Things I’ve forgotten were not “normal”:

Every culture has its own set of beliefs, values, and sense of what behavior is acceptable. I can imagine my Kenyan counterparts have their own list of “things the strange Mzungu does.” As I have come to adapt to the culture I realized there are some things that have stopped surprising me and I have taken them to be “normal.”

1.       Masai men can be seen in traditional dress (i.e. red robes, beaded jewelry, and a stick) walking down any street.

2.       “How are you” is used as a general greeting and not meant to actually find out how you are doing.

3.       The response to “how are you” is ALWAYS “I am fine” no matter what.

4.       Tea, or chai is compulsory.

5.       “No” means “yes” especially when a man is asking a woman on a date.

6.       “You look smart” does not mean you look intelligent, and often times it actually is used to mean you look strange, or ill-dressed.

7.       Washing clothes should be done bent over a bucket on the ground without any sign of a bend in your knees.

8.       If you feel tired, you have malaria.

9.       If you have a fever, you have malaria.

10.   If you have a headache, you have malaria.

11.   A western style toilet is of no practical use if it does not flush.

12.   When a meeting is scheduled to begin at 10AM, no one is expected until 10:30 or 11.

13.   If a gathering is planned from 10AM-1PM, at least a quarter of the participants will arrive at 1PM.

14.   If an individual does not know the answer to a question, an answer will be made up and vehemently defended without regard to common sense. This is often seen when asking directions.

15.   When asking directions the answer is always “it is near” whether the destination is 10 feet or 10 miles away.

16.   Small children think white skin feels different than black skin.

17.   There is no time limit for blatant staring.

18.   Plastic garbage bags make perfectly fine rain coats.

19.   It is acceptable to write IOU’s for services rendered.

20.   It is perfectly acceptable to say you do not have change.

21.   Upon arriving at a shop to buy goods one must first locate a small child who will then be sent to find the shop owner.  Approximately 10-20 minutes later once the shop owner has arrived one must search their vocabulary to determine the appropriate language to speak.  After being told that this particular bread shop does not have any bread to speak of, one must thank the shop owner and hope for better results tomorrow.

22.   A menu at a restaurant is merely for decoration.

23.   Oranges are not orange.

24.   A meal without 3 types of starch is not considered a meal.

25.   Beer is sold, served, and drank at room temperature. In Kenya this is typically 75 degrees F.

26.   Ice does not exist.

27.   Despite the abundance of tomatoes, ketchup is labeled “tomato sauce” and generally has the taste and consistency of pink unflavored gelatin.

28.   Work ceases if it is “too cold” or raining.

29.   Dogs are an annoying creature that should be beaten, not fed, and expected to guard the home.

30.   If you see a place to wash your hands, do not expect soap. If you find soap, do not expect it to be clean. If you do happen find soap that is not covered with dirt, do not expect it to be there tomorrow.

31.   If you ask any public transit where they are going, they will immediately ask you where YOU are going and claim that is where they are headed.

32.   There is no such thing as customer service.

33.   If you order eggs and bread for breakfast, do not expect eggs and bread.

34.   If you are purchasing 6 tomatoes and have established a price, after paying you then ask the seller to “add a little” to which you will  be given one or two additional small tomatoes.

35.   Something is wrong with you if you do not own land and grow crops regardless of profession.

I could quite honestly continue forever... but i'm sure thats enough for now.

It's a girl!

Today was a fantastic day. I woke up and started my day with a few lunges and crunches in my little home. It felt good to get the blood pumping a little bit. This was followed by a failed attempt at french toast so I had the usual oatmeal instead and the best cup of coffee I’ve had in a long time. My French press makes a whopping 12 cup so I took my time enjoying about 5 of those. There is something therapeutic about having a 9am start to your work day and it’s especially easy when you live at your work place. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty good.

