"And what do you do?" "...business."

Alright, so its been a while. I realize this and I'd like to extend my most sincere apologies for keeping all of you wondering what I'm doing. Let me start by saying, not much has changed. Although, ...the new supermarket in Machakos claims to have gotten Wi-Fi so that's now on my list of things to check out in the near future. I had big plans to go terrorize the new group of trainees when they came to Machakos for their HIV/AIDS workshop but alas, Peace Corps has ruined my plans and moved the workshop to somewhere near Voi (which is in Coast Province).

I'm willing to risk my street cred and officially announce I have discovered I do in fact have a small amount of maternal instinct somewhere in my body. Maybe its the fact I have become entirely too attached to the cat I got back at the start of the year or maybe its because I live with seven children but either way I found myself incredibly depressed when I thought Gus Gus, my cat, was dying about a month ago and also began crying when I saw that Lucky, my little buddy, had the mumps. Both instances turned out to be quite minor and unnecessary of my erratic emotions but my mom was exceptionally happy to discover I may give her grandchildren sometime in the distant, very distant, future. In my defense to Lucky getting the mumps though, I had no idea what was wrong with her. All I knew was her cheeks were HUGE and that was definitely not normal. And due to the fact we are vaccinated for it, I was under the impression it was actually serious and not just a viral infection of the salivary glands that will eventually go away on its own. America confuses me more than Kenya sometimes. Why are we vaccinated for something as minor as the chicken pox? You get it, you suffer through a couple days, and then you have immunity from getting it again for the rest of your life.

On a completely unrelated note, we had some other Americans (and two New Zealanders) in the area about two weeks ago now. They were all missionaries from an organization called World Servants. My supervisor had been arranging for them to come here and do some work since before I ever arrived last year. There was 18 of them and only 2 of them were male. Which was incredibly shocking to the people in my village when they saw not only Americans but American women doing manual labor. I'll admit I was terrified for them to come here. My social skills and ability to speak proper English are far below normal after living in a Kenyan village for almost a year. Not that they were that impressive to begin with but if you can believe it, they've gotten worse. Luckily, they were all incredibly friendly and very surprised to see another American that didn't belong to their group. Although, I did kind of latch on to the women and tended to avoid the younger girls because I have no idea what we would talk about. I mean, I look like a frumpy hillbilly who watches movies and listens to music from about 2 years ago. Honestly, I had no idea what I would talk about with the younger crowd. I kind of regret that though because about 4 of them were from IL which is more than I can say for Peace Corps volunteers.

The 21^st of this month will mark my completion of one year of service. Although I don't have much to show for it, I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm working on getting some stuff done though. I'm finally not so concerned about stepping on peoples toes and willing to be a bit more forward with a few people in the community who have become a kind of road block. In celebration of competing a year of service, I think I'll finally work on getting some furniture in my house. I know that when my dad and aunt come to visit in October they would probably appreciate having somewhere to sleep besides a couch or sharing a bed with me. Andrea tells me I live like a bachelor. I agree with this but also blame it on the fact that I lived in three furnished apartments before Peace Corps service so not only do I have no knowledge of buying furniture in America, doing that in Kenya is quite intimidating. So I'll work on that next month.

Recently I've been contemplating the different varieties of weaves I can get next. There's a lady in my village that runs a salon and every time I walk by she asks when I'm going to let her braid my hair. Give me another week and I'll probably just go in and let her do what she wants. I'm itching for some cornrows “just like Sean Paul” which is what Andrea said when I told her. And speaking of salons, Andrea and I have considered opening our own Muzungu (Westerner) salon. Perhaps a traveling one. But this is just a far-fetched dream created by two girls who have entirely too much time on there hands. Which is also how we discovered you can see the ridiculously bright flashlight at her house from my house all the way across the river. Now this proves two things: 1.) Andrea's “mama” is right as she continually proclaims “it's like stima (electricity)” and shines this 50-some LED flashlight the size of brick in your face and 2.) The lack of light pollution in the village allows for endless hours of entertainment.

Oh, finally, it's winter time here now. And I think I've officially adjusted to the climate because I'm freezing cold for the first hour or so after I wake up in the morning. And winter means its around 70 something everyday and a couple days of the week its pretty overcast but remember, I live in a desert and I have a 12-inch gap between my wall and roof so when it's 50 some degrees at night...it's 50 some degrees in my house and that's cold for me now. Unfortunately, the last rainy season came and went without hardly a drop of rain so almost everyones maize crops failed and the price to buy maize from the shop is steadily climbing. Even worse, I know that people are struggling to feed their families and there's nothing I can do. I keep hearing about relief food going to the Coast, where they're still getting rain, or going other places but I have yet to hear of any coming to my area of lower Eastern. While its incredibly sad and difficult to know this is going on all around me I will say its amazing how it really doesn't change the day-to-day life of the people I see every day. Their strength and ability to persevere during difficult times is amazing.

