Worth it.

All week, something has been stirring in the air. It's almost like how one can feel rain in the air, but instead of rain I felt a sense of uneasiness. Like something bad was going to happen.

Saturday night, I was coming home from Shiners with Mary, Winnie's high school where I was saying my goodbyes, and because it was getting late I told Mary I'd start dinner while she went home to shower.

--SIDE NOTE: Earlier that day, George and Phyllis wanted me to come eat chicken with them and drink. Honestly, I didn't want to even look at alcohol and also because I was giving blood the next morning, I didn't think it was the best idea. So I told them that I was giving blood and didn't want to go out, which they protested but I figured if I came home late enough they'd have already left--

So it turns out that yes, they did leave before I got home. What I did not realize was that they were just going to the pub in the shopping center which I pass as I walk home. As I'm about to get to the gate, thinking that I'd done a good job of avoiding unwanted company, and I hear someone yell my name. My heart drops.. I know that voice. I turn around and see Phyllis, George, and two of her "male friends" I had met earlier that day. Phyllis was swaying and slurring her words. And George had that glazed over look in his eye - george was gone and some out of control boundary crosser had replaced him.

He called over to me "Nancy! come have a drink with us!"
"No I don't think I can tonight sorry", I say.
"But baby, baby, I'm gonna miss you", he slurs. Now I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"george, i'm going to go home. Mary and I are cooking dinner and if I don't leave now she's going to be stuck waiting at the gate". I start walking away.
He grabs my wrist hard and starts tugging at me. Not hard at first, saying "But I'm never going to see you again"
"george, you're hurting my wrist please stop" I say, now using all my strength to pry his fingers off my wrist and pushing his hands away from me. Phyllis is just standing there, drunk, watching while her other two friends come over and start tugging at me.
"What's wrong with you? You are going to come have a drink with us" Now he's tugging at my arm too hard, and I realize this situation is getting out of hand.
"George, you need to get your hands off of me NOW" The other two males realize I'm getting angry and they back off. But George keeps pulling my arm while i am using my entire body weight to break free.
"What's wrong with you? Stop running. you're coming with me"

**Okay ladies, listen up. Because I'm about to throw out some knowledge. If someone ever puts their hands on you, and refuse to listen to your calm request for them to release you, there's only one thing to do. Punch them. And that's what I did.

He was too drunk to really comprehend that I had hit him, just enough that he let go and gave me time to walk away. NOW Phyllis starts yelling at him. "george, leave her alone. i'm going to take her home" and then as she puts her arm around me and we walk toward the gate, she looks back and whispers in a pitch that she thinks I can't hear even tho i'm closer in distance to her than she is to the men "don't worry, i'll get her to come back".

Sorry Phyllis, I'm not fucking going anywhere with you. I march off to the gate, go inside my apt, lock the door, and start chopping onions and peppers in a frenzy, a little shaken up about what had just taken place. I wasn't thinking straight, and burned the food, smoking up the whole room. In a panic, I grab the pot off the gas, burning my fingers which begin to blister immediately. I go to turn on the water, but wait... the water hasn't been turned on yet and the water in the ration bottles is gone. Fuck fuck fuck, my hand feels like it's on fire. The coldest thing in the room is the concrete floor, so I put my hand on it. An hour later, the water turns on and my hand is still burning, so i soaked it in luke warm water while finishing making dinner - i had to finish because it was the last meal i could cook for mary before i left. and also, it kept my mind from going insane. A few minutes later mary shows up and i tell her the whole story. She tells me not to think too much about it, that i'll be leaving nakuru tomorrow and that i should never, ever get close with the landlord. She is so right. So so right.

And that night, I truly saw the ugly side of drinking, and how scary it can make people.


I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there, and barely slept and was awake at 5am and dressed and packed by 5:05am. It angered me that one person could ruin my last day in the lovely Nakuru, but I pushed past it and grabbed my stuff and walked out of that gate confidently with Mary, ready to get to Kijabe.