I started in the maternal-child health clinic where I assessed a few expectant mothers measuring their bellies and listening to the fetus’s heart rate through an old school looking cone shaped device. I always feel like I’m back in the 1800’s when I use that thing. Then I registered a few babies while sister Gaudie administered their immunizations. As soon as we cleared the line, I walked to the main clinic to see if anyone needed help. The woman who was in a motorcycle accident a few days ago was back again to get her dressings changed. Emmanuel, the lab tech guy, was about to do the dressing change and I could tell he was relieved that I stepped in for him. She has 5 major wounds on her knees and all over her face. They have been improving pretty well considering all I have to work with is iodine and gauze to dress the wounds. (I’d give anything for some santyl or collagenase right now for all you nurses out there). I can’t communicate with this woman in words because she is older and only speaks Luo but I try and be as gentle as possible while I’m exfoliating the dead skin off her cheek and she smiles at me, knowing I’m doing the best I can. I’m not sure how far she has to walk to get to the clinic, but I know she has been coming diligently every day since her accident to pay approximately 50 cents (that she probably doesn’t have) to pay for treatment.

In the next room over, we have an 18 year old girl who has been in labor since last night. Her contractions started to become stronger around lunchtime and after her water broke, I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before we had a new baby in the world! Now some of the Kenyan women I have seen in labor hardly make a sound and you wouldn’t even know they were giving birth until you hear the newborn baby cry. This birth was not one of them… Nurse Pheobe was on the business end of things making sure she was fully dilated and checking for the head to show up. Our mother-to-be asked me for water which she threw all over herself as she thrashed around on the bed. She almost pulled her IV out and she was clutching me for dear life with each round of contractions. Pheobe yelled at the girl telling her she was going to kill the baby if she didn’t push like she was supposed to. I did my best to comfort our new mommy by letting her grab onto me and helping her push with each contraction. After what seemed like eternity, we had a new beautiful baby girl!

Another mom had given birth on her way to the hospital, so after getting mom #1 settled in bed with her baby, I got to weigh and assess baby #2 while Sister Gaudie took a look at the mom. I think I was the most excited person in the whole clinic as I proudly announced that there were “two beautiful baby girls” to the people in the waiting room who understood nothing of what I said. The day wrapped up with a flashlight and tweezers as Sister Suzie asked me to take the “insect” out of her ear. Unfortunately it had crawled back into the depths of her ear before I could take it out. Now I am just waiting for the houseboy from the convent to bring me my chicken to slaughter for dinner tonight. My mouth is watering already. All in all, I couldn’t ask for more today.

Mom #1

Mom #2

Polio outbreaks and fish

The news came to me while I was gone this weekend and it felt like I was getting a telegram from the 1930’s or something! There was a confirmed case of polio in a 3 year old girl at the Rongo District Hospital. It seems so strange that there is a CURE for this disease, yet the newsletter accurately stated that Polio will continue to be a threat to the world if even one child has it. Time to beef up on the vaccinations!

On a lighter note, I would like to describe my weekend get-away to Mfungano Island. Me, brother Richard and four of the sisters hopped in their car at 6am Saturday morning. I got to witness a beautiful sunrise around 6:30 and we had an impromptu breakfast at the side of the road where I shared the left-over fried chicken I made the night before. (I chopped the head off with a dull knife… it took nearly twice as long as it should have because the knife was so dull. Pictures say a thousand words, so check out the chronicles on facebook). We then had to take an hour and a half boat ride from the town of Mbita across Lake Victoria before finally reaching the Island. It was so nice to be near the water. I find myself truly missing the sound, feel and look of being around water. I almost felt as though I was riding through the San Juan Islands at home, except the boat was really more of a ramshackle canoe so that brought me back to Africa real quick.

We got a tour of the Catholic Church compound, health clinic, and youth center and ate our second breakfast. Next we walked down to the lake shore and I taught the sisters how to skip rocks. It was nice to bask in the sunlight a little, even though I was covered from head to toe with my long skirt and blouse. Then we were called back for lunch, and since fish is such a prized possession around the lake, I ate and actually enjoyed a nice fillet of Tilapia. Those of you who know me best probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I ate fish for lunch and dinner two days straight this weekend. The father then took us again to the lake shore to help the locals fish. This consists of spending, sometimes, over an hour dragging in a single net that has been deposited on the opposite side of the lake. It makes you appreciate where the fish comes from after getting blisters on your hands and feeling tired after only a single hour. These people do this from sunrise to sunset day after day. It was incredible to watch, and help! At one point during a stroll down the beach there were two young boys (maybe 3 years old) who came running as fast as they could to meet us yelling “muzungu, muzungu, amosi, amosi!” That means hey white girl, I greet you. Sister Gaudie thought it was so funny that they wrapped their arms around my legs like they knew me and then persisted to follow me around for the next few hours. I almost had a small child wrapped around every one of my fingers during our stroll.

