School, market, orphanage

                So, first things first, I added some new photos last week, in no particular order, just a few of my favorites so far. If you’ve already looked at that entry, I updated it and added a few more today, so check it out again if you want!

                In an exciting turn of events I got a new friend living in my choo (bathroom). I’ve named her Bessy:

Bessie, the black widow spider (called button-spiders here) living in my bathroom.

                So I think I mentioned in previous blogs that I was trying to get a position teaching at a local primary school. I succeeded and I finished my first week of teaching this past week. I’m teaching science to about 45 grade 7 kids on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. So far I think it’s going well. I know it’s going to take some time for them to get used to my English (the teachers informed me last week I had a very strong accent and were shocked to hear that they had a strong accent to me too…) and the different style of instruction. One major criticism of the Kenyan educational model is that it doesn’t give kids enough freedom to think creatively, to synthesize information and make leaps in logic, all things which are particularly important in the sciences. One newspaper article I read in the Kenyan national news last week was that teachers at a university level were noting that kids coming from primary and secondary education had no idea how to think critically; they were so used to the rigid “A+B always equals C and we never ask why” framework that they had a very difficult time when asked to think outside the box.

                So, I’ve made it a particular goal of mine, even before reading that article and especially now after, to try to get the kids thinking about the world around them in terms of the question ‘why’. I told them the first day of class that I love good questions and that every Monday we were going to come up with a ‘question of the week’ as a class. It had to be something no one in class knew (except me & me not knowing either was an exceptionally good question) and it had to have something to do with science. Our question from this week was ‘why do some eggs turn into chickens and others don’t?’ believe it or not, none of the kids knew the answer on Monday. Every Thursday we’ll answer our question and if anyone comes to class with the correct answer, they get rewarded with candy. I also reward intelligent questions with candy. Trust me, after the kids figure out that questions equal candy, a lot more hands go up.

                The idea of trying to get the kids to ask questions is to a) have them participate in the learning process, they get to guide the class a little bit once we finish with the required material b) get them to look at the world around them with a critical eye, asking why things are the way they are.

                I’ve also introduced the vocabulary words ‘hypothesis’ and ‘prediction’ to them. Believe it or not these kids had no idea what it was to make a guess as to what will happen. Even after explaining the concept, there were kids that were very confused. Their student book (you can’t really call it a text book per say, for the entire year it’s got 135 pages) doesn’t have any prompting to consider what will happen in an experiment before you actually carry it out. So, I’ve started to try and get the kids thinking about what might happen and then explaining why they think that. I’m excited for class to keep evolving, for me to keep learning Swahili and about the education system here and to, hopefully, get some kids interested in science.

                I visited the local market with my supervisor (Nancy) and her supervisor (Caroline) last Wednesday and took some pictures. We were looking at the garbage disposal ‘system’ used in town. Basically, people throw their trash into designated areas and then once a day a city tractor comes by, loads up the garbage and takes it a few miles from town to dump it in a place designated as a landfill. There are no trash bins here (they would just get stolen), no dumpsters, no recycling centers or community clean-up days. Kenya is a beautiful, beautiful country… the garbage everywhere is a huge distraction from that. 

                Besides the garbage the market has a lot of interesting things to offer. Everything here is fresh and grown locally for the most part (some things like water melons are imported from Uganda… but even that’s only 75 or so miles away).  They eat a billion different kinds of greens here, basically anything that grows and isn’t poisonous gets used as food, pumpkin leaves, cow-pea leaves, weeds, all get mixed together and cooked into a spinach like mix.

                There’s also a bunch of different kinds of beans here, some I’ve seen at home, like black beans and others I’ve never even heard of like green-gramms and monkey-nuts…

                And, my personal favorites, dried termites… you fry them and eat them as a snack or in a meal. I would love to explain to you what they taste like but I haven’t gotten the guts to try them. Maybe some day… maybe…

Bag o' dried termites... apparently you fry and eat them. The Kenyans swear they're really good...

      There are also tiny little dried fish called 'omena' that stink like you can't imagine. God help you if the person next to you on the bus gets on with a plastic bag full of these guys, it'll be a long ride, especially if there's a chicken in the lap of the woman on the other side of you. This is not a random example, it actually happened to me on the way home from Port Victoria a couple weekends ago.The Kenyans keep asking if I eat fish (since I don't eat, chicken, beef, goat, any other kind of meat) and I tell them yes, but that I don't like the fish here. They always have a hard time understanding how I could not love the smelly little guys... I think I'll save my money and get sushi on the rare occasion I get into Mombasa or Nairobi!

Omena, tiny, smelly, dried fish.

                So besides the market and the school I also visited some orphanages last week. I was surprised by how good the kids looked and the conditions in which they were living. I guess I went in with the notion that an orphanage in Kenya was going to be this awful sight; kids in tattered clothes, hungry, depressed, playing with garbage on a swing set that’s just as likely to fall apart as entertain them. Our first stop on Tuesday morning was a Catholic orphanage in the center of Kakamega town. We walked past the prison, down a long dirt road to the compound which was surrounded by high concrete walls painted with a world map and a big smiling image of Jesus, back lit with an ethereal glow, a kindly look of pity on his face. We swung open the big metal gates to reveal an immaculately groomed common area, bright green grass, neatly trimmed bushes and flowers, a garden in the distance to our right, a building under construction to our left. My supervisor Nancy started pointing things out to me. There was a school ahead of us across the lawn, pictures of the alphabet and numbers painted on the walls of the buildings. Inside kids of varying ages, 5 to 11 or 12 sat in green and yellow school uniforms listening intently as a teacher pointed at things on a chalk board at the front of the room.  

