredibly beautiful to see the green, tree-covered hills in every direction whenever I step outside but again and at the same time it's a complete and total mind trip being that I am from northern Illinois where everything is flat and covered in corn and soybeans. I don't know if it will ever get old and I'm positive I will have at least 100 pictures of the same mountain from different directions and distances before my time here comes to an end.

The infamous hill that I already have 20 pictures of.

My town is a quaint little place that consists of a little over twenty small shops (in the local language they are called dukas), bars, butchers, hotels, my CBO, salons/barbershops, and a welder. I think my CBO is the only actual business located in my town which makes it pretty easy when the locals ask me where I am working because they have all heard of it. Unfortunately, my town does not have a weekly market but there are two towns located about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) in opposite directions from mine that do. I haven't gotten a chance to visit them yet because my CBO has been keeping me very busy but soon enough I'm sure it will be a weekly trip for me. The markets are where I will be able to get almost anything I need from fresh fruits and vegetables, various household items, and secondhand clothing. The fun (and sometimes not-so-fun) part about the markets is absolutely nothing has a set price. The not-so-fun part is they see a white person and they double the price so I have to go with a prior knowledge of about how much things should cost (which I get from my counterpart or supervisor) and then the fun part is bartering with the people.

My house is much larger than I expected it to be. I have a spare bedroom and I can't wait to have visitors! But furnishing the house is going to be quite the process. All of my furniture will have to be ordered and made by the local carpenter but with time, it will feel like home. Again, for the time being, my counterpart lent me a bed so don't worry, I'm not sleeping on the floor. I don't have electricity but one of the houses on the compound I'm on does so I am trying to talk my counterpart into getting it put in my house. If anything, I just want one outlet in order to charge my phone, laptop, camera, etc. I can do without the overhead lights since I'm normally in bed around 9 pm every night anyway. Plus, using a lantern is actually kind of fun...for now, at least. What makes for interesting nights is that the top of the wall isn't flush to the ceiling/roof. There is about a six inch gap between the two which on the plus side, allows for a lovely breeze every night but on the other hand, it also allows small visitors such as reptiles and not so small spiders to come and go as they please. It also doesn't provide much of a sound barrier from the things that go bump in the night which, in turn, made my first few nights alone in my house quite laden with anxiety. It rained for the first time Saturday night and thankfully, everything in my house stayed dry and it was actually pretty incredible to wake up to the sound and smell of the rain.

One of those not-so-small spiders.

I can't believe I failed to mention the children in my first post. Oh the children. Since the day I arrived in Kenya I have been a pretty obvious distraction for all of the kids around me. The younger they are, the more entertaining it is to interact with them because they are less likely to have ever seen a white person. Their reactions range from extreme joy and excitement to absolute terror. And the majority of them know one (and only one) English phrase which is "HOW ARE YOU?" Or even better, "HOW ARE YOU, MZUNGU?" (Mzungu literally translates to westerner but is loosely applied to anyone with lighter skin than the average Kenyan). This is cute for the first couple times you hear it but then you quickly realize that when you say, "I'm fine, how are you?" back to them, they have absolutely no idea how to respond and either say absolutely nothing and stare at you blankly or once you give up and walk away they say "HOW ARE YOU?" over and over again until they can't see you anymore. Fortunately (but sometimes unfortunately) children learn English in school so the older the child, the more likely they are to be able to communicate with you but that doesn't mean they will have nice things to say. Now that I'm out of training and there aren't 35 other Americans to distract the children, I'm more likely to be the first white person some of the really young children have ever seen and this is entertaining to them. They follow me in packs and if they fall behind a few feet they quickly speed up in order to catch up to me. Sometimes they say things to me and other times they just giggle amongst themselves. From my perspective, it's either adorable or incredibly annoying, depending on the day of the week. But it's my life. The children that live on my compound frequently circle my house and yell my name repeatedly and more often than not they will pause to peer in my windows to see what I'm doing. Luckily, the ones on my compound are adorable and pretty easy to put up with. Hopefully that lasts longer than I expect it to.

Two of the children who do laps around my house.

There is one other downfall to not having electricity or running water and that is washing clothes is a bit of a task. Especially pants (or trousers in Kenya, pants are underwear), jeans, sweatshirts, and worst of all, bed sheets. Luckily, my Mama and our house lady during training were excellent teachers (even though the concept of hand washing clothes isn't rocket science) and I've been steadily increasing my speed and ability over the past two months. Not having running water means that my daily (yes, daily) showers consist of me heating water and them pouring it in a basin and splashing myself with water, soaping up, and then repeating the splashing to rinse. It's actually pretty refreshing. Oh and my toilet, well, it's a pit latrine. Very similar to what we all use when we go to a camp site, minus the seat. It's literally a hole that you squat over and pray that you have good aim that day. Luckily, my many camping trips/house parties with incredibly disgusting bathrooms turned out to be incredible training for this part of the my day-to-day life.

A I previously mentioned, I haven't been doing much real work (Peace Corps orders). But my CBO has eight different groups that are affiliated with it and for the last two weeks I have been trekking to these groups bright and early, but not before I've had at least two cups of tea (six last Friday!). At each group I introduce myself and tell them why I'm here in Kikamba and all of the mamas laugh and laugh. Once the initial entertainment subsides, they tell me about their group. When they started, how many members there are, and what they do. All of the groups have their own tree nursery which is the site at which they meet on a weekly basis. They are all located near one of the two rivers that my town is located between and they all take trips to fetch water to "feed" the seedlings. Then they organize and sweep the nursery because all the groups are in direct competition with each other to have the cleanest work area. All of them eventually sell the seedlings to schools, churches, or environmentally-focused organizations within Kenya and this works as an income generating activity (IGA) for the group. Many of the groups also give a portion of their profit to orphans within the community and they all help to build sand dams for the CBO. They all seem pretty organized and business oriented so I'm just hoping I can actually serve a purpose here and teach them something over the next two years.

