Tutaonana Kenya

The word for goodbye in Swahili is “Kwaheri.” It has taken me a long time to sit down to write my farewell blog and I was wondering why it was so difficult for me. I spent two years of my life carrying water, eating amongst my village neighbors, walking long distances, assisting in delivering babies, taking motorcycles out in the bush for outreach clinics, battling black mambas and cockroaches, learning Swahili and my tribal language, singing and dancing with the little boys who were always tapping on my window, and meeting some of the best friends I may ever find. I don’t think two years of experiences, tears and triumphs can be summed up in a blog. More importantly, I think this blog was so hard to write because I’m not ready to say goodbye. “Tutaonana” means until we see each other again and that seems like a more appropriate way for me to part with the land and people that will always mean so much to me.

For those of you that followed my story, you may already know that I was pick-pocketed in Nairobi in January, had my hotel room broken into in February in Kisii losing all my electronics, followed by a break-in at my village home in March where I lost a second computer. It was a trying time for me and it ultimately lead to Peace Corps deeming my site unsafe and sending me home a few months early. I had 24 hours to return to my village, pack all my belongings, and say all of my goodbyes. It would have been difficult to leave when it was time, but it was heartbreaking to try and tell everyone what knowing them has meant to me over the past two years in a matter of hours.

I struggled and cried, had the time of my life and saw amazing things that most people only dream of. I have been on horseback riding next to giraffes and rare zebras, I have summited Mount Kenya at 16,355ft, I have swam in Lake Victoria and sunbathed on the shores of the Indian Ocean, I have sat in traffic for hours in Nairobi, waved to people on a sunrise run through my beautiful village, experienced the joys of delivering babies and the pride in resuscitating one, and never thought my best friend would be a Nun. I am a better and stronger person for everything I have gone through.

I was and will not be ready to say goodbye. Kenya is a part of me and the people in my village will always be with me. Tutaonana Kenya.

 

Showing pictures of home to my Health Club students

Lewa National Park

Maasai Mara National Park (Wildebeest Migration)

Wenchi Crater Ethiopia

Ang'iya Village

Ang'iya Village

Sikwadhi Outreach Clinic

Black Mamba

Zanzibar, Tanzania

 

Sister Tina- Sister Mary- Dad- Mom- Me- Sister Joy

 

The Heights of Kenya

Kenya is such an amazing country. You can spend one afternoon on the beaches of the Indian Ocean, then scout out Lions, zebras and wildebeests on safari, swim in hippo infested waters along the shores of Lake Victoria then climb to 16,355 feet to the breathtaking snowcapped peaks of Mount Kenya. I have been lucky enough to say that I have seen and done each one of these things.

I never thought I would climb a mountain. When 6 of my best Peace Corps girlfriends suggested we climb the mountain together over Christmas, I couldn’t refuse. Day one we climbed our first hill in record time. What normally takes 3 or more hours, we raced up in 2 and a half. Day two we paced ourselves a little better, mostly because you have to adjust to the altitude as you go and because you are climbing for 8 hours. It was amazing to watch the landscape change as you gradually get higher and higher.

Day three was Christmas day, and also our acclimatization day. We left Shipton’s base camp to go up and then back down before summiting the following day. I felt a little funny that morning, but I figured it was just a little fatigue. Halfway up our climb I started feeling dizzy… almost like I was drunk. My friend Breezie turned back and asked me if I was ok and I didn’t really have any words to respond with. Our guides had me sit and rest while the others went the rest of the way to the top. On our way back down my altitude sickness was so bad; I had to have one of the guides practically carry me down. I was lightheaded, could hardly see, and my legs were shaky and couldn’t get good footing. This is not ideal when you are walking down the side of a steep cliff. I felt like an 80 year old woman as I collapsed in my bunk and had my friends take my boots off and bring me tea.

After countless glasses of lemon tea and an altitude sickness pill, I was up at 3am ready to summit this blasted mountain! We slowly and steadily climbed one by one up the side of the peak. It is pitch black so all I could see were Breezie’s feet in front of me. When I chanced a few glances to either side of me I could see nothing but down. We were climbing up a ridge where one false step could mean falling down a steep cliff to either side. The only way to describe this part of the climb would be to equate it to spending 3 hours on a stairmaster. Only the stairmaster has ice on the steps, you are climbing in the dark, there are no handlebars, and all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room.  It was an amazing feeling to reach the top. There are truly no words to describe the sensation.

 

Thinking the hard part was all over, we didn’t realize we had another 9 hour hike ahead of us to get back down. I am so glad to have this experience with my best girlfriends. They are some of the most faithful, fearless, and strong women I have ever met.