                The new building was to be an expansion of the school, they wanted more space to have kids boarded so they could have a larger student population. As it was they had 350 kids in classes 1-8 attending school there. As we crossed the lawn, past the single story school building I noticed the playground and couldn’t help but smile. For one thing, the equipment was actually in good repair, one of the first safe looking playground structures I’ve seen here. Secondly, all the equipment was painted in Kenya’s colors; green, black and red.

                Passing the playground we came to the housing unit for the orphans living there. A nun greeted us at the door and introduced herself as sister Carol and proceeded to show us around the compound. They have a total of 79 orphans but about 25 are away at secondary schools where they board, so right now there are about 45 kids actually living in the compound. The bedrooms are smaller than my room back home (14x13) and have 7 single bunk beds in each. Carol tells us that it’s not too crowded right now; only some of the kids have to share beds, but that when the older kids come back from school it gets a little bit full. Nonetheless, the rooms are neat and clean, the clothes neatly stored in one big wooden dresser. We visit the rooms of the older kids first, and the dining hall, the bathroom, wash room and then we went to see the orphanages smallest occupants in the infant ward. Up until this point I was doing pretty good emotionally, like I said, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and general appearance of the space. All that emotional stability went right out the window when I saw the babies.

                The first room was full of empty cribs all neatly aligned in a row, their metal bars painted white, light pink sheets tugged snuggly around tiny mattresses, mosquito nets hanging like little gossamer forts over each bed. We turned right, and I noticed a sign that said “please don’t enter without permission” and another that warned you to wash your hands before handling the babies. I have to admit, I giggled a little; the first thing that came to mind was the animal shelter back in the states that had signs all over to wash your hands before playing with the different puppies. Mind you, I hadn’t actually seen the kids yet, as soon as I did it wiped the smile right off my face.

                It was bath time in the infant room. Three women stood in what looked like a make-shift kitchen, a concrete slab for a work space and a giant concrete sink sunk into the far corner of the slab. At least a half dozen babies were lined up on the slab, assembly line style, waiting for their turn to be dunked into the sink. When I saw babies, I mean babies, these kids were all under 6 months old, some much younger than that. Some were bundled in blankets with just their little faces, feet and hands poking out, others lay naked atop their blankets, their little round bellies puffing out with each breath. Some slept, others looked around, put their fists in their mouth or reached their hands toward the ceiling for something to hold on to. I hadn’t washed my hands and I didn’t want to interrupt the worker’s washing duties, so I just stood in the room for a few minutes looking down at the babies. One in particular locked eyes with me early on and kept staring at me, his doe-like brown eyes seemed to be intently searching for something reflected in my eyes.  He reached his hand up towards me, tiny little fingers aching for human contact, for someone to hold onto. Not picking that baby up and coddling him was one of t he harder things I’ve done. Being a crier by nature, I was fighting pretty hard at this point to keep the tears from spilling over my eye lashes. Once they start it’s pretty tough to get them to stop.

                I took one last look at the babies all lined up in a multicolored row of blankets and black skin and stepped out of the room. I stood there leaning against the wall as my supervisor had a conversation with sister Carol and the women cleaning the babies in Swahili. I probably could have understood some had I been listening but I was too busy wondering how someone could possibly give up one of those kids. The nuns told us that a lot of them are brought after being found in bushes, doorsteps or the side of the road. When I looked up from trying to get my emotions in check I was dumbfounded by the sight of a baby being unwrapped from her blanket to be washed. 

           This is, up until this point and I hope for ever, the sickest kids I've seen in Kenya. Her arms and legs were skin and bones, not a drop of fat to cushion her joints, her elbows and knees stuck out at harsh angles, knobby protrusions from emaciated flesh. She squirmed at the cool air, her legs curling to her chest where each one of her ribs could be counted. Her stomach was sunk in, the top of her hip bones visible, her eyes sunk into fatless cheek bones. The conversation that Nancy and Sister Carol had been having were about this baby. Apparently she’d been brought the day before after having been dumped in the bushes. She was deaf and mute and obviously hadn’t been fed in quite some time. Her body kicked and curled in an unnatural way as the worker’s bathed her, whatever the cause of her lack of hearing and speaking, it had clearly affected her physically as well. The nuns guessed she was a month or so old but I think it was fairly obvious that she was much older, maybe 2 or 3 months but was severely and chronically undernourished to the point of obvious growth retardation. I’m honestly surprised that she was still alive. The nuns said that she would be brought to the provincial hospital that day for advanced treatment and I really, truly hope that she was; without it I don’t think she has a chance at survival.

            I have more to say about the other orphanage I visited last week and the school kids at Divine Providence, but this blog is getting quite long so I’ll say goodbye for now. Tune in next time for more stories about abandoned kids… and hopefully something a little happier will happen in the next week that I can fill you in on too. Until next time, all my love from Kenya.

