Stuck on a Safari

We packed up all our stuff by 9am, said goodbye to Sid and Al’m (who told me I better come to his gig, so now I feel obligated), and headed toward Hell’s Gate. It’s a park reserve around Lake Naivasha, with animals and apparently a cave that looks like hell (which we never found).
The guards at the gate tried to charge me double everyone else because I’m not Kenyan, and then Sophie showed the work card and said that I wasn’t a tourist and I was here to volunteer, so that shut them up and they let me through. They gave us tickets with rules on the back, like “don’t liter”, “don’t get out of your car”, and that any harm that happened to us inside the park was not the responsibility of the park. I didn’t understand this until we drove through and started seeing all the wild animals everywhere. We saw some ostriches, a pack of giraffes, some zebras just chilling on the side of the road looking at us, gazelles, antelope, and some birds that blended very well with the safari landscape. Giraffes are so awkward when they run, I think they’re just as awkward as awkward turtles and may be my new favorite animal.
The rocks and cliffs in the park kind of look like Zion Nat’l Park and the Grand Canyon, and there are even places to climb the cliffs… but I don’t really trust some of those ropes so we just drove through the park. Moses has a VW sedan… which turns out is the worst thing to drive on a safari. The roads aren’t paved, but rocky and dusty (what else is new), and the bottom of his car got destroyed. As we were going up a hill, we all heard this loud scratch and I think we were all thinking the same thing “Oh shit”.
So we all climb out of the car, regardless of the rules, and see that part of his car is hanging and hitting the ground. Moses started to bitch like a little girl, whining and ordering Sophie around, and she just put up with it! Women really have little to no rights here, and tolerate the whining men who act like another child.
No one had ever changed a tire before, so I had to take the car jack and show them how to jack up the car. However, the ground was too soft and the car kept falling, so Christine and I got two big rocks and told Moses to drive up on them. Then Christine crawled under the car and ripped off the hanging object (Christine is a twig and was the only one who could really fit under the car, and Sophie goes “This is why the world needs skinny bitches like you”) with one of the obsidian stones Winnie and I had collected from the surrounding area. This took some time, and the road isn’t big so we were blocking this one dude in. Moses said “Nancy, go talk to them because they’re mzungos”. Just ordering me. And they weren’t even mzungos. They were Kenyan Indians who spoke perfect Kiswahili.
We finally made it out of the park, and were on our way back to the city, when we got stopped at one of the police check points. I had heard about how corrupt the police were, but I had never experienced it until now. Moses wasn’t doing anything wrong, not speeding, and everyone was wearing a seat belt. But the policeman wanted to be bribed and was trying to get Moses to give him some money so he would let us go. Moses didn’t end up having to pay, because he gave him bank advice instead bc Moses works at a bank. Apparently the cop is having a hard time getting a loan or something.
I was so happy to finally get back to Sophie’s. We were all sweaty, dusty, and tired. We had one big meal, and hung out watching movies the rest of the evening. I also learned some more stuff about Kenyans, like how their middle name is the time of the day that they were born. I really have fun with the sisters, and feel like one of them which is nice when you’re far away from your family. I’m not really a city person anymore, but I don’t mind staying in the city for a few days as long as I’m with good people (as the aussie would say).

Merry Christmas

At 6am, Dad called to wish me a merry Christmas. I was half asleep, and also the apartment is small so I didn’t want to wake everyone up, so the call was brief. I don’t think he realized the time difference, but if anyone wants to call me my number is

254-0711-766-952

But remember I’m 8 hours ahead of everyone, mmk?
Mama Sophie came in a few hours later, wishing Christine and I a merry Christmas as that it was time to get up and prepare for our camping trip to Lake Naivasha, which is a little over 60km north of Nairobi.
As I was packing my sports clothes, I couldn’t help but notice that the other girls were wearing heels, nice jeans and shirts, and carrying purses. I was really confused by this, and even more confused when I noted that they weren’t packing any cooking supplies or the mini gas cooker. I figured Moses, their neighbor who was driving us, had packed all of that – but no, he didn’t.
It all made sense by the time we got to Crayfish Camp, and Christine told me none of them had ever gone camping before. They thought the campsite would just have everything for them. And it wasn’t even a hardcore campsite – it had a lodging area, bar, pool, and restaurant too, but they were all terribly overpriced to the point where I wouldn’t even pay those prices in the States. The camp ground seemed like a place where Kenyans vacationed for the holidays, because I only saw about two or three mzungos. So I couldn’t figure out what Kenyan would pay 750F for a meal, when most meals only cost 80F. The girls and Moses looked so helpless, and I suggested that maybe we could go into town and buy some maize and a gas cooker, which would be only 2000F total versus eating at the campsite for 4000F for all in total.
So we drove into town, and I kept thinking we were going to a supermarket. But no no no. They stopped at a restaurant, where we sat down and ate, and then Sophie ordered an entire chicken for later on. And then we went back to the campsite. I asked Sophie how she expected to heat up the chicken, and she paused and said “We’ll just find someone to do it for us”. Oy. Oy oy. Novices.
I’ve also gotten a better idea about the PEV and why it was such a big deal that a kikuyu President was elected and why Lua people were so pissed off. Luas think that kikuyu’s are thieves and cheat people out of their money. Sophie says that they are talented business men and looove money. This, of course, is a stereotype – however, there are some kikuyu that really hold true to this stereotype. For example, we went out on a boat ride on Lake Naivasha and were having a pleasant time with the 5 of us, and then these other two people. The driver took us past some swimming hippos (which are HUGE! Like several tons!) and told us that there is only one male allowed per herd, and if a son is born the father of the herd will kill off the son. He was telling us other nature facts about the lake, and it was fun until we got back to shore and were paying the guy. The driver and the two other people seemed to be friends, and were trying to bully Moses into paying for not only the 5 of us, but the two extra people as well. This makes NO sense what so ever, and I don’t know how they could even have suggested such a thing, but that debacle took at least 30 minutes, while the two guys were talking to one another in kikuyu trying to figure out how to scam Moses. So Sophie told them to f-off and that we were just going to pay at the office. We all started walking away and the guy and the driver followed and pestered Moses half way, when they realized that if they went to the office with us they would get fired and just took the money that Moses was offering. It was so ridiculous and so stereotypical. It would be interesting to know what kikuyu stereotype luas to be, though.
So we hung around the campsite, talking, watching this show called Churchill Live, which is some satirical comedy on Kenyan life. I didn’t get all of it because I’m not from here, but there were several Obama jokes, and then my favorite about how cotton balls were put on xmas trees to represent snow…in Kenya.
By the end of that show, we were hungry and I watched as Sophie tried to convince the kitchen to heat up our chicken for us. Our entire chicken. She’s a good sweet talker though, and finally convinced them to after about 40 minutes (seriously, it would have been easier to make our own fire and do it). After dinner, the girls wanted to have a camp fire because everyone else had one, so I watched for a few minutes as they struggled to make one. It was funny and so pathetic at the same time, watching three women in heels and a guy in nice khakis and dress shirt try to make this thing. Finally I cut in and helped them, and then an Indian group next to us let me borrow some flame and we finally got it going.
One of the guys, Sid, was so friendly so I left Sophie and Moses at the fire and walked over with Sid to his camp area. He and his family and friends were playing this sequence game, and he let me play. Sid would walk away and his friend Al’m would ask me to pick a number between 1-10, then Al’m would put objects in some RANDOM order that made no sense what so ever, Sid would come back, and guess the number. This went on for about an hour, and I knew that there was some kind of trick going on but I couldn’t figure it out and felt like a total ass, but then I noticed that Al’m would have his hands on his knees when Sid came over, and would have the number I told him displayed on his hands. It was quite clever and disguised really well, so we went back to Sophie and the girls are tried it on them. They couldn’t figure it out, and thought that they were getting the “sequence” for awhile, but guess what, there is no sequence! Try it with your friends one time, it’s pretty funny watching people try to make sense of nothing.
Al’m turned out to be really cool, in fact all of them were and their father offered us some Indian tea which I like just as much as Kenyan tea. Al’m is a DJ in Nairobi and invited me to one of his gigs this weekend, so maybe I’ll go if Christine wants to go. They invited me over to have some sheesha, but I’d had enough of that in Egypt so I declined, climbed into my tent, and slept with the sounds of the nearby disco blasting until about 4am. Oh yea, people here like to go out clubbing on Christmas. It’s the opposite in the US, where everyone stays at home with their family. Weird, right?