We lucked out because the tuk tuk driver we told to pick up Zakiah passed us on his way, so we got a free ride and I finally rode in a Kenyan tuk tuk (which is the exact same as the ones in india). We tukked along into Bondeni, which looks so different at 6am when there aren't a bunch of people yelling "mzungo, mzungo". Zakiah hopped in the tuk tuk, crutches and a small parcel, waving goodbye to her two children.
"Are you scared?" I ask her.
"No, because God will look after me" she says in kiswahili, looking up at the sky.

Maurice met us at the shuttle, when I started to feel queasy. Not like I was going to have diarrhea, but something along those lines. Whatever, no biggie, I think to myself. We silently piled in and drove off to Kijabe, where we then caught a taxi (because ppl in matatus push a lot and we didn't want to risk Zakiah getting her right before the surgery... she's been waiting for this hip replacement for months) from the top of the rift down into the valley. My ears popped and it felt at least five degrees warmer by the time we reached the hospital.

Luckily we got there early, but Mary told me that the room is usually packed and people can be in line all day waiting for service - and if you want to jump the line you must pay ksh1000. After going back and forth from the lab to the exam room four times, they finally brought Maurice to the back of the lab to draw blood. They prefer men, but they'll take anyone's blood because there's such a shortage. 15 min later maurice comes marching out, no problem. "Kuja" the lab technician says to me. I walk back and fill out a form, which asked me if I had been with anyone who's HIV status was unknown or if i'd had any febrile diseases in the past 6 months. No and no. I give the lady the form and then she asks me when my next period will be. I think in my head, oh shit. Because I was due at any hour, and I know if I tell her she'll tell me that I can't give blood. And if I can't give blood then Zakiah can't have this surgery. What would you do if someone you care about is suffering? You do whatever it takes.

"Next week", I lie.

The other two men start their IVs, and then she starts mine. I bled pretty well, but then I started to feel sick, like I was having a really awful hangover. The technician looks at me and says "Are you okay?" I look down at my bag and see it's only half full. "Yes, I'm fine." But then it gets worse. I change my body position to help the blood flow throughout my body, but the nausea is only getting worse. I hold out as long as I can, waiting until the bag has 2 pints in it, and then I quietly say "I'm feeling rather strange". She looks at the bag, decides theres enough, and then pulls the IV. The men finish theirs at the same time. We all sat for a few minutes as she analyzes the blood [my blood type is "be positive" btw =)] and then tells us we can go. We all stand up, and i think i'm okay. And then a few seconds pass and I realize that I'm blind and can't see, can't feel where to bench is, and collapse. Luckily, the bench was right under me. I say to the technician, who I can't see, that I think I need to lay down for a bit. I can feel sweat or tear drops drip down my face, and the technician asks if I'm okay. "Yes no" I say, or a i think. it gets a bit fuzzy here.
"I think it's a bit more," she says, "you're face is very white".
"It'll wear off in a few minutes" i reassure her. And indeed within a minute I could see again. However, walking was a whole new story. Overall, it took me about two hours and two sodas(which i never drink, but made an exception this time) to be able to get up and carry my huge ass bag to the matatu stage. Looking back, it probably was not the best idea to give blood from the way I've been feeling all week (mary thinking i have malaria, walking around salgaa and mogotu in the hot dry region all day, my period. But seeing Zakiah be admitted into the hospital sitting in her bed awaiting the next step in surgery... I knew it was worth it. It was totally and completely WORTH.IT.

Getting into Nairobi was a mess. I waited for Kristin for over an hour, barely staying conscious enough to ward off muggers. By the time I reached their place, I thought my head was going to explode and Dr. Willy told me I needed to eat more, so Sophie, who was sick with malaria, was trying to make me food. I told her not to because I felt very queasy, but she made me a huge plate of ugali and meat...and just as I told her, I couldn't keep it down.