We went back to the compound for porridge while we waited for dinner to be ready.  I honestly felt like I was at grandma and grandpas house because all these Kenyans wanted to do was feed me every scrap of home cookin’ they could! The food and hospitality was amazing. At church the next morning I was asked to introduce myself to the congregation, then the father announced to everyone that “Christina will be bringing her parents here next year!” FYI mom and dad… I ate more, and ate more, until it was finally time to leave. I’m sure I will fall into a deep sleep tonight.

Like Niagara falls but...

My life at the dispensary has been filled with ups and downs; often both within the same day. My first three months at my site I am supposed to be preparing my “Community Needs Assessment” report for Peace Corps. This involves making a map of my community and tracking different social calendars such as when schools are in session, when people are busy harvesting or planting crops, and tracking the history and development of my community. There is no science for how this is done and since I have yet to be able to have a conversation in Luo, most of my research has to be done simply by observation. Most of my “down” days are when I sit around the clinic all day waiting for something to happen, counting down the hours until lunch, and then counting down the hours until the work day is over so I can stop trying to look productive and crawl under my mosquito net and watch movies on my computer. If I had grand visions of what Peace Corps is, this was not it. It is these days that I question why I am here, and it’s on these days that I feel the pains of absolute boredom and loneliness.
A wise Peace Corps volunteer who served back in the 80’s once told me that if I ever felt like I wanted to go home, I should pack my bags but then wait three days. If I couldn’t find anything to keep me where I was after three days, then I should just throw in the towel and go home. I haven’t even considered packing my bags, but there are little things that happen every day that remind me of what he said. Each of these little things is enough to make me pack my bags in America and start this whole process over again to be where I am right now. I’d like to share a story from yesterday that encompasses several of those “little things.”
Monday morning:
I spent over 4 and ½ hours in church on Sunday. The Father asked me to stand in front of the whole congregation (100 or so people) to say a few words of introduction about myself and this was in the 4th hour. I had started counting the planks in the ceiling at this point because the whole service was in Luo, which I don’t understand yet, and the two hours of announcements where like white noise.  I needed food at the market, so after the service I ventured down to the nearest market while getting caught in a torrential downpour and ended up standing under a storefront for 3 hours to wait out the rain. Needless to say, I didn’t expect my Monday to be any better. Mondays never are right?
My alarm went off and I considered snoozing for a little bit because it was 8am and the clinic doesn’t get busy until at least 9. Unfortunately I heard Sister Gaudie’s voice outside my window and figured if my supervisor was already at the clinic I better get my butt in motion because it takes about an hour to make my oatmeal and coffee in the morning. And yes it really does take me an hour to make oatmeal because I have to pick all the little worms out of the oats before I cook them.  When I walked into the clinic to report for duty there was a big line-up of people waiting to be seen and a mother in labor who was resting in the delivery room. I jumped at the chance to not be sitting around bored today and sister Gaudie gave me a lesson in midwifery using our pregnant mother as the case study. This particular woman had been in labor for a few hours, it was her 5th child, she was 6cm dilated and her water had not broken yet. Sister informed me that with the rates of HIV in this area that it was recommended to keep the membranes intact for as long as possible to reduce the baby’s exposure to the HIV virus. I stress the words “as long as possible” because they truly were intact “as long as possible.” I was in the room next door waiting for a malaria blood smear to be analyzed in the lab when I heard Sister Gaudie call out “CHRIS, CHRIS!!!” (Most Kenyans shorten my name to Chris because it’s just easier to say). I ran into the delivery room to find the mother lying on her side and in literally a split second her water broke as the baby popped right out. It was basically Niagara falls but with blood, placenta, and a baby boy. Sister was holding the baby by his feet with one hand and trying to block the sprays of water and birth with her other hand. It was spectacular! We diagnosed several children with Malaria that day, and I finally got to see what the Plasmodium that causes Malaria looks like under a microscope.  This was not the Monday morning I thought I was waking up to.  I still feel like I am in the way sometimes and that I don’t have a clearly defined role at the dispensary yet, but it truly is the little moments like this particular Monday that remind me of the reasons I packed my bags in the first place.

