When you were assembling me from various tissues, genes, and other assorted ingredients, did you laugh to yourself as you decided to leave out any sort of grace from my overall makeup? Another question, do you still get a kick out of it today when you see me trip and run into stationary objects on a daily basis? Well, I hope you do. Because today, after busting my THIRD pair of flip flops beyond repair, I walked back home wearing only one shoe. Now, you know that can be risky to do in America but come on, I'm in Kenya and I swear to You, if I get a jigger, you're to blame.
Sincerely,
Laken J. Rippentrop
P.S. Do you think you could send us some rain over here? Things are starting to get a little anxiety-provoking...
...
In other news, everything is continuing on as usual. Still being awoken at early hours by drunks and various livestock...and then again a couple hours later by a small herd of adorable children. In addition, my sinues and eyes have been under attack by various environmental elements for about two weeks now. Having allergies, wearing glasses, being clumsy, getting excited about science and math...yeah, I know I'm a nerd. Judge me.
Sadly, there is discussion of switching my malaria meds because it is thought that the kind I am on may be the reason for my issues with sleeping. This upsets me because I was actually looking forward to the long-term effects of Mephaquin and the stories I would be able to tell people in years to come. Not that living in a Kenyan village for two years won't provide me with enough ammunition to make everyone from the SVHS class of '05 admire my innate ability to be awesome, the thought of being able to discuss the hallucinations I endured as a result of my malaria meds really would have been the icing on the cake. But alas, I suppose this is for the best. Sleep is relatively important and I do miss it something serious so I guess I will just have to suffer through a hallucination-free year and a half.
Oh yeah, speaking of a year and a half, I turned 6 months old today. It still freaks me out that I've been here for that long. I just wish that I had something to show for it. Hopefully I will do something productive soon because this is getting ridiculous.
Anywho, I hope you're all enjoying the snow, ice, and freezing weather (Cassie, you are excluded from this) because I'm currently trying to convince myself to walk the 600 meters to my house but I'm having a hard time with this because I don't want to start sweating. I know, I lead a rough life. Later gators.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Christmas in Kenya
After spending a week and a half on the beach, I returned to my village to find not much had changed. The small children I live with were beyond thrilled when I got home. Lucky and Carol, the two little girls who are pretty much my best friends, had attended their first day of nursery school that morning and they were so excited to tell me all about it. Oh how I missed them.
There were a few things that did change. First, the wire mesh was put up around my house to keep out bats and other small critters. This has caused a significant decrease in the amount of lizard poop I find in my house but it surprisingly blocks a great deal of the air flow so my house doesn't actually cool down until about 11 pm now. But I'm willing to sacrifice an hour outside of my blanket at night if it means bats will no longer be visiting me. Second, one of the dogs on my compound had four puppies. Now, I was planning on getting a kitten after the first of the year but with four puppies readily available, why would I not just take one and call it mine? I check on them everyday to make sure all four are still alive. So far so good. I'm just excited that my mom and sister will not be able to tell me, "No, Laken, we're not naming this dog Atticus." The only other thing that changed was the rain has stopped and people are getting concerned that drought and famine are around the corner. Crossing my fingers and saying more than a few prayers that that doesn't happen.
Oh yeah, the beach. It was glorious. I truly did absolutely nothing for a week and a half besides wake up, eat, take a nap, eat, go to the beach, shower, go out dancing, sleep, repeat. The food was incredible. I had fresh fish, fresh calamari, and at least 3 giant burgers (yes, I ate hamburgers) but Lee Ann and I still found ourselves craving traditional Kenyan food every now and then. Christmas was strange without snow or even cold weather. It was hard to even grasp that it was in fact December 25th. New Years Eve, on the other hand, was not as strange given that there were parties up and down the beach but it was a lot different than last years New Years when I was freezing my butt off in Chicago. Regardless, it was still a lot of fun.
Sadly, I'm drawing a blank on anymore entertaining stories or witty comments. So I suppose I will leave it at that. But as a side note, the 21st of January marks six months at site meaning I only have a year and a half left in Kenya. Crazy that I've been away from good ole SV for almost a year...
There were a few things that did change. First, the wire mesh was put up around my house to keep out bats and other small critters. This has caused a significant decrease in the amount of lizard poop I find in my house but it surprisingly blocks a great deal of the air flow so my house doesn't actually cool down until about 11 pm now. But I'm willing to sacrifice an hour outside of my blanket at night if it means bats will no longer be visiting me. Second, one of the dogs on my compound had four puppies. Now, I was planning on getting a kitten after the first of the year but with four puppies readily available, why would I not just take one and call it mine? I check on them everyday to make sure all four are still alive. So far so good. I'm just excited that my mom and sister will not be able to tell me, "No, Laken, we're not naming this dog Atticus." The only other thing that changed was the rain has stopped and people are getting concerned that drought and famine are around the corner. Crossing my fingers and saying more than a few prayers that that doesn't happen.
Oh yeah, the beach. It was glorious. I truly did absolutely nothing for a week and a half besides wake up, eat, take a nap, eat, go to the beach, shower, go out dancing, sleep, repeat. The food was incredible. I had fresh fish, fresh calamari, and at least 3 giant burgers (yes, I ate hamburgers) but Lee Ann and I still found ourselves craving traditional Kenyan food every now and then. Christmas was strange without snow or even cold weather. It was hard to even grasp that it was in fact December 25th. New Years Eve, on the other hand, was not as strange given that there were parties up and down the beach but it was a lot different than last years New Years when I was freezing my butt off in Chicago. Regardless, it was still a lot of fun.
Sadly, I'm drawing a blank on anymore entertaining stories or witty comments. So I suppose I will leave it at that. But as a side note, the 21st of January marks six months at site meaning I only have a year and a half left in Kenya. Crazy that I've been away from good ole SV for almost a year...
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