More pictures....

So if you've looked at these before, I added a few more at the bottom...

Storm clouds rolling in (though it never actually rained) near Loitokitok, Kenya. My home stay sister Njeri is in the foreground.

They imbed broken bottles and random glass pieces on top of the concrete walls to deter thiefs from climbing over...

Some kids that live in a village within my community.

Possibly the world's cutest baby. LOVE her facial expression here :-)

Around Taveta, Kenya. Burning crop land.

Me (and Njeri and Macharia) with the new puppies that were at my home stay house. They're about 3 days old here.

A typical dirt road

Fetching water is a job usually left up to women and children here. In a single day these kids might make 2 or 3 trips of 1 to 2 Km each with these water jugs.

Kakamega Forest, about 15 miles from my house.

In Kakamega rainforest again.

Cactus-like plant. Port Victoria, Kenya.

My 7-year-old home stay sister Njeri with one of the new puppies.

Because it's really about them afterall...

           Today I want to write about some of the people I’ve met here in Kenya. Some of them have names, people I’ve spent time talking with, people who have told me about their lives, their problems and their joys. Others are nameless, people I’ve seen as I’ve walked down the street or worked in the clinic but who have touched me in some way despite the brevity of our encounter. Just time to write about a few today but hopefully there will be more stories to follow…

              *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*  Alice   *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

            I have to start with my home stay Mama from Loitokitok. Her name is Alice and she is a wonderful person for what she did for the cultural exchange portion of my Peace Corps experience. If you’ve been reading my blog from the beginning, you know that all the volunteers live with Kenyan families for 2 ½ months while were in training. The families are supposed to be average families, though after seeing more of the country I’ve realized that the family I stayed with was probably what we would consider upper-middle class in America. The Peace Corps gives the families enough money to provide breakfast and dinner for us each day but that’s about it; the families get almost no monetary compensation for hosting a helpless American for 10 weeks. After realizing this, I asked Mama Alice why she chose to host volunteers (I was her 3^rd). She told me that it wasn’t about the money that she did it because she looked at it as having a new friend, as being able to learn from me and the opportunity to do something good by teaching me about life in Kenya.

And teach me she did.

            As a 25 year-old woman, I consider myself pretty independent, self-reliant and reasonably intelligent. I’m like a man in that I hate asking for directions, help or admitting that I can’t figure out how to do something on my own. I knew that coming here was going to be an adventure, an opportunity to learn a lot of new things… I never thought it would be like being a child all over again. I literally had to learn how to bathe, how to lock a door (they use padlocks and iron bars here, takes a little getting used to), how to navigate public transportation, how to look both ways before crossing the street (they drive on the left, you’d be surprised how engrained it is to look right first!), how to cook sans cutting board, machines and non-stick pans and even how to poop (squat and aim for the hole, actually not as hard as I’d imagined). It took me a few days but I eventually embraced the opportunity to open myself to learning things all over again. So when Mama would ask me ‘do you know how to: peel a potato, prepare a pumpkin, cut a tomato/watermelon/pineapple, wash you clothes, iron etc)?’ I would say, “I know how I did it in America but I want you to show me how you do it here.” Approaching the situation that way made me feel like I was giving myself the chance to learn, Mama the chance to teach and yet letting her know that it wasn’t that we didn’t know how to do anything in America, it was just that we did things differently.

            Mama never got frustrated with my ineptitude at easy things (it really does take awhile to figure out how to dice an onion without a cutting board and a knife about as sharp as a spoon), she just kept on smiling and teaching somehow managing both without even the slightest hint of condescension. That is a skill you just can’t teach. I will forever be grateful to Mama Alice for showing me kindness at the same time as introducing me to what life is really like in Kenya. Its one thing to come here as a tourist, to stay in a hotel, eat in restaurants, take a tour in a jeep. It’s completely different to live in a Kenyan home, to eat what they really eat everyday, to walk everywhere; to experience life as they do. Mama told me she hosted volunteers because she looked at it as an opportunity to make a new friend, and that she did.

        *-*-*-*-*-*-*    Emily   *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

            I filled out ledgers on Friday afternoon at the clinic this week and watched as the staff injected babies and they screamed their little heads off, just like babies back home. I was filling out the ledger for this one impossibly cute little baby girl, Emily, when I noticed we had the same birthday. I don’t know why but I suddenly felt so attached to this tiny little infant with her lacy red dress and impossibly beautiful brown eyes. Here’s this little person, exactly 25 years younger, staring across the desk at me, probably wondering why I look so funny with my white skin and all I can think as irrational tears spring to my eyes is that the world is so much smaller than I imagine sometimes, that I hope this little girl grows up to be half as happy as I am in that moment. The threatening tears are because I know the odds are not in her favor.

Though we had the luck to be born on the same day (I love my birthday), that’s about where the similarities end. I was born in the US to a mother and father who had the financial means to make sure I always had food on the table, a roof over my head, shoes on my feet, the chance to play in a safe neighborhood and the opportunity to not only complete high-school but to attend college. Emily will be lucky if her family has the money to pay school fees for her to make it through primary school (8^th grade). She will be lucky if she gets to play with her friends rather than work in the field. She will be out of the ordinary if, at 25, she isn’t married and working on her 3^rd or 4^th baby. She will be extremely lucky if she has a house with concrete floors and walls instead of mud and sticks and a roof that doesn’t leak incessantly when it rains.