Mission Ngong Escape

After talking it over with Sophie, I decided that I wanted to get all of my stuff out of the base so I won’t have to go back there in the future and I’ll be free of their tyrannical system. So we waited for the head staff to leave, and then I caught a matatu out to the base. Chris was sad that I was leaving, but he understood after seeing what Mike had done to the other interns. Khadija is stuck there, and I feel so bad for her because she acts as their maid which is unacceptable. She’s stuck there like a prisoner. We talked about doing a mini escape for a few days, so we’ll see how that goes.
I got my stuff out of the safe and headed down to the mzungo town Karen to meet Sophie. Ironically, though, I ran into Adam and Abbie… the ex-interns who left Eyepoke in protest. We talked about the mini escape to the coast after xmas… we’ll see what happens. They’ve known each other for a long time and I don’t want to be an awkward third wheel, so I really hope Khadija can come.
**Note: if you’re very sensitive to thoughts on religion, skip this paragraph. It’s just my personal opinion and my thoughts on religion in Africa.
Later that night, Sophie invited me to mass at their catholic church. I went out of curiosity, but I don’t think I’m going again. It was NOTHING like any other catholic service I’ve witnessed in the states. They have African dancing, drums, and all the songs have been changed to sound more African. And the priest is an old white guy. And the whole service was really irritating. He was dumbing down the service completely. I had a small panic attack, because that’s just what church does to me. It truly angers me how the church took advantage of African suffering. Mary was telling me that most churches in Africa are a money front, and few are truly religiously pure. She says that all of a sudden, the priests will be driving nice cars, living in nice homes, etc. I was so ready to get out of there, but the service was 2 hrs.
I briefly talked to Dad on my simu, but it’s kind of expensive. I think they are a bit sad I’m not there, but I think I’m doing more good here than sitting at home eating and drinking in front of the TV. It didn’t feel like Christmas because there was no snow, no lights, and no trees. But it’s ok, because I’m kind of over Christmas, at least for this year. It’s become a holiday of consumer culture in America. And even though I’m not religious, I think it’s shameful the way Americans approach Christmas and turn it into something it is not. So this Christmas Eve may have been different, but not in a bad way at all.

Leaving Nakuru

Mary and Maurice put me on a bus back to Nakuru around 11, and I was really sad to depart. Nakuru was starting to feel like home, and I didn’t want to go to Kajiado. In fact, I’m going to try to talk my way out of it so I don’t have to go and instead come back to Nakuru in Jan when the project reopens.
For some reason, my clothes wouldn’t fit into the same bag that I used to bring them to Nakuru, so I had to put on as many pieces of clothing as possible. I looked ridiculous, but I was being practical!!!
On the way back to Nairobi, I got to see some Masai herders, a herd of zebras on the side of the road, and a group of monkeys. No big deal. They were just chillin. On the side of the road. I mean, I guess.
Once in Nairobi, Sophie met me with her sister Christine, and we hopped on a ghetto bus to South B in Nairobi. By ghetto bus, I don’t mean ragged looking. I mean, these people bought graffiti stickers and plastered them on the windows, bought a flat screen and installed it on the ceiling, and show music videos while BLASTING the music to the point of approaching hearing loss. If I was having such a hard time tolerating it, Mark would have HATED it because his ears are so sensitive.
Sophie lives in an apt with two of her sisters. Christine lives there full time and is 23, Winnie is 18 and comes home on holiday from boarding school in Nakuru, and Sophie comes home on the weekends. It’s a nice place and feels like home. It may also feel like that because Sophie’s sisters took me under their wing. Winnie is so helpful in clueing me in on things that many people overlook (like things that you only understand if you’ve been in Kenya for awhile) and Christine taught me how to make chipati! It’s so easy! Chipati flour, salt, sugar, water, sliced veggies (they added cilantro and I was too shy to tell them that I can’t tolerate it.. but it gets cooked so it’s not bad), all kneaded together. Then you make them into balls and roll them flat, put it in the pan which is preheated on the mini gas cooker, flip it when it looks a little dark, put some oil on it, flip it again after 30sec, oil it, flip it, done. See? Easy!