 

For the Love of Pumpkin Pie

Life in Kenya is never easy. Luckily, my glass is nearly always half full and you have the joy of reading some of my most amazing experiences. That being said, this is not one of them. As the holiday seasons approach I had been dreaming about making pumpkin pie. Unfortunately you cannot get canned pumpkin in Kenya and doing it the old fashioned way would be too expensive. Buying propane for my gas stove is one of my biggest expenses here and I can’t imagine what it would cost to bake a pumpkin for hours followed by baking it in a pie crust for another hour. I put in my request and my mom confirmed it was in my next care package!

I was hoping to make the pie for the thanksgiving feast a group of us Peace Corps volunteers were throwing in the Kakamega rainforest. Baking has always been fun for me, but even more so when you get to share it with someone else. Pumpkin pie always feels like thanksgiving to me. As Thanksgiving Day approached I had not gotten notification of the package. On my way out of town on the 22^nd I made a special trip to the post office and asked them to check my mail box and then check the stack of boxes in the back room in the chance that a little thanksgiving miracle had happened. No luck, and my Thanksgiving apple pie turned out just fine.

Fast forward to December 14; I finally got notification that my package arrived and I made arrangements to get to my nearest post office. I get there in time for the man to tell me my package has been waiting at the post office since November 11^th and because it has been over a month he would have to charge me extra. How much extra? Let us just say that the total price for customs and “other” fees amounted to $45 American dollars! When your Peace Corps monthly stipend is about $200, you can imagine that I yelled and argued with him for over an hour.  I contemplated leaving the package with the post office, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of scalping my American treasures. Besides, my mouth was watering for some pumpkin pie!

I always get a little sad around this time of the year. I miss the Christmas traditions, the time with the family, and wondering if there is going to be snow… then freaking out about Seattle being shut down for becoming a ski resort for public transportation.  I am going to have a wonderful and hopefully snow filled Christmas with my Peace Corps family on Mount Kenya this year, but deep inside I cannot wait to be back in the arms of the people I love, celebrating, and eating much cheaper pumpkin pie.

Love you all. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New years!

Every Day Brings Something New

My clinic has over 560 clients enrolled in the HIV/AIDs treatment program. That means that they come once a month to get their drugs, see a doctor, get blood tests, and find out when various support groups are meeting. I spend the first part of every morning taking vital signs and screening the patients before they meet with the doctor. Once a month I meet with the children for ‘Kids Club.’ That’s the support group for HIV positive children, but mostly it is a lot of game playing, dancing, and snack eating.  All of this was my motivation to celebrate World AIDs Day at my site.

On December 1^st we had over 120 people from the community gather together at the clinic for the event. My health club students came to help me run the raffle table and perform a dance and a short drama. We had the community health workers make a presentation as well as had an HIV positive member of the community speak about living positively and reducing stigma. We tested over 70 people for HIV this day! It felt great to see people come together and talk about something affecting their community.

Just when I think things will quiet down, Kenya has another curve ball for me. Today, a motorbike pulled up to the clinic and a young man carried a semi-conscious teenage girl into the clinic. She had vomit all over her and the man explained she tried to poison herself. I rushed in with Dominic, one of our doctors, to get an IV started and NG tube inserted (that’s a tube that goes in through the nose down to the stomach).  We pumped out the contents of her stomach until there was nothing left and she regained consciousness.  I spent some time washing her face and cleaning her up and then talking to her about what happened.  Sister Tina, one of our social workers, joined me and called in the girls four mothers (She comes from a polygamist family).  After a long detailed conversation, Sister Tina finally asked her why she chose to poison herself. As I strained to listen to the conversation in Swahili I picked out that the girl felt she had no happy day at home.  I know young girls all around the world have trials and tribulations, but for this one I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her she is beautiful.

Saturdays with Sister Tina

Saturdays with Sister Tina are always an adventure and yesterday was no exception. There are about 24 churches that are connected with Ang’iya parish. Most of those churches consist of a small mud or brick building where people gather on Sunday and Father Lucas brings communion when he can. What Sister Tina and I “officially” do is meet with a different group each Saturday and teach lessons on life skills and behavior change. Unofficially we take the car off-roading through cornfields, kill black Mambas, and get ourselves into strange and sometimes sticky situations.