It is these extremely simple and unexpected moments that keep reminding me why I came here in the first place; to see how lucky I truly am and to maybe, just maybe to use the education and the time that I am blessed to have to improve someone else’s life just a little.

            *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*     Peter     *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

            Peter was born in Kenya in1961, one of nine brothers and sisters. He tested positive for HIV in 1987 and has been living with it ever since. There are no words and even if there were, no way I could possibly write them eloquently enough to express to you the degree to which my experience with Peter affected and inspired me. I will try anyway:

 I was introduced to Peter through his older brother one day a few weeks ago. Peter greeted us as we walked into his compound. We waited as he slowly made his way from the garden to us on his homemade crutches. He smiled ‘karibu’ (welcome) he said as he heartily shook my hand despite his small frame and welcomed us into his home. Like most Kenyan houses the doorway is small, my head clears by maybe an inch or two, and the walls and floor made of packed mud. The sitting room is at the front of every house, there are 3 or 4 of the most uncomfortable couches you will ever encounter surrounding a couple coffee tables oddly arranged in the center of the room. You would be hard pressed to find a sitting room here with fewer than two coffee tables, even my house has two. I sit down on one couch and watch awkwardly as Peter sits on the couch kitty-corner from me, wincing in pain as he lowers himself to the low seat. He places his crutches in the corner beside him and arranges himself into what I imagine is the most comfortable position possible on these couches. Peter’s brother sits on the couch beside me and the three of us sit there for an uncomfortably long moment in silence as I realize I am in completely unfamiliar territory here.

Peter (left) outside his house

Sure, I’ve been around HIV positive people before, I worked with a support group during training. I’ve shook hands and talked with dozens of people who’ve been living with AIDS for years. And yet, this is the first time that I’ve found myself invited into their homes to talk, very personally about their lives, their experience living with HIV. Peter has graciously opened this door for me and I’m sitting there on his couch like an idiot not knowing how to begin the conversation.

Perhaps sensing the strange tension Peter’s brother tells us he is going to leave us alone for awhile. He says he wants us to ‘feel free’ to discuss whatever we want, just the two of us. I am eternally grateful for his exit. I don’t know why but I feel more at ease now that its just me and Peter (really a couple kids are sitting there watching us talk but I know their English isn’t good enough to understand most of what we’re saying, plus I’ve grown accustomed to the constant watching eyes of the kids here, they love watching me no matter how boring I try to be). Over the next hour and a half Peter proceeds to tell me about his life.

 He tells me about his friend having him get tested in 1987 but never telling him the results. Peter tells me he thinks his test came back positive and his friend didn’t have the heart to tell him; in 1987 HIV was a sure thing death sentence. It wasn’t until the early 90’s when he started experiencing effects from opportunistic infections that Peter actually found out he had AIDS. Over the next 20 years Peter would continue to experience the effects of HIV/AIDS, from the physical dangers of opportunistic infections to the extreme social stigma attached to the disease, especially in the 90’s and early 2000’s. He is currently undergoing treatment for Kaposi’s sarcoma, a skin cancer that is common among AIDS patients. I’d noticed his swollen left foot even before he put his foot on the coffee table and lifted up his pant leg to show me the tumor. I stared, at once intrigued, disgusted and heart-wrenchingly sympathetic. His swollen foot and ankle, which look like what you would find on an 85 year old with heart failure, are the least of his worries. His leg, from ankle to knee is covered in thick scabs, white, black and brown; various bodily fluids that have seeped and dried in the process of healing. As I sit, unable to look away and happy that I have a strong stomach, Peter tells me that his leg looks better now than it did even a month ago when the scabs were painful open sores. I try to imagine how painful the sores must have been when they were open, any little thing that touched his leg must have been excruciating. It’s no wonder he hasn’t been able to work for the last few months.

Kaposi's sarcoma on Peter's leg

            He tells me the sarcoma started in 2005 with just a small sore on his lower leg. By 2009 it had gotten bad enough that he began chemotherapy treatment at the provincial hospital and by March of this year the cancer had spread all the way to his knee causing him extreme pain and loss of mobility resulting in his inability to work. He thanks God every day that his leg seems to be getting better.

I ask Peter about what other opportunistic infections he’s had as a result of HIV/AIDS and he laughs, tells me he’s pretty much had them all except TB… which his wife (who is also HIV+) is currently being treated for. This opens the door for Peter to talk about his family and he gushes for a few minutes, the very picture of a proud father, his eyes sparkling and his features animated as he tells me that all of his children are HIV negative. This is quite a feat; Peter has at least 8 children. I say ‘at least’ because at some point in the conversation, going between his first and second wives, I lost count. I did manage to gather that his oldest, a son, was born in 1982 and his youngest, also a son is 4-years-old. His name is Ambrose and he sits on the couch across the room staring at me in that way only a 4-year-old can; without shame and an acute attention that only wanders to glance at the tiny bird his sister is holding in a nest on the couch next to him. Peter tells me about his oldest daughter, whose children are also in the room (so Peter is also a grandfather a few times over), that she was a heck of a ‘footballer’ in school, she even competed in a national tournament. Peter truly lights up talking about his family and his joy is contagious. 