A little dizzy and a bit shaky, I went to bed and woke up the next morning slightly dizzy still. I still needed to do some errands in town, but honestly couldn't even fathom the idea of walking around all day. So after a few cups of juice, tea, and a bit of minced meat, we went into town with the fourth sister, Rosemary. She actually has a really cool job working in the music industry of Afrofusion... youtube it.

We ran into dan, who is a bit shy around me now because sophie told him that i noticed he eats so much. he's really quite fit and i dont understand the big deal about it because when i told sophie that he eats a lot she was like "ahahahha he's an african man he needs his energy" or something like that. And then she told Alice and then Alice told Dan that i noticed he ate a lot.

Sophie's friend Albina came back with us, and she also has a really cool job working with viral studies run by the US military. So I got an inside look at the studies they are about to publish, and learned more about the newer viruses that people are less aware of.

Kristin and I woke up at 5am to catch the airport shuttle at 6am. I didn't want her to have to go through the trouble of coming with me to the airport but she insisted, and I'm truly glad that she did. As we were standing at the security checkpoint, I told her that if she stayed while I went thru the line I would cry, but she didn't want to leave me so she stood off to the side as the queue moved up. I kept looking back at her,waving, swallowing the knot in my throat, and then I turned around again and she was gone.

This time around plane ride around made more sense; i knew what tusker was, i understood why they served so many meals, and passed out hand towels bc ppl eat w/ their hands.I was seated next to a delightful actress from Finland who was just in Nairobi to teach an actors studio to Kenyans (and honestly, after watching the soap operas and movies, they need it!), and we both went ape shit as we flew over the Sudan and the Italian Alps, being tourists and snapping a million pictures.

The second flight from Amsterdam was with KLM, which has great smelling hand towels and soap btw! They had a 500 person double decker plane, and 50 passengers, so we all got our own 3seaters. I was next to a NY student named Julia who had just spent 6 months in Ghana, so we chatted about Africa and as I listened to her talk, she reminded me so much of myself when I was coming back in 2007 from my abroad experience. She was scared about being thrown back into American culture, and I told her it wouldn't be the worst thing to take some time to de-tox and ease back into life slowly.

As we waited in the hour and a half customs line at JFK, I couldn't help but feel incredibly uncomfortable being amongst the mzungos. It's hard to change my newly acquired habits, like not picking your nose in public and not shaking hands with everyone. Looking around, a huge wave of sadness rose in my chest. I just wanted to cry, cry because I'll miss Kris, Soph and Mary so much, cry out of fear because i don't know what will happen to them, cry because I don't know if Johnson will make it through the malaria, cry because i am back in the realm of consumerism, cry because few americans appreciate the freedoms that we have. I think that I learned so much from SAS, but had forgotten the true value of human life over the past year and was reminded of it again from my stay in Kenya. As I walked through customs, I realized that after all the bullshit with Eyepoke, after all the bullshit with the Kenyan gov't, and with Kenyan men, this adventure was worth it.

The Madness that comes from Poverty

Like yesterday, I started my morning with more bad news on ghetto ntv. headlines for the day, teachers are going to go on strike next week, ksh68million of maize was poisoned and cannot be consumed, and the country is experiencing a state of emergency from drought. and the IDPs are still rioting in nakuru.

I went with Okinja out to Mogotu, probably the toughest site in all of the eyepoke's sites... even harder than salgaa. the ride out to mogotu and the village of athinai is actually quite enjoyable. we passed huge farms, one of which belongs to moi. that bastard is land hungry and won't rent out the acres of land to people who really need it. what does he need all that for anyway? MPs and presidents own huge areas of land and do nothing with it, when there are farmers and pastoralists that need land for agriculture and grazing. ugh. corruption.