Nakuru Provincial General Hospital

I was really excited to go to work this morning because Mary and Sophie were to be in the office and I was going to shadow them. However, it was only Mary in the office because Sophie was sick, and I was sent to go to the hospital with Maurice and Ann for a bit. On our way over, Ann gave me a beautiful necklace for Xmas (but later I found out that she was going to charge me for it later that day for 2000F even tho she bought it for 200F…a price I wouldn’t even pay in the states. But Maurice scolded her and told her not to).
Our first stop was the nutrition consultant’s office. The consultant helps HIV/AIDS patients construct healthy diets and what not, so I got to sit in and see how patients were doing. There is a USAID program that gives nutrition supplements to underweight patients and when they reach a certain weight they’re released from the program. These supplements are meant to be a booster, something on top of their regular diet. And it’s one nutrition pack per patient. So this woman I recognized from the Lanet support group came in with her son. I thought her son was 2, and when she told me he was 5 I almost started crying. This may be one of the cutest kids ever, so well behaved and when I said “Habariyako”, he bashfully said “Mzuri!”. His eyes were so innocent, and to think that this little boy has HIV.. it was the first time I thought I was going to cry since I’ve been here. But I was in the middle of the appointment and couldn’t just start crying. So I swallowed the big knot in my throat. The mother was using the supplements meant for the one boy for her family of 6, and not as a booster but as a meal. It was so crushing. Oy, I can’t even write about it anymore.
We stopped thru the TB ward to visit Ann’s patient, who was so sick that his hand was shaking so hard when he greeted us. I wasn’t supposed to stay in the ward though because my immune system hasn’t adapted to resisting TB like Maurice and Ann’s. I was also starting to feel very sick, and my chest started hurting and I thought I was going to throw up. I told Ann “I think I’m going to throw up, I’m heading back to the office”. So I started walking back and her and Maurice followed, but kept stopping to shoot the shit with people and I was starting to shake because I was feeling so ill. I couldn’t understand why they were stopping in the middle of the field in the sun and making me stay with them. So I just walked off because I knew I was sick from the sun and dehydrated. Once in the office, I told Mary what I thought was wrong, and she agreed. Ann and Maurice showed up and Ann was like “why did you walk away?!” and I said “because I was going to throw up”. She looks at Mary and says “Unesema?” (what did she say?). Ann didn’t know that “throw up” meant “vomit” or “puke”. And I guess it is an odd saying if you translate literally. So now I will always use the word “vomit”.
I hung out with Mary and a lady named Diane in the office the rest of the day. Diane is a very amazing woman, who lost her husband during the PEV and has several kids, but is adamant about starting a program for disabled children in Africa. Children who are disabled are shunned by the community and parents keep their disabled children hidden from society because it’s taboo to give birth to a disabled child. So Diane and I were talking about possibly starting a boarding school for disabled children, teaching them occupational skills that work within their disability, and bringing the school to them. That way, they would be together in a safe community where no one would judge them for being disabled because everyone else is disabled. You know?
Mary walked me home and taught me how to make tea!!! Boil milk over the stove, pour some water in the boiling milk with the tea leaves, stir it with the strainer, and then pour and strain into a cup. Easy! I don’t know why I didn’t get it before. The whole time I just had tea and water because that’s how we do in the US. Learning something new every day here, I am. Mary is such a pure person, and a breath of fresh air because I’ve been having a hard time finding people I can trust here. Ann and some of the volunteers are notorious for trying to rip off the mzungo interns in Eyepoke, which is so messed up. Mark has really taught me how to trust people, and perhaps I’ve become too trusting, something you definitely cannot do here. Honestly, Mary, Sophie, and James are the only people in Kenya that I’ve met so far that I trust. The policemen are the most corrupt, but so are the politicians, which is why the PEV erupted anyway. I’m just trying to wrap my head around how a country survives off corruption.

Menengali Crater

I found out today that if I sleep with more covers on, I won’t wake up at 4am… I’ll actually sleep till 8am! Sundays are uncomfortable for me, because it’s church day. All the TV programs are outrageous Christian programming. One was about a motorbike race and how each of the protective gears was a Christian shield. Another was talking about how hydraulics was one of God’s laws and god made ants with the ability to carry four times their body weight. Right, because evolution had nothing to do with that one. I gladly welcomed a change in programming when a lame Aussie soap opera came on (Neighbors), because it didn’t talk about religion. I was killing time till 12pm, because Phyllis was going to take me to the nearby crater.
I joined Delfie, Phyllis, and her friend George for breakfast. George was interesting to talk to, and was very aware of what it’s like for Americans to be in Kenya because he’s got two siblings abroad. As usual, I was asked on my thoughts on Obama’s upcoming presidency, but George was realistic and understanding when I told him I didn’t think Obama could help Kenyans as much as the people think. He said of course, why would people want to come to a place of violence over elections, muggings, being called a mzungo CONSTANTLY (it’s really getting under my skin, because I’m not a tourist and I’m not here to stay in lavish hotels and spend lots of money). George asked where I was working, and when I told him about the slums in Lanet and Kptembua he was horrified. He said “Did you go with any security?” – no – “Did you get pick pocketed?!” – no – “How did you not get mugged? I can’t even walk in those parts without getting mugged.” He thinks that they respect mzungos in those parts. I’m not sure if he’s right, in fact I think they despise mzungos at times.
The four of us piled into the car, and once we got to the gate of the Menengali Crater, the gate keeper charged Delfie 10F, Phyllis and George 20F each, and me 50F. They always charge mzungos more, no matter who they’re with. It makes NO sense at all, but Phyllis said corruption is life in Kenya. I can understand if they charge citizens less if their taxes cover park maintenance, but I really doubt that’s where taxes are going. And the roads aren’t really maintained – it’s so rocky and Phyllis’s old Subaru wagon almost bottomed out a few times. It was worth it when we got to the top. Pictures can’t capture the immensity of the crater, which is 90km wide. At night, baboons and leopards come out. There’s also this big sign with the distance from the crater to the big cities of the world, like NY (!!!), Mecca, London, Tokyo. There were more but I forget. My bad.
There was also this rickety old tower that overlooked the crater, and a cattle herder was just chillin’ up there, so I climbed up and joined him. However, when the tower started rocking I quickly climbed down. George gave me a necklace from the top of the crater with my name on it and the day we were at the crater. I thought that was nice of him. I felt like one of the family.
Phyllis had to drop Delfie off somewhere, so George and I sat out by the pool at Graceland and enjoyed tea. He taught me more Kiswahili, more technical things and explained that there is a difference between the language in Nairobi and that on the coast. In Nairobi, people speak shang (mix of Kiswahili and English), but the best Kiswahili is spoken on the coast which is also where most Kenyan Muslims are. I want to go there and learn, because I don’t want to learn bad Kiswahili.
We took a break when Phyllis came back, and I had my first meal of roasted goat, which is really good, with a side of French fries (ughh) and mokimo (mashed potatoes, skumaweekee, maize, cilantro aka dhania). Phyllis and George peer pressured me into having a Tusker (national beer) which is OK but honestly, in hot weather I hate beer bloat and am trying to avoid alcohol. Plus, I need to save money, although beer doesn’t cost more than $1.50. So we continued on with the lesson, and I was doing really well until George was teaching me to verb “to eat” – “kula”. At first, I couldn’t understand him, and said “Kuma?” George paused, and then started laughing uncontrollably. Phyllis asked him what I said and he told her, and then SHE started laughing. I was like geez what did I say?! Phyllis told me I had said “pussy”. And then she told me also never to say “mboro” which means “dick”. In this culture, you don’t just call people “dicks” for “jerks” and if you say those words people will look at you very odd. Soooo yea, lesson learned. It was my favorite and most pleasant day thus far in Kenya.