I ask him if he’s told all his children, even his youngest about his status. He says that he feels as though it is very important to have a free and open dialogue with his children when they are old enough to understand. I ask him how old he thinks that is, at what age should children be taught about HIV? He thinks for a minute, this is a debated topic in Kenyan schools because the main mode of transmission is through sexual contact; deciding when is the right time to tell kids about HIV/AIDS also means deciding when the right time to talk about safe sex is. After a long minute and some prompting by me Peter finally says that by class 3 or 4 (3^rd or 4^th grade) kids should be made aware of what HIV is and how they can protect themselves from getting it. I couldn’t agree more; I see girls in the clinic that are 15 or 16 and pregnant, clearly they are having sex at that age so they should be educated about HIV before then.

Peter’s openness with his kids is just one example of how unashamed he is about his status. He tells me that a few years ago a reporter from a national magazine sat right where I was and interviewed him about what it was like to be a PLWHA (People (person) Living With HIV/AIDS). Peter’s story and picture appeared in the magazine and he is now known as an outspoken and integral member of the PLWHA community in Kakamega speaking regularly at educational meetings to increase knowledge about HIV and reduce the stigma that is still so often associated with it. A few years ago he was one of the three founding members of a men’s group here in Kakamega that organizes community events for HIV education and also provides a support group for it’s members. That group now has 30 members.

I ask Peter how he thinks the spread of HIV/AIDS in Kenya (and Africa in general) can be stopped. He says education, that children need to be educated in schools, that people like him, who are HIV+ as well as those who are not, need to be active in educating their community members. He emphasizes that it is especially important for people who are positive to not be ashamed of their status and to use their experiences as teaching tools to help prevent others from suffering the same fate. In the middle of this all he starts talking about how important it is for PLWHA to manage their stress. “Name it, claim it, tame it,” he says somewhat out of the blue. I stop what I’m writing and smile. I ask him to say that again and I write it in big bold letters in my notebook, putting a box and stars around it. I don’t know whether Peter came up with that on his own or he got it from someone else, but either way, I love it.

As our conversation is starting to wrap up Peter takes out his pills and shows me the drug regiment he takes everyday. It’s a handful of pills a few times a day. I ask him how much they cost and he patiently goes through each bottle, telling me what they are, what they do for him, how often he takes them and how much they cost. I would need a calendar to keep it all straight; Peter just rattles these things off the top of his head. I suppose that’s what happens when you live with something for over 20 years.

Finally, Peter produces a stack of around a dozen certificates, each of them acknowledging his completion of a training seminar on an HIV/AIDS or public health topic. Peter is not only outspoken about his status and his life with AIDS, he makes an active and on-going effort to be knowledgeable about his disease.

After a quick tour of his garden (he gives me a small eggplant to take home with me) and a few family photos, Peter and his brother walk me out of their family’s compound of houses. They’ve sent me home with an armful of books about HIV/AIDS and a heart full of hope and inspiration.

Peter is a man who is suffering and has been suffering for some time, but instead of being bitter or angry, instead of locking himself in his home, wallowing in self-pity or shame, Peter continues to live his life the best way he knows how. He takes an active part in educating his community he raises his children in a safe, loving and accepting environment and he does all he can to make sure that they grow up free of the disease that has plagued him for nearly half his life. Like me, Peter imagines a future for his children in a world where there are no new HIV/AIDS cases. With people like Peter dedicating their time and energy I think that world just might be possible.

Just Some Pictures!

Me and my host mama's (just to my left in the photo, grey suit) family. The dress I'm wearing is one she had made for me in Loitokitok. It was made and beaded by the Maasai women in town.

Me and one of my Kenyan P.H. trainers at swearing in.

Me getting my certificate of completed training. I was the first one because of my last name. Handing me the certificate is the country director and on the right is the US ambassador to Kenya.

Wish I could say this is my site... it's not. This is my friend Henry's site in Port Victoria. Accordingly, that's Lake Victoria in the background. Thanks Mom and Dad for sending the hammock... pretty epic view and even better in person watching the sun go down over the lake!

Finally a real, live Peace Corps Volunteer!

Well, as of August 17^th I’m officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! I’ve been in my site in Kakamega for almost 2 weeks now and I’m starting to settle in and find my way around. I sent my first memory card home earlier this week so hopefully (if my lovely little sister will oblige…) there will be some pictures and videos of my time in training posted soon, maybe 3 weeks.

My housing situation is as follows: I’m living in 2 rooms of a family’s house. You walk in the front door, turn left, walk 15 or so feet down a concrete hallway that looks like a nuclear shelter bunker and my door is on the left. That main door opens to my living room, which also doubles as my kitchen. My bedroom connects to the living room through a wooden door that lost it’s door knob at some unknown point prior to my arrival. My bedroom has a bed… haha, I need to get some drawers made soon; as of now I’m still living out of my suitcases.  The walls are plain, eggshell painted concrete so I’ve been trying to decorate by placing maps and pictures on my walls. The windows are not screened here and the bugs are bothersome to say the least, not to mention that although I’m on malaria prophylaxis, there’s still a chance I can get malaria if enough mosquitoes bite me. Accordingly, I spent a solid hour and a half using masking tape and my cut up Peace Corps provided net (there was already one over the bed I’m using) to screen my bedroom window. I’ll send pictures in my next package home and I know my father, the master McGyver, will be proud.