before starting sample collection, okinja and his assistant masai (who isn't a masai) took me on a tour of the sisal factory. the sisal plant is amazing, and is extremely economical because every part of the plant is used. they take a few years to grow, but the factory in athinai has vast plantations surrounding the area. however, some mzungo owns it and hasn't paid his workers for like.. a year... and their monthly salary is 3,000ksh (about $40). how they are able to support their families of at least 5 (families are almost always big in kenya)i have no idea. okinja says they survive under "god's graces". and it must be true because there is no plausible way that they could have made it so long without starving to death. also, the area is incredibly hot because it is right on the equator... and malaria is a GIGANTIC problem there because not only is it hot, but there are a few swamps from the sisal factories. however, right now there is no water so the malaria is low... but only because the factories aren't in full swing because of the strike. okinja is amazing at mobilizing people, and has organized a strike against the factory. and good for him. he lost his job for doing that, but it's about the bigger picture.

okinja also has made a huge difference in the public health programs in the area. he has organized CBOs and empowered many people into dealing with their status. i sat down with one of them, one of the first eyepoke clients, while she shared her story with me. when she first found out her status, there was a huge stigma and even tho she was trying to be self sufficent, people wouldnt buy veggies from her bc they thought they would get aids. but much has changed since then, and she's able to run a business with the help of ideas from okinja's support group. okinja has great ideas, like the shamba (garden) that his group planted and harvests for their own food and food to sell. however, because mogotu is so rural, there is little inflow of cash... so there aren't many customers able to buy stuff. so the other garden that is supposed to provide patients with appropriate nutrients at the hospital (which right now does not have power... the power has been cutting in and out in the area all week, and the water isn't running either) has been planted, but they couldn't afford to get pipes to get water from the hospital tank to the garden.

as i was overlooking the town and equator from the balcony, i started to feel more at home in mogotu with okinja and masai than i did in even salgaa. they're both smart people, and were asking me why the US wants to use fighting to make peace and why we were supporting Israel. they say that the us likes fighting, sometimes for no reason. i can see their point. we do like to try to make peace with violence. like in kenya, why did people kill one another because kibaki was elected even tho raila is jsut as corrupt? why fight against one another when if they worked together the people could counteract corruption? it's hard to believe that i'm leaving in just a few days. there is so much that i want to do, but my time is so limited. the river that divides the town is a murky brown and a source of malari, but it's also the water that people use for drinking. the sodis project could really help these people. the samples we collected were so dirty and filled with e.coli that several children in the study have died from diarrhea and vomiting in the past year.

iloved the ride back to town. the sun was setting and i was in a matatu filled with school children who thought it was so odd that a mzungo was there. i gave some sweets to the matatu driver, who looked so tired so i thought candy would be a nice pick me up. he seemed to really appreciate it, and made sure that no one harassed me in the passing towns. one thing i have noticed, tho, about some men here is that they grow out their pinky nails so they are much longer than the rest. i don't know why and when i asked phyllis she had no idea either.

after such a peaceful afternoon, i didn't realize how drained i was until we were analyzing the 67 samples that people brought it. it took longer than the day before because the water from mogotu and salgaa was so contaminated with e.coli that the results can't even be read, so we had to dilute them. i could barely even think and was falling asleep as i was incubating the samples. the building was dark when we left around 9pm, and i didnt know how i could possibly stay awake to make it home.

this soon changed when mary and i got to the matatu stage. as we were leaving, we saw a huge group of people running and some woman screaming. then someone thru a huge rock at the matatu and mary goes "oh my, this is getting serious". the driver got out to see why people were running (bad idea.. we should have just left then and there). mary looked so scared, which made me a bit scared. the matatu driver came running back, telling us that one of the street boys had just mugged someone and the police were beating all the boys in that area. hence the throwing of the rocks, the street boys were rebelling against the police. i was seriously thinking about grabbing mary and jumping out to run for it because the driver couldn't move the car, but luckily a space opened up and he jetted outta there. THEN when mary and i got out at our stop, this incredibly drunk guy was walking toward us in the middle of the highway and then passed out in the middle of the busy road right before he got to us. i didn't want to just leave him there because he was going to get hit, but mary grabbed my arm and began to run across the road, away from the guy, because two huge trucks were heading toward us. i couldn't believe that guy was left there, and i couldn't bare to look back to see what had happened. but mary told me not to look back and to walk fast because a group of men were walking very fast toward us. she was worried we would get mugged (she's gotten mugged in nairobi before... which goes to show that not only mzungos get robbed but kenyans also rob their own people as well...the poor mugging the poor... wtf?). so we sprinted down the road toward the gate, which had been knocked down. but i looked back and it seemed that we had lost the gang, so it was safe to get the keys out and duck into the house.

poverty can drive people insane.