lanet

I woke up super early, shivering because it gets rather cold at night here. But it’s okay now – I’ve found the ghetto newspaper reading lady on TV entertaining AND there was this really awkward Aussie show called Outriders on that made me laugh because it was so terrible. But then it made me miss Mark, so I switched it to another news station – they were talking about the blizzards in the US (snow in LA?! Really???) and then they were talking about the cricket games in Perth. It’s like the universe wanted me to miss the aussie even more. Boo you universe.
Even though it’s Saturday, Ann had to do home visits because she didn’t go yesterday. However, I noticed she took none of the drugs with her. So I didn’t understand how the patients were supposed to get their meds. Most of them can’t get to the hospital. Ugh. Okay. Moving on.
So Ann was supposed to meet me at 10, but she never showed so I went back to the house and Phyllis was managing the chickens. I have never really talked to her, but she invited me in for tea and she made me my first REAL breakfast since I’ve been in Kenya. She’s quite talkative and outgoing, and has a daughter Delfie who sat down with me. They were telling me all about good Kenyan dishes to make, things to see in Nakuru, and then Phyllis asked me about Obama…hahaha. It never ends. Then Ann called around noon and told me to meet her. Although I was slightly annoyed at her disregard of time, I wanted to go to Lanet so I thanked Phyllis and walked to the matatu stage to meet Ann.
We visited several homes, but the most inspiring was this woman who has really made a 180 change in her life. When Eyepoke field workers first met her, she was going insane and was so depressed, rude, yelling at people. She said that there were times when she was so sick she’d have to crawl across her home to get water. She wanted to commit suicide by either walking out onto the crazy highway (the highway I cross every day to work and the same highway where a policeman was hit by a car the week before) and get hit by a car, take some poison, or hang herself. But now, after the support group, she works everyday and supports her kids, and also wants to talk publicly to other people about her optimism in living with HIV. So although I may have a few issues with the way support groups are run here, they are effective for some people. I can’t argue with that.
One of the homes we went to was heartbreaking, because the mother had two kids – one with HIV and one without. The oldest one had HIV because the mother didn’t know she had it when she was pregnant, and breast fed and gave real food to the eldest interchangeably. When the eldest kept getting sick, the mother went to the doctors and they tested her and the child and they turned out positive. So when the mother had the second girl, she knew just to breast feed her. It’s so sad when a child gets sick this way, because they are so innocent and new to the world. And to contract it at such an early age… how long will meds really prolong HIV from becoming AIDS?
Ann and I took a break by the Lake Nakuru Reserve and she had me try sugar cane, which she says makes your teeth strong but that’s obviously not true. Sugar gives you cavities and whatnot, but everyone here LOVES LOVES LOVES sugar and when I ask for no sugar in my tea they are shocked (because they put like 4 spoonfuls in their tea). Sugar canes are really hard to eat and I don’t like them much, so I handed it to one of the kids who was standing near the fence. Who needs sugar cane when there are herds of zebra and buffalo right in front of you?!
The last stop was Esther’s, one of the volunteers. She made me some bread and tea, and her daughter was home from college in Nairobi. She was so easy to talk to, and taught me more Kiswahili. If she’s in the city when I go back in Jan, it’d be cool to hang out with her and her friends. I’m curious to see what college life is like in Nairobi. She also taught me the art of catching a matatu. Never get in an empty one, because they will sit and wait until the van is full and won’t let you get out. Also, sometimes they will have their buddies sit in the van to make it seem full, then get out once you get in. Okay, that’s the culture lesson of the day. Goodnight.

Lanet. Stupidity. Ignorance. Pride.

It’s 7pm, and I’m just hanging out in the house waiting for the water to turn on so I can de-dust myself. Yea, the water turns off after 10am and turns on after sunset in residential areas. This is supposed to conserve water, I guess.
This morning, I once again was woken up by Phyllis coming home at 4am. Why she comes home so late I have no idea, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I made myself some tea, but it didn’t taste anything like the kind that James made for me. I don’t know how he made it, but it can’t be that hard because EVERYONE makes it in Kenya. I waited until the sun rose and it was safe to walk to work, and I was excited because Ann was taking me to the support group in Lanet. However, when I got to the office, she told Maurice and I to go and she’d meet us there. Now, remember Maurice doesn’t speak English, but he wants to communicate with me so he’ll talk to me in Kiswahili, I won’t know what he’s saying and I’ll say something in garbled Kiswahili that won’t make much sense, he’ll laugh, and we’ll both go silent again.
We took a 5min matatu ride past upper 58 to Lanet, got out, and walk to – just guess- a church for the meeting. Religion is STIFFLING here, but I think the reason people cling to it is because religion provides people with a sense of community and diffuses the sense of responsibility by putting much reliance on a higher power…. and are desperate to be saved from some of the harshest conditions in the world. People trickled into the church, but there was still no Ann. By 11:30, Maurice couldn’t wait any longer for her because people were starting to get restless, so he opened with prayer and song. The TOT, Pamela, spoke a little bit of English and translated for me. However, after discussing how people were doing and goals for next year, Maurice ran out of things to talk about and people really needed their medicine, but Ann still hadn’t come. So he let people wander around while we waited. People weren’t as friendly in this group, and Maurice couldn’t translate like Lillian or Peter, and Pamela was busy tracking down Ann. So I sat and flipped through the minutes book to see what the group had been talking about through the year. This group was a little more focused on health and not mentality, which is fine, just different from Peter’s group in Salgaa. The minutes included discussions on:
- drug adherence and not defaulting on meds
- being faithful to one partner so the disease doesn’t spread as fast
- proper hygiene and washing oneself every day
- using protection
- eating enough carbs and proteins, the disease increases metabolism and people can become dangerously underweight very fast
- why men don’t come to meetings, there is a stigma and men don’t want to deal with their status so they keep spreading it. Cheating on wives is common here, so in theory men spread it faster than women
James told me that the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS is a result of stupidity and ignorance. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. Many people believe that you can’t get it from family members, that having sex with a virgin will cure you, and there are pills advertised on TV that “cure” you. I don’t understand how to government, who subsidizes the cost of septrin and other AIDS meds, can let people put such ads on public TV. If given the choice between taking septrin and other pills but still have the disease for the rest of your life OR taking some pills and then being cured forever, what do you think people will choose?! TB probably spreads so fast people EVERYONE shakes hands here. TB is an airborne disease - people cough on their hands – people shake hands of everyone, even strangers. Anyway, so that’s what I mean by stupidity and ignorance. But I also think pride is a big thing, because the men don’t want their pride in being a man to be darkened by having the disease. It’s so frustrating, and I get so angry when I think about it, which James warned me about, but this is life and I’ve got to find a way to work in this society’s mindset.
Ann never showed up, so people left without their drugs. I was really pissed off at Ann, because this was going to be the last meeting of the year and people needed their meds! When we got back to the office, she had no remorse for not coming and said she was at the regional meeting of AIDS NGOs which Sophie told her SHE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO GO TO. I was seriously pissed off, and worried about those people. I hope they can make it through the holidays.
Her time management skills are not the organization’s only problems. People here walk slow, it’s just their thing. Which is fine, but when you have 200 patients and need to make home visits, you’ll only be able to walk to a few houses a day. There are four trucks and five motorbikes sitting at the base doing NOTHING, but Mike won’t let the satellite offices use them in the field – where they should be used. I also think there should be a support group for kids so they learn what the disease is and how to deal with it, how to help their parents, and to help them deal with the loss of their parents to AIDS. I tried to talk to Ann about some of these things over chapatti (which are my favorite Kenyan food now), but she didn’t get it. I’ll try to talk to Sophie about it on Monday. But I was so frustrated that I needed to vent some energy, so I just walked home instead of taking a matatu. Now I understand why James gets so stressed. It’s tiring trying to work with AIDs here.