The living situation is still evolving daily. The concept of family here is very different (they all live with extended families) and the idea of ‘alone time’ doesn’t really exist. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the evenings reading by myself in my living room and the host family has a hard time understanding that I’m not bored or lonely because I’m by myself. I’m doing my best to explain that as an American I value my own personal space and personal time and that me sitting by myself for a few hours in the evening doesn’t mean that I don’t like them or don’t want to spend time with them, it just means I need some time and space to myself to stay sane! Haha, some days I need it more than others. Like yesterday for example… there are some very annoying children that live by me and they think its extremely entertaining to harass me by banging on my windows, sticking their arms through and yelling ‘how are you mazungu’ through the glass at me. It sounds cute, and it is, until they do it every day or for an hour straight… then its not so cute any more. I try to remind myself that 10 year old boys in America are little ass-holes sometimes too, that usually keeps me from running outside with my mweko (a giant wooden spoon) and beating them.

The health clinic that I’m working out of is only a hundred or so yards down the street from my house, which makes commuting to work a breeze J The staff at the clinic has been AMAZING so far. They’ve welcomed me with open arms into their family and they do their best to teach me something new everyday. The finishing touches are being made on a new addition to the clinic and I’m hoping that it will open soon. They have plans to have a maternity ward and a youth resource center in the new space and the prospect of those projects ahead has me very excited. As for now I’m learning about childhood immunizations in Kenya and the most common health problems facing the community here. I’m also learning more Swahili daily and doing my best to use what I do know when I have conversations with people. We talk about America a lot, what the differences are, what things are the same. They’re shocked to hear that we don’t have malaria in The States and that we don’t vaccinate children against TB. Even if I don’t do anything for the next 2 years but have conversations with people about American life and Kenyan life I am going to learn and teach so much here.

Right now I’m mostly just concentrating on learning about my community, about the people, how they live theirs lives and what problems they see in their community. After 3 months (in November) I’ll go back to Nairobi for some more training and to report to Peace Corps and the rest of my fellow volunteers about my site and what I plan to do there for the remaining portion of my service. I met a Kenyan/American this morning who worked at a primary school near my house and I think I may actually get the chance to do some science teaching while I’m here a few times a week. I had an awesome conversation with Gerry (the 19 year old nephew of my host family who is also living there while he attends college in Kakamega) last night where we talked about biology for an hour or so. I forgot how much I LOVE science. I got so excited talking about cells, evolution, reproduction, it was pretty funny. I am definitely a science nerd at heart!

Anyway, I’ve been at the internet café for just about as long as I can stand. I’ll try to do more regular posts now that I’m at site.As always, love you and miss you all. 

btw, my new address is:     Elwesero Community Health Center

                                         Attn: Lindsay Bergman, PCV

                                         PO BOX 176

                                         Kakamega, Kenya

Playing Catch Up...

I feel like this blog has been, in some ways, a disservice to the experience I’m having here. Even now, having been here for just over 2 months, I’m already starting to take for granted occurrences as a ‘normal’ part of life here. My friend Hannah and I were discussing today how we felt like our journals, blogs and letters home were boring because everything we were writing about was just normal stuff to us. Hannah finished the conversation off by telling me the only thing she really had to put in her blog this week was that she’d slaughtered a chicken… and she said it with a straight face and a shrug.

                It’s stuff like that that makes me realize just how quickly we can adapt to a different environment, to a different way of life. I’m sitting here typing on a laptop computer for the first time in months (thanks for the borrow Henry) and it feels a little foreign. In the living room 15 feet away my host family is having a conversation in Swahili about I don’t know what. It’s 8:49pm, I’m exhausted, sitting cross legged in bed wearing a leso over boys basketball shorts and wishing my stomach would stop hurting for more than an hour at a time. Even that, feeling less than great, has become a normal part of my life here. Don’t let me lead you into believing I’m not being taken care of or that I’m sick and suffering in Africa; I’m not in the least. It’s just that my digestive system is having a tough time adjusting. I might have eaten something bad awhile ago, who knows, I keep hoping it will right itself but it’s been a couple weeks and I think it might be time for a round of Cipro. Don’t worry mom, grandma and any other worrisome personalities who might be reading this, I’ll consult medical before dosing myself!

                This will probably be my last post from Liotokitok as our training ends this Saturday. Looking back it’s gone by really fast and really slow at the same time. I’ve learned so much here already and my reflection on the last couple months led me to go back through some of my journal entries.  Allow me to share some of the high’s and low’s of my almost finished 10 weeks of training…

                -Tue, June 7^th 2011- “Being in a group of 54 people is *$&@^!ng annoying. I hate stupid people.”

                -Wed, June 8^th 2011- “We’re finally in Africa… not in Kenya yet though. We’ve been on this plane for 11 hours I think. I don’t even know, I can’t keep track of anything right now. I’m so tired, so ornery, the plane smells like shit… literally. I have to pee and can’t until we get off again.”

