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.

The Sweet Life

Camp GLOW was such an amazing experience. It was great to see the girls from different parts of the country making friends and trying new things. Some of the girls were deaf and at the beginning of camp they gave an introduction lesson on deaf culture and sign language. It was great to see the girls mixing together and watch the hearing girls practice their newly learned sign language skills. One of my students was so excited about it that she took a sign language poster home to teach the other kids back at school. We spent a day at the Impala sanctuary in Kisumu and another one of my students looked at me with wide eyes and said this was the first time she had seen Lake Victoria (her home is only 45 minutes by public transportation from the lake).

After almost 3 weeks away from my village I was on the main road to my house and the children were flocking to the side of the road yelling “Sister!” It always feels so great to be welcomed home like hero or celebrity or something. It truly felt like I was home as I was standing at my front door in the clinic. As I walked into my house I noticed that all my furniture was rearranged. I thought hmmmm, this is strange. Then as I walked a little further in I realized the sisters had installed a new solar powered electricity system and a full size fridge! Some of us volunteers joke about people being in the “posh corps” instead of the peace corps and I think the new electricity system and ability to store COLD things has sent me over the edge. I may still be 12 kilometers from the nearest paved road, bank, or supermarket, but life is pretty sweet right now.

This past weekend Sister Tina and I organized a youth seminar at Ang’iya church. We had almost 100 youth from age 10-21! I taught lessons on male and female anatomy, reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, healthy relationships, and peer pressure. The more I work with young people, the more I realize that they truly are the future of Kenya. I’m so proud to be a part of it and when I think of how I will never forget these kids, I’m sure the feeling is mutual.

 

 

 

When it rains, it pours!

I spent the last week on the beautiful island of Zanzibar to celebrate my birthday and relax after a busy month.  Zanzibar is a traditionally Muslim island and we were traveling through during the month of Ramadan (a very religious holiday where Muslims fast throughout the day among other things…). Natalie and I flew into Stonetown and prepared ourselves by wrapping our heads and covering ourselves from head to toe out of respect. We went to a beautiful fabric shop and toured the spice and seafood markets before having a drink and watching the sun go down.  It was a week of complete relaxation next to some of the most beautiful turquoise waters I have ever seen. I went on a snorkeling tour on my birthday and saw dolphins and other tropical fish.  The sand was like powdered sugar and I’m sure I will be shaking it out of my clothes for the next month.

Speaking of the next month, I am putting together the last minute touches to my lessons for camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). I was chosen to be one of the facilitators of the camp and it is going to be a week long camp for 60 high school age girl to learn about women’s empowerment, health, and opportunities for their future. I am the designated nurse for the camp, but I am also teaching lessons on female anatomy and reproductive health etc. I am so excited and proud to be bringing two of my health club girls with me!

The following week after camp I will be attending a Peace Corps funded conference on HIV/AIDs and community development. I will be taking a young woman from my community, Soila, who is a social worker student interning at the dispensary. This will be the second time she has ever left the village and I’m happy she will have the experience and can help me with some of my future projects.

Following that and my yearly medical exam in Nairobi, I will be flying out to Senegal for training to become one of the three chosen Stomp Out Malaria Volunteers. I will still be living and working in my village, but will also take on further responsibilities in major Malaria projects in Kenya, as well as working with some of the district offices and assisting other volunteers with Malaria based resources and funding.  I guess as they say, when it rains, it pours. I have a feeling my last year in Kenya is going to flash before my eyes.

Also, Check out a short clip on my life and work at the clinic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAF-HB41GGg

Kendwa Beach, Zanzibar

Paje Area, Zanzibar

First Aid, Village Style

I have been enjoying my new roommate, a Public Health graduate student from Seattle University. We have kept ourselves supremely busy with, among countless other things, outreach clinics and teaching first aid lessons to my health club students. It has been a great joy to see these students genuinely interested in knowing how to help fellow students or community members in the event of an emergency. It has been interesting trying to adapt American first aid curriculum to village life. For example, calling 911 or “waiting for help to arrive” doesn’t really apply when you are 12km from the nearest paved road.