Haven in the Dust Bowl

I was woken by Mary turning on the ghetto kenyan news, only to see that the street i was walking to and from work the day before was now flooded with IDPs camping outside the ministry office, rioting. things can change for the worst in a blink, like the gas station we were at in nairobi that burst into flames a few hours later. josh, one of the team members, told us later that morning that there were about 400 of them protesting the government because they've been waiting a year for compensation from the PEV. Soo.. i wasn't too keen on staying in nakuru that day and was more than happy to go to Salgaa again with peter to collect water.

Most people complain about the road to salgaa, because it's so bumpy and the cars kick up so much dust that you can't see even a foot infront of you... making the front seats death seats which peter and i were sitting in. but amazingly enough, we came out alive at the end of the safari, and began our long walk around the village collecting samples.

salgaa is one of eyepoke's toughest field sites because it is rural and clients are spread out among the dust bowl. there are also frequent mini tornadoes, spitting up dust without warning. ann told me that if one of them appears infront of your path, it's the devil. hmm idk about that one, but i'll run with it. the people in salgaa don't pay much attention to the dust, and are lovely and never ask me for anything, they just want to share their stories. judy gave us porridge and tested me on my kiswahili, which i did alright on but still have miles to go. i didn't want to burden her tho, because she's recovering from tb and every time people offer me something i feel bad taking it bc they have nothing but if i don't take it they'll be so offended.. so although i know it was hard for her to sit up and talk to me, i stayed because she wanted to spend time with me before i left. ann, mercy, and njeri also gave me a warm welcome back to salgaa, telling me that i had to come back after i graduate. i would like to do that, but unless i can get a work permit i don't know if i can stay in kenya. things are cheap, but little costs add up.

peter and i had tea and chapati after de-dusting. who would have ever thought i'd be chilling out with a preacher all day, and enjoying it? not me.. but i like peter because he doesn't impose his beliefs on me. and honestly, if religion is the way to get these women to live positively with aids/hiv, then so be it. it seems to be working well in salgaa, which actually has one of the best support groups in the area.

mary and i analyzed over 60 samples, but were continually distracted by the team coming in and out of the office. josh and stanley kept teasing me about my hair, telling me they were going to take me to the barber shop to chop it all off. what's with ppl and wanting to cut my hair? in nairobi, sophie just came up and chopped off an inch or so from my ponytail before i could stop her.

Dusty, Dirty, and Loving it

Yesterday I sat around the office doing paperwork, and was so ready to get home by 7... i hate being an office monkey. Mary and I stopped at the butchery ... oh wait... let me talk about the meat shops here for a quick second. They hang like the entire goat in the window all ready to be chopped up, and inside they have heaps of meat on this wooden counter all day. Kind of gross. Really grossed me out when I saw a cockroach walking across the pile, but bugs are supposed to be nutritious anyway right? We bought half a kilo (ahaha metric system.. love it) of meat and Mary taught me how to make pilau (meat/rice/spice/veggie mixture) which I actually didn't screw up (unlike the pot of ugali that i made the evening before... a bit soggy but mary said i made it better than jemo did his first time).