One of the tree nurseries.

So I finally broke down and created a blog...

Where to begin...

I have now been in Kenya for two and a half months and so much has happened. First off, let me start by saying I am still incredibly happy with my decision to do this and I'm having an incredible experience, meeting great people, eating tons of food, and learning so much about a new culture. The purpose of creating this blog was mainly for people other than my Mom, Dad, Kait, and Michael. I talk to them almost weekly and I know it's a little difficult to recap an hour long telephone conversation when someone asks them, "How is Laken?" "What is she doing over there?" "How in the hell is she even handling it?!" So to the rest of you, this is for you. I hope you enjoy it.

The two months of training went by so fast. I was in Loitokitok, Kenya, right at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and near the border of Kenya and Tanzania. It was beautiful...besides all the dust. The dirt roads were a constant source of irritation because when they weren't staining everything you owned a lovely shade of reddish-brown (including your skin), the dust was making you cough or rub your eyes over and over. But besides that, Loitokitok quickly became my home away from home. My host family was incredible. My host Mama was young(er) and spoke English quite well. I had a three-year-old sister, Mary, and a four-month-old brother, Freddy. My Mama stayed home and took care of the kids during the day and my host Baba was a carpenter and worked every day of the week but I saw him almost every night for dinner. My Mama made sure I never went hungry. There was always plenty of food and especially fruit for me to eat and when I told her I needed to lay off the avocados because I was struggling to fit into some of my clothes, she responded with, "Well then, I'm doing a good job."  Besides learning about the culture from my host family, I also had a more formal training Monday through Friday (and a lot of the time Saturday as well) during which myself and the thirty-five other trainees had long days of language, cross-culture, and technical training. At the end of these two months, we had a small, verbal language exam in which we were to reach intermediate-low proficiency. Which basically means, you must know how to say your name, your family's names, where you're from, greetings, and a few other random things. As easy as that sounds, it was incredibly anxiety-provoking. Luckily, I was able to pull off a score of intermediate-mid. That day was a good day.

Training came to a close a week later and we had a host-family appreciation day. My Mama and I wore matching outfits. Everyone loved it. My little sister threw a tantrum in front of everyone while I was holding her. The other trainees found it quite entertaining. And then I had to say goodbye to my Mama. It was sad and I started to tear up a bit and I may have let a couple tears fall. My Mama laughed at me and slapped me on the back and told me everything would be ok. The next day, all of us trainees boarded the matatus (basically mini-van taxis) and headed to Nairobi.

While in Nairobi, we continued with more training, of course and then we were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers at the U.S. Ambassador's residence. The highlight of that experience was not so much being at the Ambassador's house, or the monkey that joined the ceremony, the most memorable part was that there were bowls of Doritos scattered about the lawn on tables and if a bowl went empty, it got refilled. My group of friends and I ate a good 2-3 bowls in about 5 minutes flat. It's pretty rough being deprived of American food. The next day we all shipped out to our respective sites across the country. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone and hopefully you all know me well enough to know I was crying like a baby. It was pretty entertaining for everyone else.

The other Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) that's close to me is a good friend of mine and her name is Andrea. We rode to our sites together along with her supervisor and my counterpart. (A counterpart is basically the person assigned to me in order to help me get acclimated to my community. We are basically each other's shadows. My counterpart's name is Emmanuel.) After arriving at my site, I met my supervisor, Milcah, and I was given my Kamba name (Kamba is one of the many tribes found in Kenya. They are mainly located in Eastern Province, where my site is.) My Kamba name is Mutheu, pronounced Mo-they-u. I was then taken to my house where I got to see that it wasn't quite ready for me. For the first couple days I stayed in an extra bedroom in my counterpart's parents house and then I was finally able to move into my house. Thankfully, they lent me a bed, a couch and a chair to temporarily furnish my house with so I kind of feel like I live here. Someday, hopefully soon, I will no longer be living out of a suitcase.

The community-based organization (CBO) I'm working (volunteering) for is a pretty incredible CBO. They currently are working on environmental conservation within the community by building sand dams in the two rivers that surround my area, creating tree nurseries, greenhouses, and fish ponds. On top of that, they are provide many of the primary and secondary schools in the area with large water tanks and energy-saving JIKOs (a JIKO is a type of charcoal or wood-fueled stove that the majority of Kenyans use to cook every meal). In addition, my CBO also provides hygiene, water sanitation, and HIV/AIDS and STI awareness within the community. The first two weeks at site have been a whirlwind. The CBO has kept me busy almost every single day by going out into the field to meet the different groups associated with the CBO. I walk an average of 4-5 kilometers every day (which is about 3 miles) and next week I will be getting my bike so I'll be able to get places much quicker. The weather here is incredible. It's about 70 degrees every day with absolutely no humidity and I'm in the middle of a mountain range which is mind trip for someone from northern Illinois. This is apparently the coldest time of the year though so all of the people are wearing long sleeves, pants, and the children wear little beanies everyday and they think I'm crazy when I don't bring a pullover with me everywhere. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain that I think it's hot outside and I'm not cold but it never makes sense to them.

Over the next four weeks at site, I'm supposed to continue getting to know my community and not really doing much real work. The only thing I absolutely have to do is a Community Needs Assessment (CNA) so I can try to determine what I might be doing for the next two years. After that four weeks, all of us new PCV's head back to Nairobi for almost 2 weeks for some in-service training (IST).

I've tried my best to recap two and a half months as clearly and quickly as possible and hopefully future posts will be a bit more detailed on what exactly I've been up to. Again, I hope you all enjoy and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.   :)