                -Sat, June 11^th 2011- “I’m nervous about meeting the host families tomorrow. I hope they like me and I hope I like them.”

                - Sun, June 12^th 2011- “Okay, I am in love with Kenya. I want to remember this feeling because I know there will be days (probably in the near future) where I’ll think to myself ‘what the hell am I doing here!?!?!’”   “It’s hilarious to say but I just shit in a hole and I’m so proud of myself!”

                - Wed, June 15^th 2011- “Digestive system is NOT happy right now. Ugh. Minus that I am quite happy right now. Got to see all my SED guys today and I know in a few days I’ll miss them again, but for now I’m ready to get back to learning language and walking around. Also got 2 more shots today. Cried.”   “Gotta remember to keep smiling.”

                -Thur, June 16^th 2011- “They said we’d have some ‘what the F*@% am I doing here?’ days. Kinda had one today. I think I need an attitude adjustment… and to wash my clothes. And some REAL coffee. Ah, coffee… I miss you. And pants. And cuddling.”

                - Fri, June 17^th 2011- “My concept of ‘clean’ is changing. Two weeks without doing laundry, I’m running out of clothing. I’ve started rationalizing… ‘it doesn’t look THAT dirty… it smells alright, I guess, clean pile it goes!’”   “Alright, should probably get to bed now… or back to my awesome trashy romance novel…”

                - Wed, June 22^nd 2011- “We named the puppies yesterday and today Chai got taken away. I cried. I actually sat there petting Moja and Taabu and cried a few tears. I got shots today and switched language groups, neither of which was overly exciting. I’m trying to convince myself everything will be okay but I’m definitely down today.”   “Here’s to overcoming these crappy days. At least I got some chocolate today and a nice hug from Njeri.”

                - Sun, June 26^th 2011 – “Too many A type personalities here… and I include myself in that statement.”    “Peanut butter is awesome and yummy. Pretty sure I’ve consumed at least a jar this week.”

                -Wed, July 6^th 2011- “My puppy died today. I knew she wasn’t doing well and I’d hoped she’d pull through but she was just too small and too sick to bring back. I’m having a REALLY hard time with the cultural differences when it comes to animals here. Mama just doesn’t get it. The concept of me being upset over an animal dying is so foreign to her. She just keeps saying ‘its okay, you’ll get another one’ like it’s a pair of shoes or I lost a bracelet.   I’m just sad. Sitting on the floor in my room, my nose is running, I’ve been crying for hours. I hate this feeling. Empty, depressed. Yesterday she was sitting in my lap, her tiny brown eyes looking up at me. Today, she’s under 2 feet of dirt in Mama and Baba’s backyard. I hate my homestay house right now. All I want to do is go be with other Americans who actually understand why I’m sad. It’s good to know I have people here who will stand next to me while I bury my dog and watch me cry just because they know I need someone to be there.”

                -Thur, July 7^th 2011- “Today was better than yesterday. Also, my nose keeps burning… in 20 years when I’m reading this and I have cancer or horrible age-spots on my nose, I’ll know why.”

                - Tue, July 12^th 2011- “Sitting in my hotel room in Taveta. Little drunk on red wine and happiness.”

                -Tue, July 19^th 2011- “I think there is something to the ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ saying. I just ate a whole… okay 2/3 of a block of white cheddar cheese. It isn’t even good cheese or a great (really, sub-par) cracker that I ate it on. And yet, the simple fact that I haven’t seen cheese in 6 weeks made it AMAZING. Also, the smell of this chocolate-mint crunch bar… I might die. Why is food so good?”

                -Fri, July 22^nd 2011- “Sometimes I forget to look up at the stars. It seems like such a little thing but it floors me every time I see them here.”   “Peace Corps volunteers spend a LOT of time talking about  each other… gossiping really. It makes sense if you think about it… we all know each other but no one really knows anyone else from each other’s lives. Plus, I think we all like to think we’re in the same boat. The rumor mill doesn’t really bother me so much. Mostly I just think it’s human nature and boredom taking over. I know things have been said about me and mostly, I could care less. What I really find interesting is the social dynamics here. I like to think I surround myself with people whom I would be friends with under any circumstances, but I really don’t know. This life has already become my new ‘normal’ so even now it’s hard to know what the me back home would think of my friends here.  Maybe only time will tell… the Peace Corps experience is definitely a unique one.”

                -Tue, Aug 2^nd 2011- “ I still don’t know if it’s really sunk in that I’m at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro…  in Kenya… in Africa.  A lot of mornings I still wake up in bed here and forget where I am. It usually takes me a good 5-10 seconds as I come out of my Diphenyl induced coma to realize that yea… I’m still a Peace Corps Trainee in Africa, it wasn’t all some very vivid and strange dream; this is actually my life.”

                - Sat, Aug 6^th 2011- “Mama and Baba’s dogs had puppies on Thursday night. I think there were originally 5 and now I’m pretty sure we’re down to 3; they’re dropping like flies. I think animals in this country are trying to break my heart. They’re all like walking advertisements for the Humane Society or whatever organization puts on those depressing commercials with “Arms of the Angels” playing over it.”