One last thing, if you didn't see my last blog post, facebook statues, or article in the Ogle County Life, you should check out this awesome library project I'm working on with two other volunteers, Clare and Megan. Once all the money is raised we'll be getting an enormous shipment of textbooks, novels, and even some desktop computers that will end up benefiting around 5,000+ students and community members, not to mention the countless numbers of people it will benefit in the future. It's through a US-based organization called Books for Africa and our project is title Kenya Read Me A Story? Even if you yourself can't donate anything, you can still help by passing the word along to someone that you know who might be able to. Whether it be your friend, parent, employer, it doesn't matter. Any donation, large or small, will ultimately help to get the container here. And it's tax deductible!

Alright, I'm off like a prom dress. Gonna go get some cuddle time in with my feline companion before the children get home from school and start circling my house demanding for a variety of items. Thanks for reading.

White Girl + Weave = Coolest Kid in Town

My dearest friends and family, my apologies for being the ultimate procrastinator in writing a new blog post. I have started new posts on multiple occasions and then decided I have nothing to talk about and giving up. But alas, I know you are all on the edge of your seat just waiting to hear about my adventures so I decided to be nice and write a new post.

As most of you know, I was back in The Valley from March 22nd through the 28th for my Grandpa Rip's funeral. I still can't believe he's gone but I'm glad my Dad is an expert penny pincher and was able to fly me home. I don't know what I would've done had I not been able to attend. I'll miss hearing my Dad tell me that Grandpa says hello and to stay safe but I know that he will still be thinking that on a daily basis and at least this way he can keep a close eye on me. Gonna have to name my first dog Shep in his honor one of these days. I'll miss you and think of you always, Grandpa.

Plus side to coming home was obviously all the delicious food that I got to consume. As well as seeing my family. And even if Mom says it's not true, I know Oliver has gotten more obese since I left but to be positive about his weight gain, at least he's more fun to cuddle with now. Jack still remembers me and still hates Kait, so that's pretty hilarious. And the Nugget, ohhhh the Nugget, although I was only able to take you for a short stroll down Woodburn, it was the happiest moment of my life. But although the circumstances under which I went home were far from ideal, I'm so happy I got to spend time with my family and friends even if it was only for a couple days. Hopefully the incredible amount of questions I answered will hold you all over for another year or so. If not, you know how to reach me and I'm always happy to answer them. For those of you I wasn't able to see or even talk to, please accept my apologies and know that if I had more time I would've seen all of you.

You can't tell me he's not obese.

But back to Kenya. Currently it's a lovely  79 degrees Fahrenheit and I know you're all jealous. As you should be. Currently, and for the last couple weeks, I've been working with a group of other volunteers to coordinate a girls empowerment camp called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) that will take place over the course of next week. We will teach the girls all about health and hygiene issues, creating goals (both career and personal) for the future, and other assorted topics about gender equality, sex, and other fun stuff. We will travel with the girls to the coast town of Kilifi and stay on a university campus for the entire week. Each day they will have lessons on the above topics taught by myself and the other volunteers and then in the afternoon they will have the opportunity to play games and relax before dinner. We have a talent show, photo shoot, and a dance planned for them too which I know they will be ecstatic about. Most of these girls have never left their communities so taking them all the way to the coast will be an incredibly memorable experience for all of them. Plus, they get T-shirts! Nothing is official in Kenya until you get a T-shirt for it!  :)

I got a cat. Andrea and I named him Gus Gus. He is insane and has been given many things that Kenyan cats aren't used to. Such as actual cat food, cat nip, toys, and a laser pointer. And yes, I did make the children I live with chase the laser pointer after they watched Gus chase it. It was hilarious.

Aside from this I've been busy styling my new hair. Because, yes, I did indeed get my hair braided and now that it's no longer insanely itchy, I'm kind of in love with it. Andrea has declared I now look so much like a hippie. I embrace this comment. And all of the children I live with (as well as the majority of my community) have decided I am officially Kamba now. They all tell me how smart I look every day (which means I look awesome) and they keep touching my hair. I can't say I don't love the attention for something other than my skin color.

Before I take it out I promise to post a picture of it down.

Anywho, the library project is still in the works. We have it posted online now but the total amount we need to raise is not finalized and is likely to increase quite a bit more. But if you'd like to check it out and donate a little something (**cough cough**), we would all greatly appreciate it. Plus, if you could put the word out there to anyone else that you think might want to throw a little dough our way, that would also be greatly appreciated. Kenya Read Me A Story?

Once the camp is over and done with I'm going to try and get some other stuff going at my site. I'm pretty sick of just sitting around but due to situations generally out of my control, that seems to be what I end up doing more often than not. I love the Kamba people but I swear you have to light a fire under each and every one of them before they want to do anything. 

Dear Almighty Creator,

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.

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...

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.