Today Mary and I walked to work, but one of the supervisors on the national aids control council drove by and offered us a ride. This dude is a big deal, but you wouldn't know it from talking to him. He worked so hard to make world aids day a big event in nakuru, probably one of the most efficently coordinated events in kenya on world aids day. And most people in power here, or have good jobs, don't work that hard because it's so corrupt. But he really works, 6am to 9pm, trying to make a difference. It gave me a little hope knowing that although the nacc is corrupt, there are still good people there trying to balance out the bad,

The solar disinfection project started up again. the entire sodis team gathered in the office... there are 6 data collectors who are all hilarious and very welcoming, but they gossip way too much. they were bitching about this one woman, mama obama (because she named her newborn barak obama), and how she had tricked jemo into paying for her rent and what not... basically abusing his generosity and wasting her money on who knows what. i feel so bad for jemo, his heart is too big and sometimes it hinders him because people take advantage of him. as much as i want to help people, i have to be a hard ass sometimes because there are few people who are genuine in their requests for money.

after a brief pep talk from sophie, pam and i headed out to lanet to collect water samples and measure the kids. lanet is on the outskirts of nakuru and is a dusty smelly dirty slum, so polluted and a little rough around the edges in terms of the ppl who live there. Pam and I went to a few houses for samples, but it turned out that a lot of people didn't have water that week, and some people kept forgetting to put out the plastic bottles in the sun - this is kind of a problem because it really skews the data.. but no one in the office seems to care that this study is scientifically flawed. ugh. bad science really pisses me off!

we had to go to a few schools to measure the kids, and because pam has been doing this for over a year she knows all the kids and they know here, so when we entered each school yard they would trot over and stand in line, waiting to be measured. all of the kids in the study are under 5, and so cute! they were amazed to see a mzungo and kept touching my hair and my arms - like my body composition was so different from theirs. after being measured, i would give them a toffee because pam says they cooperate more if they know they're going to get something out of it. the last school we went to took forever, though, because the principal was new and didn't want us to measure the kids without the parents' consent. so that took about and hour to straighten out, and we finally got a hold of the parents and then it took about 5 min to measure the kids and i headed back to the office with the samples. mary then showed me how to analyze the water and to use the hand held computers. it's meticulous work, and after being out in the dust and heat all day it's hard to concentrate. but mary said i picked up the process fast, and we analyzed about 40 samples before 7:30pm. As we were leaving the office, Ann told me johnson, the little kid from lanet, was admitted in the hospital with malaria. It's not fair, really. To watch a kid suffer. And with his father deceased and his mother also admitted in the hospital, I'm worried about his recovery. On top of this, Mary found out that one of the street boys that jemo works with was killed in an accident, dying in the hospital from a crushed skull. and rosie was admitted and then released from the hospital because the doctors didn't think her case was serious....she's fucking dying and her case isn't serious. wtf?! But mary says 'this is kenya, my dear'.

i haven't had a decent shower in days, so i'm pretty gross. but it's ok. people have a complete disregard for deodorant here so i just kind of blend in now. but pmsing while in the field is NOT fun, and i don't know how female anthropologists do it. this week is going to be tough.

One Week Left?!

Yesterday, Monday Jan 5th, was supposed to be the opening day of work... but Eyepoke did not send any petty cash to the office so the volunteers couldn't start working on the solar disinfection project. I was pretty bummed out, but Mary says that hopefully by Wednesday something will come surface.

Instead, Mary and I went to Bondeni to see how Rosie was doing and to massage her arms because she's been so weak and I guess her blood flow is low. But when we got there, we were thrown into a sad and crazy scene. She was telling us she thinks she is dying (and honestly, I don't think that was an exaggeration from a sick woman... she was so thin and shaking so bad). Mary tried to talk to her down and reason with her, because she was saying some really odd things which made us beleive that she was losing her mind, and then after an hour of trying to figure out what meds she was taking and what doctors has prescribed, we decided that she needed to go to the hospital. Right before we left, Rosie called over to her 7 yr old son and started talking crazy to him - the look on his face was heartbreaking because he was so confused, so scared, and so innocent. THink... if your mom started talking jibberish to you and you have a crowd of people around her about to take her to the hospital, how would you feel?