Kptembua

It’s ironic that right now I’m watching an Oprah episode about a woman who has too much stuff so that her house is unliveable, and I’m in a country where people have no stuff in houses that are unliveable but they still live.
At the house in Nakuru, I’m up so early because Phyllis has four roosters that start crowing at 5am (not because of jetlag – I think I’m over that by now). By 7:30am I was bored with the ghetto news that I walked to work an hour early, getting a deep cut from my flip flops. I have to be very careful with open wounds because I am in constant contact with disease here in Kenya. I was in quite a bit of pain by the time I got to the office, and Ann still wasn’t there so I sat outside the office trying not to look at my throbbing foot. When Ann did show up, she was flustered because she thought something had happened to me because she tried called my simu and it wasn’t working. Mike apparently tried to call as well. So we had to go get my phone fixed, and Ann and I avoided the long queue because she knew a guy who knew a guy. That took up an hour, making me a little late for the home visits, but Lillian (a volunteer) and Maurice didn’t mind.
I had my first boda-boda ride, which is a guy on a bike with a seat on the back wheel. These guys can pedal even very heavy people up hills. Maurice is delightful, but doesn’t speak a word of English. Luckily, Lillian spoke enough English to help me communicate with the patients. However, I was slightly ticked off at Lillian because the Eyepoke interns are NOT there to give money and buy food for every family (they don’t want people to not work and then depend on Eyepoke for food), Sophie reminded Lillian of this before we left… but in every house Lillian would tell me that the women were all saying they were so hungry, passive aggressively begging me for food. Then she would go “So what do you think?” What do I think? Of course I feel bad for these people in the slums, but I can’t buy food for everyone. ALSO, I’m not inclined to help people who aren’t even trying to work or are spending their money on junk food or booze when they should be buying food for their kids. But I couldn’t tell her that. However, one of the ladies was SO upbeat and hard working, had six kids and was widowed. She said she has to be upbeat for her kids, because if she’s sad then they will be sad. She said what’s the use of being upset over a condition that she couldn’t reverse. Her kids were so well behaved, all sitting in the mud house helping their mother with chores. She didn’t beg me for a single thing, she was so content with her system. So I walked out to the street, bought 2kg of maize ($1.50), and gave it to her as a Christmas gift. She teared up, and her kids crowded me saying “Asante-san!!” (thank you very much).
However, the next home we visited was very depressing. The mother couldn’t even get up because she was so sick, and when I asked her where her children were she said she hadn’t seem them in a few days because they were scared of her and scared of getting sick. The kids don’t understand her disease, and she doesn’t want to explain it to them. It’s so frustrating when people think like that, because I believe that in order to make a change, you have to start by educating the youngest generation – older generations are harder to reason with and change their minds. Also, giving the youngsters something to look forward to in the slums could change their outlook on staying healthy. As we were leaving one of the homes, we walked through a dusty soccer field where some of the neighborhood boys made their own team and were practicing soccer. They were actually quite good, and staying out of trouble. I think organized sports are a great way of motivating kids.
One thing I noticed in the slums was the amount of plastic bags on the street. People here burn their own trash in the streets, and they use plastic bags for everything at the stores. They really need to implement some of Mom’s cloth bags. The garbage is so disgusting, and just getting rid of the use of plastic bags would make it slightly more tolerable.
The smell of burning plastic and the amount of pollution I was sucking up through my nose made me feel sick to my stomach, but Lillian and Maurice were starving so I bought us some ugali, which is maize and water mixed until the mixture is stiff. It’s tasteless, but nutritious and incredibly heavy and filling. I was so full after half of my serving. I was so full that I was starting to get drowsy, so I went home and was asleep before the sun set. I’m lame.

Quick crap from kenya

HABARI!
Okay my friends, here is the deal. THe internet is terrible here and I can't even reply to emails in my bucknell account.... but i can reply on facebook. crazy i know. I am keeping a diary of every day but don't have time to put it up online right now. I will try to give you quick overviews of my entries and then when I have a steady internet connection I will update with detailed info.

Basically, the flight was hella long and there were crying babies on both flights. But when I got into Nairobi I couldnt find the person who was supposed to pick me up. I waited for a few hrs and then decided to catch a cab to ngong even tho i didn't know where the heck the office was. that whole debacle was insane and took 5hrs to find the center, i was starting to think it didn't exist.

finally, i found the financial headquaters and then chris, a kenyan from the base, came out and picked me up and took me back to the base in ngong. the base is REALLY nice and way more than i expected. however, i am not in ngong right now. out of nowhere, the second day i am here, danny one of the directors told me i was going to nakuru to see the projects close up for christmas. so 3 hrs later i was in nakuru and at the center with sophie and an intern james. james is a funny irish lad who has been here for 2 years and knows his shit. he even speaks kiswahili which i am finding that i really need to learn.

anyhoo. so james left on the 17th and i went out to salgaa to a rural town to a support grp meeting for HIV. people there were lovely and even tho no one knew much english i understood a lot.

i had to get to my apartment alone this time because james wasn't with me, which was a little scary because the matatus here are INSANE and drive like crazy... one actually killed someone last week.