We try to bring up a lot of discussion during the lessons to find out what the students already know and to answer questions about traditional or local remedies that they may have seen. In a lesson about fainting I asked anyone in the class if they have experienced fainting or witnessed someone faint. One of my very dear students admitted that she had fainted but did not want to share her story. Another girl piped in that she had seen it happen and was willing to share the story. She began to explain… “Bilha was being caned by one of our teachers, and suddenly went limp and fell to the ground.” For those of you who do not know what “caning” is, it is a harsh form of corporal punishment where teachers use a large stick or ruler to beat the students. I have been lucky enough to not have witnessed this, but I absolutely crumbled to pieces inside imagining my sweet student being beat to the point of losing consciousness.

Natalie and I spent yesterday organizing the clinic’s supply room and ended up stocking the treatment rooms with missing items. It was a good thing that we did because despite being a very slow day, we had two interesting wound cases. I sometimes feel like MacGyver trying to turn saline, iodine, and gauze into a magical wound healing dressing. I guess that’s just life in the village.

Community outreach in my village

Happy 4th!

 I spent last weekend with some of my closest Peace Corps friends hanging around the pool, playing beer pong, and enjoying the closest thing we could get to a 4^th of July party. The hotel had an amazing buffet dinner planned for us and we all stood together around the banquet tables singing the national anthem in unison while some made speeches about how these were the Peace Corps moments we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Back in my village I met up with a Public Health graduate student from Seattle University who will be working alongside me for the next six weeks. I sometimes forget how beautiful my village is until I hear the words out of someone else’s’ mouth. I didn’t even know it was possible to take living in the village for granted!

Our first big project together is first Aid training with my health club students. The students were so excited about the lessons and the certificate at the end, although a few seemed a bit queasy when I had to explain what the word “amputation” meant. One of my students was especially enthusiastic sitting in the front row and asking me for the topics that would be covered in next week’s lesson. He is the student that during my Goal setting lesson, told me he wanted to be a doctor. He is the same student that asks me to photocopy pages from my HIV/Aids handbook and told me his dream is to see what a hospital looks like.  I don’t think I have ever seen a high school student with such thirst for knowledge.

So here I sit, appreciating the country I was born in, the country that I am privileged to experience now and the amazing people, Kenyan and American, that I am surrounded by.

Life in the Village

I want to start with a special Thank You to First Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon. To all of you who came to hear my story and show your support. It can sometimes get lonely out in a rural village in Kenya, but knowing you are all invested in my ventures motivates me to keep going. Thank you!

I had the most amazing trip back to America and it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be to get back on that plane. I think part of me appreciated the love I felt from all my family and friends and the comfort of knowing they would all be there for me when I got back after another year.

Back in Kenya it didn’t take long to get back to my usual routine. I had to sweep my floors and shoo away all the lizards that moved in while I was gone. My first day back at church in my community, some of the members asked if I would stand up in front and share a few words about my travels. They called me forward by my village name, Christina Akinyi, and the entire congregation of nearly 200 people applauded and cheered for my return. It was an amazing feeling to know this small Kenyan farming community felt such a strong connection with me that they celebrated my return and the chance to shake my hand again.

My students walked from school to my front door just to say hello and took me to the school soccer tournaments over the weekend and instead of hearing the typical calls of “mzungu” (meaning “white person”) throughout my village everyone was greeting me by name. We had a busy clinic day where we vaccinated over 160 babies in one day! We even had a celebration at the convent for the arrival of three aspiring nuns where we drank and ate ourselves silly with goat, chicken, and fish!

One day I was taking the 45 minute walk home from the school when it started to rain. I looked in front of me at the black sky opposite the lush green sugarcane fields and red dirt road and saw a full rainbow straight ahead. The rain started coming down at such a rate that I was soon walking through a stream where the road had been and I was soaking wet from head to toe sloshing around in my shoes. In a situation that should have been miserable, I couldn’t contain my smile and a feeling of pure happiness. They say the Peace Corps in the “hardest job you will ever love.” While it’s not always sunshine and roses, there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t feel thankful for my life and the people in my Kenyan village.

World Malaria Day

Today in Kenya, 72 children will die of a Malaria infection.