After leaving Rosie's, I was pretty down, but that soon changed when we stopped by Alice's to drop off money to send her son to school... and I met her son who is so well behaved and happy, amongst a sea of sadness. The day geven better when we stopped by Theresa's, where we were greeted with a huge smile and hug from her and her 16 yr old son, Douglas. I helped out Theresa by assisting in getting her son a birth certificate so he can go back to school, because the last guy she gave money to get the certificate ran away with the money and their clinic card. And this boy deserves to go to school, so I thought I should help. Because I believe that a way to lessen the blow of AIDS is to educate the young generation, so perhaps Douglas can help his family climb out of poverty.

The fatigue is still getting to me, and the walk home felt like a safari, but walkng it with Mary makes the time pass. Also, people harass me less and if they doo, Mary scolds them which is hilarious because they don't expect a female to talk back at them. I almost got hit by a tuk tuk (yes, the same tuk tuks that they have in india for all those SASers who know what I'm talking about, but mary pulled me off the road just in time. It's actually quite a dangerous road, and as we were walking by the herd of Masai cattle Mary told me that one time when her and Jamo were walking home, they found a daed body.. no gi deal...hmm.

There is also a stir right now because the government wants to take control of the media, and the prime minister and president are saying contradicting things... which i hope does not cause another outbreak of violence. Mary was telling me the toher day that the day when the volence first strted she was coming back to Nakuru from nairobi, it took 8 hours ins because the police were even killing people like if a kikuyu police office found a lua or a lua police officer founda kikuyu on the road. so one cehckpoint mary was with a lua woman and told her to lie and say she was mute. so when the officer looked in the car mary said (in their tribal language) that it was her kikuyu sister but she was mute. so mary basically saved that woman's life.

i'm starting to think that eyepoke is too corrupt for much to ever change, so i really want to start my own organization. i've gotten tons of ideas here, but i'll have to save up and work for a bit in the states before i can come back. i have seriously been considering moving to portland but with the economic crap going on i don't know what will happen. how are things state side? people are obsessed with obama nd think he's going to make life better economically for kenyans, but i have to keep reminding people that his obligation is to the US and we're in such a rut right now that he will have to fix things at home before he can think about the world.

but i've been laerning how to cook african food and can't wait to start cooking this stuff back in lewisbirg. jeanie and mina will have to give up asian food for awhile while i force feed them ugali and chapati. and instestines, which are a delicacy here. yea.

Love/Hate Relationship with Kenya

Sorry I've been mia for a bit. Okay so after getting stuck on a safari, we were all exhausted and spent the next day in nairobi recovering. Sophie and her sisters have really taken me in, which I appreciate because it gets lonely being a mzungo here.

I've been adjusting to the loud music, eating with my hands, getting harassed by men here, and trying to learn shang. the girls have been telling me so much that i'm having trouble retaining all of it. winnie and kris talked a lot about the corruption and how if winnie wants to have an ID, she has to bribe someone for it even though she's old enough to have one. so different from the US where we all get an ID when we start to drive.

New years was fun here, I went to that place that Al'm was DJing and he gave me a complimentary pass in which was really nice. So i got special treatment and got to hang out in the dj booth... it was basically amazing.

The next day I went to rongai to visit sophie's aunt alice and the rest o her family. alice has 5 sons... which is a big deal because sons are supposed to take care of their parents once they finish school. they are all very good looking and so well mannered... i really had a great time there and alice was like a mom, fussing over me and making me eat SO much.

on the 2nd I went to nakuru and mary met me. i've gotten the hang of african cooking, even mary and phyllis were impressed with my chapatis. we did home visits on the 3rd and i met this lady theresa in one of the slums. she's such a great client and is so giving even though she has nothing. her son is bright, but cant go back to school unless he has his birth certificate, which i am going to help her get tomorrow.

i've been feeling so fatigued lately. mary thinks i have malaria but i don't know. i'm probably just dehydrated. it's so dusty here and the dry heat makes it tricky to know when you've lost too much water from your system.

oh and fleish called me and said that that cell number might not work with the 0, so if the one i have you doesnt work drop the first 0.

this should be a busy week, much to do and talk over with mary about the future of the support groups.love you all much and miss you.