Okay so yea that was interesting and i woke up this morning at 5am to watch the ghetto news where this lady LITERALLY reads the newspaper to everyone. yeaaa. i don't get harassed too much, just once in awhile people call me "mzungu" which means white person. the street boys harass me at night, but james says to make friends with them. he organized a soccer tourny for them and doesnt give them money because they use it to sniff glue, which takes away the feeling of hunger.

there's so much more for me to tell you, but i just wanted to let you all know that i am safe-ish and am going to another town for a support group today.

and sasa mina!! thank you for caring!!! it means a lot that you are taking the time to read my awful writing. Asante!!!!

and of course, i miss everyone and wish ya'll a merry christmas. i might be in nakuru on xmas, and maybe in nairobi with sophie bc she invited me, or maybe at the base because satoni said they were going to slaughter a goat and drink it's blood which is supposed to be very tasty, so i don't know which one i will do! okay love!

Salgaa

James made me a cup of Kenyan tea before work, which is by far the best tea I’ve ever had in my life. I am not sure how they make it, but I’ll learn eventually. We walked to work, which takes about 45min but is a pleasant walk. However, during the post election violence (PEV) James said it was awful and 30,000 people were sleeping on the street, making the whole place smell of feces and what not. I can’t believe he stayed through it, but that’s just how committed he is to helping the people around Nakuru. What happened was the elected president is a kikuyu and the luas were accusing him of stealing votes. The kikuyus and luas started fighting, and what people were doing was pulling down someone’s pants, and slicing their penises with glass if they weren’t circumcised. Women were raped infront of their whole families, men beaten in front of their children. People’s homes were burned down, and they ran and hid in the trees or stayed in IDP camps with tents from rotaries around the world. Eyepoke had over 1000 patients but then lost like 400 of them to the PEV, Children were killed or orphaned.
Needless to say, Kenya is NOT the safest country in the world, and James was going back to Ireland for a bit and wouldn’t be home, and I was going out to field sites with volunteers, so Eyepoke wanted me to get a cell phone (“simu” in Kiswahili) so they could reach me and update me or I could call them for help. Peter, a Kenyan preacher, is one of the volunteers and met me at the office to take me to one of the rural sites called Salgaa. I bid farewell to everyone in the office, and got in a matatu with Peter. Most people know and respect Peter, so once again I was saved from hassling with the drivers. Peter doesn’t speak English very well, but thinks he does, and he’s too sweet for me to say anything, so the whole matatu drive he was talking and I just nodded my head because I really had no idea what he was saying. He also overuses the word “exactly”, but actually a lot of Kenyans do that… he just does it a lot. By the end of the terribly bumpy ride to Salgaa, I was saying “Exactly” instead of “yes” or “that’s right”.
Salgaa is a village off of the road to Uganda, so many truck drivers stop through. It has a reputation for commercial sex workers, so I thought it was going to be a rough crowd. Instead, the women were incredibly warm and uplifting. Masa, one of the TOTs was making beaded bracelets which the women in the support group sell for a living instead of begging or doing illegal things. She let me bead a few rows, but its meticulous work and there were so many new people coming into the room that I had to stop and greet them all. Caroline, one of the patients, came in and is a firecracker, and asked me in Kiswahili what I had brought her for Christmas. I had a moment of panic like “Shit, was I supposed to bring something?” and off the top of my head I told her “My friendship”. That seemed to win her over and I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I hadn’t offended the women by not bringing something. Although the meeting was supposed to start at 10:30, we waited until 11:30 for people from far away homes to get there.
Once everyone got there, we walked over to the church, which is just a wooden hut. Peter and Henry, an incredibly cheery patient, showed me the garden that the support group built so they could grow their own skumaweekee. Then the meeting started, opening with prayer and song. People here think that if you’re not Muslim, then you’re a Christian, which I am not and in fact despise religion. I appreciate what it can do for people, but I do not like its brainwashing quality. James said never to tell people I was an atheist – he said keeps his mouth shut when it comes to religion. People here call themselves hardcore Christians, but they lie and steal and kill (look at the PEV!). So I ask, how is that Christian?
The group didn’t mind me sitting in on the meeting, and I tried to pay close attention and learn some Kiswahili. However, there was a moment where I had the overwhelming need to vomit. I don’t know what happened, I got really faint and my insides ached and I was shaking and sweating. But I didn’t want to disturb the group so I sat there, chugging down water, and trying my best not to focus on how I was feeling. Instead, I took notes on what the women were talking about. There were many positives and negatives that I observed during the meeting. Although the entire thing was in Kiswahili, one patient translated for me. The women went around and talked about what they have taken out of the meetings, such as:
- how to make their own income through the skills they’ve learned in the group like making soap, yogurt, jam, and jewelry
- making friends who are going through the same struggle with AIDS/HIV
- gives them strength to get up every day and care for their children
- learn how to show love and compassion to others
- what a balanced diet consists of, and what HIV/AIDs patients should eat
- education on the disease and how to prevent the spread of it (for ex. A mother with HIV/AIDs won’t spread it to her child during breast feeding if she ONLY breastfeeds and once she gives the child some other kind of food she must stop breast feeding all together)
- how not to depend on Eyepoke for everything and be self sufficient
But the group had some shortcomings that I would like to see fixed. There aren’t a lot of men, and the ones that do come don’t take it seriously. Also, people who are trying to work can’t always make the meetings because they are at an odd time in the day. And also there is a lot of repetitiveness from meeting to meeting, and there in a burnout rate because of that. Eyepoke also does not allocate funds properly, because what Peter and other field volunteers need is a car or motorbike to get to some of the homes for home visits, because it takes soo long to walk to all of the homes. Peter and I only made it to four before we had to head back to Nakuru. These aren’t paved roads, and the homes aren’t sturdy buildings. They’re mud huts.
We visited some of the solar disinfection families, and they showed me their children’s charts and their record of diarrhea for that month. A lot of the children who were drinking the water were actually doing better and were having less bloody stools. Oh yea, okay the sodis project is where people collect water from the river, put it in these clear plastic bottles, and let them sit in the sun for 6 hours. It just paralyzes them long enough for people to drink it. We also went to Caroline’s where I learned how to cut skumaweekee. They hold it in their hands in a fist and take a huge blade and chop the stems sticking out of the fist. It’s very hard and I don’t know how they don’t cut themselves, because I was petrified that I would (I didn’t, don’t worry). Her family wanted me to stay over and spend Christmas with them, but I couldn’t because I had more homes to visit.
The village kids were coming up to me and tugging my hair. Peter said it was because most women in Kenya with long hair really have extensions, so the kids were running up to me to see if my hair would fall out. Obviously, it didn’t and instead my head kept jerking back. I was relieved to get back to the meeting building because my head was starting to ache, and then some of the TOTs started asking me about Obama and America. They even nicknamed me Obama and thought I was going to chill with him when I got back to the states. They all thought that now that Obama was elected, he will change things in Kenya. One of the women thought that Americans are going to want to come to Kenya and bring Kenyans all kinds of gifts. They are in for a rude awakening, because Americans aren’t known for visiting Africa like the Brits are. When they don’t see any results from Obama, I fear they will turn on him and Americans. But it’s not his responsibility to take care of Kenyans. He’s an American and must worry about issues within America.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed my visit in Salgaa and would like to go back, although I will have to come better equipped with perhaps some string to show them how to make the bracelets my swim kids showed me, and also a mouth mask to filter out all the dust from the matatu ride. I swear, it was so dusty that we had about a foot of visibility in front of us - we couldn’t even see if there was a car heading toward us!! Rather unsafe, but I made it home without James this time in one piece, in time to watch ghetto TV and an ad w/ this mosquito shouting “Let’s go spread malaria!!”. It was so cheesy and I couldn’t stop laughing. I guess you have to be there to appreciate the tackiness of it.