In America we don’t learn much about Malaria because it was eradicated in the 1950s. The disease is caused by a parasite, Plasmodium Falciparum, and it is passed to humans through a mosquito. At my clinic almost half of the patients who are under the age of five come to be treated for malaria infections. I have seen children who are lying listless on a hospital bed that don’t even flinch when an IV line is inserted and can hardly open their eyes.  When I heard of World Malaria Day on April 25^th, I knew it was something I wanted to celebrate and bring awareness to the people of my village.

I started with my high school health club. I asked them what they wanted to do and we started to organize an original song about malaria, a dance, and a drama. I then spoke with the sisters to get their support and to help mobilize the community. We spent weeks going around to different community groups and leader to tell them about the even we were planning. Next I needed funding for some chairs, a tent, and to set up a PA system the day of the event. I got help from the district officials to fund my event and instead of hosting it at the district headquarters I was able to convince them to make my tiny village the official host of the World Malaria Day event for the entire district!

Over 500 people from my community and from the district offices came on the day of the event. We set up our tents and chairs in the soccer field across from the clinic and my health club provided dancing and entertainment throughout the day. I had my health club students assist me with translating a few phrases into the local dialect to put on posters for the event. Unfortunately as I was transferring those phrases onto the posterboard, I had difficulty deciphering which letters were which and a community member had to tell me that instead of writing “to prevent malaria in Pregnancy” I had written “to prevent malaria in a sexually transmitted disease.”

We offered free testing and treatment for Malaria and people were lined up outside the clinic doors for hours to be seen.  We gave out over 80 mosquito nets to pregnant mothers and children as well as encouraged people to allow their homes to be sprayed in the next following days to kill mosquitos. It was a great opportunity to bring awareness to this disease and to work together as a community in measures of prevention.

At the end of the day one of my health club members turned to me and asked “Is there a World AIDs Day?” Yes Bilha, there is…

Waduto wariw lwedo watiek tuo mar malaria

Culture is a Funny Thing

I recently met a Kenyan girl who is the same age as me and lives in my village. We have started to form a friendship and I enjoy walking to her house to sit down for coffee and talk about culture. She is just as curious of my American traditions as I am of hers. One day she was walking me home and we could hear a thunderstorm in the distance. She asked me if I was afraid of the thunder. I said no, but asked her what there was to be afraid of. She went on to explain that the Luo tribe believes that thunder isn’t just a noise, but it takes the physical shape of a giant rooster the size of a house that can attack you or set your house on fire. She also worried about me as I walked the rest of the way home because I was wearing my ONLY rain jacket which ironically happens to be red. She told me that lightning would strike me if I was wearing red.  Luckily I made it home safely without being struck by lightning or meeting the thunder along my way.

Another day we bought pears in the market and after washing them I started eating mine right away. My friend Julianne turned to me and asked if I was afraid someone would see me. Worried that I had mistakenly done something culturally inappropriate I asked her what was wrong with eating fruits or foods in general in public. She told me that some people are witches and if they see you eating they will curse your food, your stomach will start to swell and you could get very sick. Glad that I hadn’t outright offended anyone, I told her I didn’t believe in witches and finished my pear on the way back home.  I haven’t been cursed yet…

Another day I was on my way to one of our youth group meetings with Sister Tina, which is always a terrifying experience. Sister Tina is a 5 foot nothing nun who can’t drive in reverse and who stalls the car at least twice each time we are out driving. Every Saturday we venture out to a different rural youth group which generally means me and Tina off-roading in the tiny car for at least 45 minutes on “roads” (or should I say hiking trails) that were not made for cars.  At this particular youth group last week we were fielding questions about puberty when a small girl asked “is it ok for me to slaughter a chicken before my period is about to start?” How do you answer that question!?!? We asked one of the adults to explain and the belief is that if a girl or womans’ period is about to start in the next day or so, if she slaughters a chicken the blood will start to flow out of her lady parts like the blood flowing out of the slaughtered chicken’s neck.  What a terrifying image!

Culture can be a funny thing and it definitely keeps my life interesting.

A truly amazing day

I have had many amazing experiences in Kenya, but today tops them all.

Let me start from the beginning. I have been working really closely with the nurse midwifes at my clinic and learning the ropes of conducting a delivery.  Since I previously worked at a veteran’s hospital, mother and child care was the farthest thing from my repertoire.  It seems each delivery I have assisted with has been interesting in its own way.

