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