Nakuru

The 8 hr time difference really messes with my sleep, because I woke up at 5am and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I read for a bit, and started to wonder where everyone was by 9am. I wandered into the office and it was empty, except for Danny, who was playing on facebook. I asked him what the agenda for the day was, and he said “Oh, well we’re going to send you to Nakuru to see the projects close up there for the year”. I was totally caught off guard, and began to pack a bag for my 8-10 day stay in Nakuru. He told me to leave my passport and valuables in the base safe in case I get mugged (all in a matter of fact tone, like it was no big deal that people get mugged a lot in Kenya), so I just packed a small bag and left everything else at the base. Since it was my first time in Kenya, the head office had Khadija accompany me to Nakuru. But first, I went with her to her boyfriend’s house where he records his hip hop albums that are apparently very popular in Kenya.
Then we hopped into a matatu toward the city. Okay, let me explain matatus. They are old Nissan minivans that hold about 14 ppl, but the drivers always pack it up past capacity. The drivers are INSANE, swerving from lane to lane, almost hitting people (sometimes they actually do hit people). There are places along the road called stages where the handler sticks his head out the window and waves down people, those people pile in, and then the matatu drives off in a rush to the next stage. And they always try to rip off mzungos (foreigners) but because Khadija was with me, I paid the same as all the locals.
Once in the city, we had to walk to the bus stage, so Khadija took me past the former place of the US Embassy before the bombings. It’s now a garden with a wall of all the people who died in the bombings. I don’t know if people realize how many Kenyans died in the bombing, because not only did the building explode, but debris fell on people driving or walking by on the street. It hurts to know that the US brings its problems to other countries, like the bombings in Mumbai.
The ride to Nakuru was about 2-3 hours, so Khadija and I killed time by talking about the work she wants to do with Eyepoke (reducing HIV by working with commercial sex workers), listening to some of her boyfriend’s music, and looking through the pictures on my camera from home. The ones of the Aussie in Lewisburg came up, and Khadija asked if he was my boyfriend (some of the pictures were suggestive of some kind of romantic relationship) and I didn’t know how to explain our situation – Khadija’s English is good, but when getting into complicated topics much is lost in translation and I didn’t want her to take anything the wrong way. So I just told her yes. Eeek! Minor freak out. Okay, over it.
We passed the Great Rift Valley, which is GIGANTIC but no picture will ever do it justice. It’s hard to believe that people live in the valley, because it looks uninhabitable, but people do! We passed Mount Longottot, which once was a volcano I think. Nakuru is in the valley, and once we got into the town (I think it’s a little city but they say it’s a town) I was overwhelmed with the tacky buildings. I think Kenya is stuck in the 80s. The clothing is a few decades behind the US, and Khadija says it always takes a long time for anything like clothes or technology to trickle down to Africa. Khadjia took me into the office where I met Sophie, Mary, Ann, Maurice, and a VERY tall Masai client. Khadija had to head back to Nairobi, so Sophie took me down to the café in the building for some rice and meat and soup. The portions were so huge, and so cheap, but I couldn’t finish it. Sophie said that I have to learn to eat like a Kenyan! Then we were off to the chemist to get malaria drugs. Sophie held my hand the whole time because she was scared I was going to get hit by a car or something. Larium pills are about $4 here because the government wants people to be able to afford it since the disease is endemic. The other intern James, who’s been there for two years, has gotten it twice since he isn’t taking the pills, but his body is building immunity to it. Most Kenyans don’t even realize that they have malaria – it’s like second nature to them or something.
When we got back to the office I met James, who has a very strong Irish accent but speaks Kiswahili very well. Ironically, he’s 25 and a former teacher, here to do volunteer work (sound familiar??). He’s incredibly passionate about Kenya and helping people. He organized a soccer tournament for the street boys with Mary and Sophie, and gives them all the clothes that his parents send for him. I caught a matatu home with him, and we walked down a dark ominous street which I swore was out of a horror movie. But Upper 58, the area where the Eyepoke guest house is, is quite safe. The landlord, Phyllis, rents out her servant quarters to Eyepoke for 4,500F/month ($60). A divider makes the one room two sections, and it has a small kitchen. Not many of the kitchens in Kenya have stoves; instead they use mini gas cookers because it’s cheaper in the long run. We sat around and James filled me in on life in Kenya, like looking both ways when crossing a one way road because matatu drivers don’t follow road rules (oh yea, and people drive on the left side here). We also had a lengthy discussion about the corruption of Eyepoke – I won’t get into all the details but basically I do not think I can work for Eyepoke in the future. Funds from donors are being incredibly abused, and the only reason Eyepoke is afloat in Nakuru is because of Sophie, Mary, and James, as well as the solar disinfection project that isn’t even Eyepoke’s… it’s some scientist in Ireland that is running the research program in several countries. So I’m glad he filled me in, because I had my suspicions about the way things were being run at the head office. It’s complete bullshit what goes on, and the only reason Eyepoke can still function is because of the little people that the organization abuses and takes advantage of. But I will stay away from the base and just work in the field for the time that I’m here.
James gave me some bread and soda, such a nutritious dinner, and I passed out, only to be woken up at 4am by Phyllis calling James from the other side of the house gate because she had lost her keys. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so James and I watched CNN which plays in the early hours on KTN (Kenyan television network), which gave me a little taste of home even though I’m not craving American life at all right now. This was followed by the ghetto Kenyan news where a lady LITERALLY reads right from the morning’s paper. Yea. I’m not in America anymore.