My first delivery I was a bit bewildered as I was being clung to by the 15 year old girl delivering her first baby. It would be putting it modestly if I said this girl was grabbing onto me like the Jaws of Life.

Another delivery I was standing next to the woman who was so silent through her labor that we weren’t sure how soon the baby would come. The next thing we know, this woman laying on her side, lifted her leg and simultaneously gave birth while her water broke.

I spent another long night as one of the nurses from the clinic gave birth to her first child. The whole staff was there until the birth around 2:30 in the morning and I felt like a real birth attendant helping her with her contractions and staying by her side through the whole thing.

I suppose there have been a few relatively non-eventful births at our clinic and today seemed like any other day. I was packing my bag to go visit my friend Julianne for lunch when a woman came in to the clinic. I asked how many centimeters she was dilated and nurse Phoebe said she was fully dilated and could deliver any minute. I decided to postpone my lunch and stick around. About an hour later Phoebe was telling me to just go and come back later, this woman was not progressing and it could be many more hours before the baby came. Again, I told her I was patient enough and would wait, just in case she needed my help. This woman was only 20 years old and giving birth to her fourth child, so nothing indicated this would be anything other than a normal delivery. However, she was having trouble pushing and the baby was not advancing for a dangerously long time. When the baby boy finally came out he was not breathing and the color of an ash tray. While Phoebe cut the cord and attended to the mother, I took the newborn baby and tried to clear his airway and use a resuscitation bag to get some air into him. Eventually he was able to take a few weak breaths but it wasn’t until an hour later that we heard his first cry.

I have been in emergency situations before in my nursing career, but it was comfortable knowing I could just call a code if any of my patients were struggling. Being in a remote clinic with just nurse Phoebe and myself, it was a bit terrifying yet exhilarating to know we pulled together to save this little ones’ life.  I couldn’t ask for anything more right now and I’m so glad I postponed my lunch date.  

Worlds Apart

The other day I was reading through a People magazine that my mom sent to me in a care package. I was reading a wonderful article about a woman who learned of school children in her community that went hungry over the weekends when they were not receiving subsidized or free meals at the school. I felt a kinship with this woman because much of what she does is what I am trying to do here in Kenya. She identified a need in her community and came up with a creative way to solve the issue.  I can think of so many times I had money left over at the end of the month from my nurses salary and didn’t do anything meaningful with it. I have much respect for this lady and what she is doing to help her fellow Americans.

That being said, I turned to the next page in the article which featured a picture of one of the families packing up their belongings in their house that was foreclosed. The caption reads “A family’s struggle.”  Amidst their belongings this family poses next to a pile of shiny toys, a 50 inch flat screen TV with sound system, and a second smaller TV. My mind flashed back to the picture I had constructed of the similarities between the charity work that I had in common with the woman in the article. Suddenly the similarities did not seem as in-line as I had previously thought. In my village most children survive on porridge for breakfast and Ugali (which is cornmeal and water cooked together to form a flavorless blob of carbohydrate) and some sort of boiled leafy greens (usually kale and spinach).  Secondly, the only people who own televisions are the incredibly rich and successful business owners. And the TVs that they own are what we Americans refer to as a “boob-tube.” It is a huge status symbol to say you can afford a 1980’s style chunky 12 inch screen television.

What it all boils down to is standard of living. In America a young person from any class can count on watching TV and Disney movies as a normal part of growing up. Families may struggle to pay rent or live in subsidized housing, but even in a homeless shelter one can count on electricity and running water. It is the glorious standard of living we have established in our country. Here in Kenya, the standard of living is a roof over one’s head. At one of my last youth group meetings there was a young man who just graduated from high school and achieved an A on his exit exam. This is the equivalent of achieving a very high score on the SAT. This boy spoke perfect English and could talk in depth about his passion for biology and HIV pharmaceutical development. He asked me if I knew about any sources of funding to help pay for college tuition. I said, of course, what’s your e-mail address. He replied “well, uh I don’t really have one.” He went on to tell me that he hadn’t learned to use a computer yet. Here may be one of the brightest minds in Kenya and he can’t even apply for colleges because he doesn’t know how to use a computer.