Let me start by explaining that Sister Tina is a 5 foot tall spitfire who can barely see over the steering wheel when she drives.  Half of the fun of youth group Saturdays with her is the ride there. Although watching her beat a Black Mamba to death wasn’t too bad either. Yesterday the car had broken down and we needed to take a taxi to the site. To sum it up, it took us over an hour to drive 15km (approximately 9 miles) we stopped the first time where the rain had washed away the road and some locals had to pile up rocks for us to make it across the ravine.  Then there was a sugarcane truck in the middle of the road and our taxi driver got out, hopped in the giant truck and drove it off the side of the road so we could pass. After that we got stuck and had to have some locals push the car out of a ditch.

 

This was followed by a landslide that washed a bunch of dirt and roots into the road, so we had to get out and manually remove the brush. Finally, the road turned into a river and we couldn’t continue by car. We then walked 30 minutes the rest of the way to reach the church. It was so muddy that Sister Tina just took her shoes off and walked barefoot half of the way.

We had a great meeting with over 40 youth members. We then made our way back to meet our taxi and start the journey back home. As we were passing through town, Sister Tina decided she needed to get her hair done. I then spent the next hour in a local salon watching a lot of braiding, weaving, and straightening going on. It made me happy to have the hair that I have where I can just wash it and go, but also amazed at the things these women could do to their hair. They can completely transform their look in a matter of hours.

On the way home the taxi driver dropped Tina at the convent first and then proceeded to the clinic where I live. In the short span of approximately 2 minutes between the convent and clinic our driver managed to ask me if I was married… Saturdays with Sister Tina are always an adventure.

 

Kenya through my mother's eyes

Describing my experiences in Kenya can sometimes leave me without words. The best feeling in the world is knowing that someone else has seen it and experienced it with me. I was so happy to welcome my parents to my life and my village and here are a few words from my mother:

 

When we returned from our very first international travel experience to Kenya, we could not put into words to summarize our experience.  Upon reflection, here are a few:

 

Amazeing.  It was amazing that we could find our way around the rural fields on a foot wide maze of dirt paths from the clinic to the secondary school 45 min away.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the path so as not to stumble on the ruts or rocks or loose gravel 

 

 Awesome.  Our safari was filled with awesome sights, from the never ending plains to the land of zebras surrounding us 360 degrees to the herd of giraffes making their way across the plains like sock puppets to the gentle mother and child elephants ripping grass up by curling it around their trunks to the wildebeest migration.

 

Unnerving.  When you are two tall white people standing alone amongst a sea of Kenyan faces waiting for your taxi driver to arrive, nothing you can do will help you blend in.

 

Uncomfortable.  When you meet a class of students and all they can do is smile and stare like you are a celebrity, all you can do is smile back and say hello. 

 

Confusing.  Although most people spoke English, the thick British accent was hard to cut through. 

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.   Not a real concept here.  We drove by a stately Christian church complex which included a school, and in the far corner of the property, a trash burning site.  

 

Genuine.   Everyone we came in contact with or met were kind and helpful and so willing to share their country with us Americans.  And they wanted to know if we were going to re-elect Obama.

We thought this would be our one and only international trip, but before the end of our stay in Kenya, we were already talking about our return.  So like the sign at the airport…

 

 

Stomp Out Malaria Bootcamp: Thies, Senegal

I was chosen to be one of three Public Health volunteers in Kenya to become a Malaria volunteer. This means I would stay in my village, but would have additional responsibilities throughout my province in connecting resources with volunteers as well as assisting in Malaria based projects.  To manage this, I attended a two-week long boot camp training in Senegal. With almost 30 volunteers from 14 different countries, we sat together day after day learning how we can improve the Malaria epidemic within our countries and within Africa.

When I refer to this training as “Boot camp,” I mean that in the most literal sense. We were up for breakfast by 7AM each morning, attended class all day, had a one hour break between 6 and 7PM where we had to cram in a study session and read up on whatever case study was assigned. This was all followed by dinner, then a group discussion on our case study and finally we were free again after 9PM. This isn’t to say we didn’t squeeze in an hour or two of socializing followed by an angry and painfully early alarm clock the next morning.

So what did we do with our long days? These were filled with skype conferences with some of the big wigs at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), USAID, the Presidents Malaria Initiative (PMI), and some doctors and researchers from around the world. We visited local communities, hospitals, clinics and a research center studying mosquito biting behavior. Then we sat in lectures about behavior change and the epidemiology of Malaria in all of our respective countries. Basically everything I didn’t know that I didn’t know about Malaria, I learned in two weeks. 

I was able to brush up on my French and sweat out of pores that I didn’t even know existed in the daily 109 degree heat. I ate some amazing food and met some great new friends. But before I could go back to my village life and get back to work, I arrived in Nairobi at 5:30AM and went to meet my parents for their first trip out of America (Canada doesn’t count) just in time to make our 10AM flight to the Maasai Mara Game Reserve.