Arrival in Kenya

**Note: the NGO name has been changed until I get back in the states. For now, we’ll call it Eyepoke. Deal?
After my 8 hour layover in Paris (the most boring and cold airport ever), I was actually more then happy for my next 7 hour flight. Kenyan Airways is very accommodating, serving more meals than needed with free alcohol, which the guy in front of me took full advantage of and was quite drunk and annoying. Mike had emailed me the day before to say that a woman named Khadija would be picking me up at the airport when my flight got in at 6am. I had to first wait for about and hour for my bag because it was the last one unloaded, and I was a bit worried that Khadija had left without me. I waited for two hours outside the airport for her, and then I decided that no one was coming and I’d better just go there myself. The only problem was that I had no address for the base in Ngong, but I figured people in Ngong would know it because according to the website, they do a lot of work in Ngong. The taxi driver was incredibly polite, and we spent two more hours driving around Nairobi looking for the base, or someone who at least knew where the base was. We stopped at an AIDs relief organization, and these two lovely people called everyone they knew to find out where Eyepoke was. I was beginning to think that this place didn’t exist, but finally the ladies found the financial headquarters in Nairobi. I waited awkwardly in the office with these two Eyepoke employees until one of the base workers, Chris showed up. The first thing he said when he saw me was (with a smile, not in an annoyed voice) “I was waiting for you at the airport from 6am to 10am!” Now, Mike had told me a FEMALE was going to pick me up, and I was looking for a female holding a sign, but let me tell you I didn’t even see a sign with my name on it. What had happened was as I was leaving the luggage area, Chris had gone in because I was an hour late. I felt so bad because he was there so early, but he was so lovely and bubbly and didn’t seem to mind. Kenyans smile a lot here, and Chris told me that I too had a beautiful smile. The day was starting to turn around.
We reached the base, which is way out of town, and I was greeted by the Kenyan staff of Eyepoke. Everyone here shakes hands and hugs, so that’s going to take some getting used to. They let me take a nap in my room, which was actually A LOT nicer than I thought it was going to be (in fact, the entire base was maintained very well). That nap turned into a 5 hour siesta, and Satoni woke me up at 7pm for dinner. I had my first taste of skumaweekee, some kind of greens, and chewy meat (I later discovered most meat here is chewy because they leave the fat). I chatted with him and another Kenyan Eyepoke volunteer Kevin for a few hours about their lives – both of them are Masai that have been westernized. Kevin actually talked to me about what he thought needed to be changed in the lives of some of the poor in Kenya, and he said we had to start with basic needs like harvesting rain water and teaching people how to grow their own food. He also told me that female circumcision should be abolished in the Masai culture, because it has no cultural significance or biological advantage – it’s purely for the man’s pleasure. He said he’s witnessed such procedures on women and that it’s not only excruciating to watch, but intolerable for the female going through it. There are a lot of backwards things in Kenya, and why the government still allows this to be done I have no idea. Also, polygyny is legal here, so it’s common for men to have more than one wife, or have a wife and girlfriends. It’s only been a day and I already have a boyfriend here. Well, not really. Satoni said I was to be his fourth girlfriend, and I jokingly agreed. At least, I hope he knows I’m joking.

She is his exile

Fidel's illegitimate daughter came to talk at Bucknell today. I didn't really start to take an interest in what's going on in Cuba right now, but after watching Motorcycle Diaries, I have a sudden thirst to know everything there is to know about Che and Fidel, because they're assholes but somehow so powerful. How the hell did this happen and why did people let it happen? So here's what I learned from Alina.

Alina Fernández Revuelta was only an infant at the start of the Cuban Revolution, born the illegitimate daughter of Fidel Castro through a secret relationship between Castro and Alina’s mother, Natalia. Alina said that she literally grew up in a cloud of Castro’s cigar smoke. She described the experience as seeing Fidel emerge from the television screen into her living room – his figure outlined through the cigar smoke. He acted as the man of the house, fixing broken things, helping her with her homework, giving her gifts - even if one of those gifts was a teddy bear made to look like Fidel himself...indoctrination??

Alina told us that the Fidel that she knew at home was not the Fidel that the people of Cuba were familiar with. She told us that it was “very difficult to give an objective perspective of Cuban reality and also telling a personal story." Basically, at the start of the revolution, Fidel wanted to destroy the Batista regime and better the lives of Cubans. In 1959, one of Fidel’s goals was so make sure that every Cuban was literate and sent teachers out to the isolated parts of Cubato teach reading and writing to those unable to travel into Havana for school. He saw health as something that everyone has the right to, and abolished the idea of health insurance; Alina mentioned that any Cuban can go in to any hospital and receive care. This is one thing that America doesn't have...

But Alina also talked about the downside of Fidel's regime. Human rights became a privilege and were soon banished, such as religious rights, making Cuba an atheist country, and freedom of speech by initiating the “Committees for the Defense of the Revolution”. These were secret police stationed in every neighborhood to keep an eye out for those opposing Castro’s ideas. Families who had began to fleeCuba were suddenly split internationally, as Fidel made it illegal for any resident to travel. Alina herself experienced such a split, for her sister fled Cuba right before Castro revised travel laws. Cubans were also banned from entering hotels where tourists visited, and made the idea of having relations with tourists the same as prostitution. The theory behind this was to isolate Cubans and to control their perception of reality. Fidel bashed America, painting an evil and greedy picture of Americans. Alina thinks that if Cubans have more contact with Americans, they will realize that Americans are actually very friendly, and may perhaps begin to question the word of their own government.


Alina has many issues with communism and the Castro dictatorship, which is most likely the reason for her alignment with the opposition party and for her escape from Cuba in 1993 under the guise of a Spanish tourist. She believes that the “results do not justify the process”, and that although the Cuban Revolution began to “create a change in the structure of society”, Cuba has been stuck in the 1950s for over half a decade. There has been no progression in the quality of Cuban life; instead, there has been regression. Although Castro may have told the world that Cubans were satisfied with their lives, the truth is that Cubans under Castro’s fist know nothing else except Castro. He made sure to limit the possibilities of any other way of life. Alina takes it upon herself to educate the world about the current conditions in Cuba, even if it means by doing so she is blacklisted by her own family, especially by Fidel’s sister.

The undertaking of this task puts Alina in a difficult situation. Though the Castro that she grew up with was kind to her, she sees the terror that he has poured over Cubans – terror which has caused several million Cubans to flee the island. She now refers to him not as “father”, but as Fidel, because “[she is] his exile”. She defied her own father at the risk of her own life. Kind of an "in your face fidel". Her strength to stand on her own is an inspiration to women and people world wide – her actions are symbolic of the freedom of thought that every world citizen should have access to.

So yea, I learned a lot.