I applaud the people who are working to correct the disparities between the classes of Americans and uphold the standard of living we have established. My only hope is that one day there are enough dedicated Kenyans to help do the same for their own country. How they can get there is the puzzle I am trying to put together right now…

World Women's Day Event

March 8^th was the day for Women all around the world to celebrate how far we have come. Having lived as a 21^st century woman in America, it sometimes feels like going back in time living here in Kenya where women cannot own property and are purchased with a dowry. Recently an 18 year old girl in my community died and could not be buried in her family home because she was not married. Could you imagine losing a daughter and then having to bury her in a town several hours away just because she was not married?  On March 8^th, a group of Peace Corps volunteers and myself celebrated the empowerment of women in our World Women’s Day event.

We had over 200 registered women at the event, although I am sure there were over 300 who attended throughout the day. We tested 34 for HIV, gave out 100 reusable sanitary pads and over 600 free condoms. We set up booths to talk to the women about how to make the reusable sanitary pads, malaria prevention, how to make safe drinking water for their families, how to start a small business, and Family planning.  I gave out fertility necklaces to help women keep track of their cycle for a natural family planning method. There were times where I had so many women pushing up against my table to hear my speech or condom demonstrations that I almost couldn’t move. It was so inspirational to see these women gather together and support one another. This is what being a Peace Corps Volunteer is all about!

Snakes, Vaccinations, and Rain

Last week my school was taking midterm exams, so I took the week off also. On Wednesday I went on a community outreach with a few people from my clinic and we vaccinated over 50 babies and saw over a dozen expectant mothers.  I try to remember to bring snacks or a granola bar with me to outreaches like this because, as expected, we worked all day without a lunch break.  I take that back. We did stop briefly to drink a soda and eat some fried bread which any Kenyan will tell you is an acceptable lunch. Nevertheless, it was a long but successful day. We all came home exhausted.

Every Saturday Sister Tina and myself visit different community youth groups. We divide the group by age and Sister Tina talks about puberty with the younger kids, while I talk about relationships with the older kids.  Last Saturday we visited a village called Omundo and there was no road leading to the church, so we had to go off-roading through a corn field. It was a terrifying experience for me because Sister Tina is not the most skilled driver and we were literally out in the middle of nowhere. We made it and in the middle of our morning introductions several people ran outside. Pretty soon we realized what was going on… one of the youth members saw a black Mamba snake in the bushes outside and went to kill it. I have now discovered the snake that lives under my front door is also a black mamba; one of the most poisonous snakes here in Kenya. I had the pleasure of watching the 5 foot tall, 70lb Sister Tina smash the snakes head in while the other youth chopped off the end of the tail… which continued to writhe even after being chopped from the rest of the body. 

Sunday after church, I did my laundry by hand. Then swept my floor with the bundle of straw I call a broom. This was followed by several hours of cross stitching because since the rains have come I have cooler weather, overcast skies, and unfortunately very little solar powered electricity.  On the bright side I can start taking regular bucket baths now and I don’t have to wear my clothes twice before washing!

There's a snake in my boot

I coincidentally watched Toy Story AND found out there is a giant 5 foot long snake living in the cement slab beneath my front door… all in the same night! I was on the phone with my mom when I saw this really big black snake slither out from below where I was sitting. This thing looked like it should have been an Indiana Jones prop or something. I called my co-worker Emmanuel to come kill it and when he rushed over with a mop he realized it wasn’t going to do the job. He called reinforcements but the snake snuck back into his hole before the neighbor could bring a stump to pummel it. Maybe another night…

I realize I have a pretty amazing life. I get to make my own schedule, wake up and go to bed whenever I feel like it. I get to see crazy things like snakes that should belong in a zoo, or monstrous size bees with fur on them. I now know what celebrities feel like because everyone I pass wants to say hello or shake my hand. Children run after me and stand at my fence to stare at me for what seems like hours. I was even asked by a Kenyan if it was me on the cover of the magazine I was reading (It was actually Jennifer Aniston on the cover of People but Kenyans can’t seem to tell white people apart, especially if you have the same hair color). And I know every morning when I wake up its going to be a sunny 80 degree day.