                When I left America I had this great romantic notion that I’d be writing about how much my life was changing, how I was going to be a better person after this experience, that my journal would be chalk full of poignant moments… come to find out I’ve really spent most of my first 2 months in Africa writing about the choo, sickly looking puppies, all the food I miss from home and other Peace Corps Trainees. I’m going to have to make an effort in the next 2 years to write a lot more about Kenyan’s lives than my own.

I know some people have asked me about the famine in Northern Kenya that they’ve seen on the news. Rest assured, we are in the VERY Southern part of the country right now and, as such, are really not being affected heavily by conditions in the North. As it is, you’re probably seeing more about it on the news than I am here.  That said, it is striking just how fragile life is here. A couple hundred miles north of me people are starving and here, life goes on. It’s not that people here don’t care, I sat with Mama and Baba in the living room last night watching a short program about the famine and saw them make the same pained expressions at the emaciated faces of children on TV as I knew I was. They care, it’s just that they’re doing everything they can here to keep their own heads above water. Baba even told me that he donated money to the relief efforts. Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I’m safe and far away from everything that’s happening in the northern part of the country.

            Well, time to get going before the battery on Henry’s computer dies and I don’t get to post this! Love you all and miss you. Hopefully the next time I write I’ll be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer! Oh, yea, I almost forgot… I passed my language exam, which was the one obstacle to swearing in I was actually worried about. Guess I proved (maybe) that I know enough Swahili not to get myself killed or lost over here!

      Hi again everyone! Sorry it’s been awhile since my last post. Everything is still going well here, in fact even better than well, it’s going great. I had a great birthday and thank you for all the birthday wishes, it’s wonderful to know I’m being thought about even though I’m not there. I took some time on Saturday to sit down and go through my photo album and think about all of you back in the states… I may or may not have shed a ‘homesick-tear’ or two thinking about what I’d be doing on my birthday if I were at home. More than anything I miss all the birthday hugs I know I would have gotten and just so you all know, I’ll be cashing in on those when I get home.

       Training is slowly but surely coming to an end here. We have about 3 weeks left and we’ll be heading to Nairobi.  I will miss my home-stay family a lot when I leave here, I really feel as though I have been adopted. I cooked dinner for them on Sunday night and my 7 year old little sister informed me that I knew how to cook with a giant smile on her face. It’s the little moments in life like that that keep me going to bed every night with a smile on my face.

A number of people have asked me if there’s anything I need here, if they can send me a package or anything. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot I need. Letters are great and anyone who feels like sending one should know I treasure each and every word.  If anyone feels like sending a package my way here’s the things I’m missing in Kenya (but by no means feel like you NEED to send anything!):

*        - Good dark chocolate

*        -Cheez-its or any horrible-for-you-but-so-tasty snack items

*    -Powdered drink mixes (propel, gatorade, crystal light, etc)

 *    -Dried fruit, especially dried bananas but berries are also impossible to find here

*    - Protein bars (Cliff & Balance Bars are my favorites)

*     -Pictures of home (send me pictures of you, your family… anything really, postcards, maps, I need things to decorate my walls!)

*     -Newspaper articles ( I have NO idea what’s going on in the US or in MN, if there’s stuff you think I should know about or I would be interested in, cut em out and toss them in the package)

          My address is “Lindsay Bergman, Peace Corps Trainee, PO BOX 698-00621, Nairobi, Kenya.”  I get duty-free (I don’t have to pay to receive them) packages through August so if you do send a package I ask that you do it in the next week so I don’t go broke trying to buy my packages out of the post office! Again, no one should feel like they need to send anything, I’m actually surviving quite well here, it’s just those few little things that I miss. Like I said, mostly I like getting pictures and letters from home, so if you do send a package there had better be a little hand written note in there!

          We recently got back from a couple weeks out of our training village and it was wonderful to realize that when we came back to Loitokitok it actually felt like coming home. It really is amazing how fast you can adapt to a totally different way of life. Honestly, I think about going back to the US right now and I have a hard time imagining going back to life as usual… a flush toilet, refrigeration, my car, a normal work day, running water, electricity 24/7, air conditioning.  I thought I would miss those things a lot more than I do. Mostly I miss having face-to-face conversations with my favorite people. I miss my pets, my oak tree in the back yard and being outside after dark (we have a 6:30pm curfew during training…). I miss walking down the street and not being stared at and wearing pants instead of skirts.  Oh, and tofu, I miss the hell out of tofu.

But really those are just little things. There are some amazing people in my training class and getting to know some of them has been a privilege these last 2 months. It still amazes me how well I feel like I know some of them after only a short amount of time. I guess being thrown into a 3^rd world country and emotionally stressed a lot of the time will do that to you.

                   So, like I said, our training session here in Loitokitok is wrapping up and its bitter-sweet. I look forward to swearing in, being a real volunteer and having a lot more freedom but saying good-bye (at least for awhile) to the other volunteers will also be very hard. August 13^th will be our last day in Loitokitok and then we’ll head to Nairobi for swearing in and on the 18^th I will leave Nairobi for Kakamega where I’ll get to see the community in which I’ll be living and working for the next two years.

        

               Hope everyone back home is doing well. Please feel free to e-mail or write me any time, I love hearing about you lives back in the states. Until next time, Kwaheri!