Not only that, but on my free weekends I can hop on a matatu (public transportation) and have it take me to some exotic Kenyan destination. I can visit Kisumu which is the second largest city in Kenya to do some shopping, get a delicious meal like pizza or a cheeseburger, and spend the day at the pool. I’m only a few hours from the border of Tanzania or I can pretend I’m in the Caribbean and make my way out to the islands on Lake Victoria.

Normally I would be home in rainy cold Seattle dreaming about how nice it would be to take a beach vacation. Now, all I have to do is pack my bags and go. The boat ride can be a little scary because you have to bail water out of the rickety small wooden boat and hold on to keep from falling out. You have to be cautious for hippos that come to the shore at night and for something the locals call “night runners.” These “night runners” only show up in the Luo culture and are people who strip naked in the middle of the night and run through the villages banging on peoples’ doors and windows. Being a night runner runs in families and if you happen to be one, it is compulsory that you make the nightly run. A night runner’s wife must also stay awake while her husband is running or something bad will happen to him. It is even said that night runners can tame hippos and will even ride or milk them. I haven’t seen one in my village yet, but I always hear many stories when I visit the islands. Scary boats and night runners aside, it is a small taste of paradise to lay on a white sand beach beneath the palm trees, working on my tan. I sometimes can’t believe this is my life!

My new career:

I had a wonderful trip to Rome for Christmas and New years. I haven’t been ready to write anything yet, because I was waiting for something inspiring to write about. I have been in Kenya for almost 8 months and I feel like I have finally found my stride. I have started teaching life skills at the nearby high school and it’s amazing how much I love being a teacher.  I teach three days a week to the form 2, 3 and 4 students (the equivalent of sophomore, juniors, and senior high school students).  The principal has yet to give me the required curriculum, so I just kind of make things up as I go along. I walk 45 minutes each way through cornfields along a small dirt path to get back and forth from the school. I am certain some of the Kenyans think I am going to die of heatstroke on my walk because they tend to avoid sun and rain like the plague, but I happen to quite enjoy it.

These past few weeks I have been talking about HIV/Aids with my classes. The students can regurgitate information like what the letters in HIV and AIDs stand for, or what the “ABC’s of Prevention” are (Abstinence, Be faithful, Condom). But as soon as I start talking about CD4 cells or ask them to tell me HOW the virus enters the body, I get a lot of blank faces and a million questions. I got permission from the school principal to demonstrate the correct way to use a condom to my classes and they were so excited. Not only because they are all curious, but I think because they finally have a knowledgeable person they can ask sensitive questions to. They would most likely be caned (beat) if they asked any of these questions, like where to get a condom, to any of the other teachers. The clinic where I work is a catholic mission and does not offer any form of family planning. This is incredibly unfortunate because the HIV rate in my area is 19% and a Kenya study in 2000 shows 80.6% of 17 year olds and 89.5% of 18 year olds are sexually active. You do the math. Not to mention the two nearest government hospitals where condoms are available are a 45 minute motorcycle ride away. Not only is this inaccessible to most of these young people, but the ride is also not affordable.

In one of my classes, a young man asked me about HIV prevention and how I can help women because “women are emotionally weak.” I told him I didn’t understand what he was talking about and he went on to explain to me that women are second class citizens. I stopped him to clarify that there is no major genetic difference between the women in my country and the women here in Kenya, so the only thing making a woman a “second class citizen” was a cultural oppression. He says very well, then “the women in our culture feel inferior.” Men like this, and their cultural attitude are exactly why women are treated so poorly.  It blows my mind to say that it is the woman’s fault for feeling inferior and not identify that maybe it is related to a man’s actions that they are treating women as inferior as the cause.

I asked students to write down anonymous questions if they did not want to ask them openly and I would answer them at the end of class. One tiny crumpled piece of paper read:

“I’m HIV positive. I have a girlfriend who is HIV negative. We have not spent yet but she insists that we have and do it without condom. How can you address this situation because I feel sorry to infect her for the same.”

I feel really lucky for the chance to work with these students. I started an afterschool health club and I really hope that each little thing I can do means as much to them as I am getting from the experience.

My walk home from school