Me at the rural outreach clinic assessing pregnant mothers.
 

Day one

I spent my first night in the house with the sisters. There are four sisters and two that are in training. They were so wonderful and welcoming that I instantly felt at home with them. They even celebrated my arrival with ice cream and cake from town! I had a great night of sleep and felt prepared to start my first day.

The beginning of day one started off with whole wheat bread covered in butter and honey, alongside cheese, chicken sausages, and REAL coffee made from a French press. This may not sound so exciting for everyone at home, but I’m sure all my fellow peace corps volunteers are drooling! It was absolutely amazing. I then walked down the dirt road to the dispensary (small clinic) where I will be living and working. I met the nurses and lab technician that I will be working alongside and we had a meeting to discuss our plans for the next few weeks. Shortly after I had arrived, I was asked if I wanted to see a circumcision performed. It is not the tradition in Kenya to circumcise children when they are born. In fact, IF it is tradition to perform circumcision in ones’ particular tribe, it is usually done as part of a “coming of age” ceremony when they are in their teens. However, in current research it has been shown that HIV transmission can be decreased by up to 60% if a man is circumcised, so young people are making the choice to be circumcised even if it is not part of their tribal traditions. The young boy who sat on the table today was probably around 14 years old. I still cannot even comprehend what must have been going through his head when they brought out the needle of lidocaine to numb him up. I’ve seen blood, guts, and surgery before, but there was something about the nonchalant manor in which they snip-snipped this young boy while joking around and not even closing the door to the room. I think I was more traumatized than the boy! The rest of my day went smoothly and I rode with the sisters the 12 kilometers into town to see what there was to see.

We first visited the Rongo District Hospital so the two sisters could get a paper signed for school. We sat outside the “outpatient department” which is this hospital’s version of the ER. I sat next to a mother and her 3 year old girl who was trying to get medication for malaria. The baby’s name was Sharon and we enjoyed a little game of pic-a-boo. Almost instantaneously a dark cloud rolled in with a clap of thunder and the sky exploded with rain. This must have been a prelude for what was about to unfold. A young man and a small boy raced up to the door of the outpatient department. This boy, who was probably 6 or 7 years old, stood in front of me sopping wet from rain, shaking violently and trying to hold back the tears as the tip of his tiny ring finger dangled by a strand in a bloody twisted mess. There was no mother to coddle him and tell him it would all be ok. There was just the young man who pushed him towards the door entrance after asking the rest of us if it was ok for him to cut in line.

Following my experience at the hospital, the two sisters and I went to town to pick up some things at the supermarket. We stopped briefly to watch a funeral procession parade down the street. There were a large group of people wailing, screaming, and waving tree branches… as is the custom for a funeral. Amongst what I had seen today and the torrential downpour, I was happy to make the drive back to the safe haven that is the sisters’ house.

Day Three

I spent my first night and cooked my first meal at my new home! I have three beautiful rooms at the dispensary. First is my bedroom. I have a bed, desk, dresser, and two chairs. It is spacious and the mattress is incredibly comfortable by Kenyan standards.

Next is my sitting room. I have a table, two chairs, a cupboard to put all my food and dishes, along with a bookshelf to store things. There is a little gecko that I’ve seen twice now every time I open one of the windows in this room. I think I’ll name him Ivan.

The third room is my kitchen. I have a gas stove with a working oven, a sink, counter top and small water tank. I have solar powered electricity but no running water. There is a door to the dispensary in this room and another door that leads out back. This is where I like to sit and watch the cows graze and children walk by. It’s a nice quiet escape and the views are excellent!

Getting ready for the new Ivan

The last few days have been filled with more emotion and more commotion than my whole two months in Africa so far! On Friday night I had my last dinner with my host family in Loitokitok. They killed a chicken and me and my mama cooked chapatti and lentils. I ate four pieces of chicken, a giant bowl of lentils and two chapattis! I bought some coca-cola for dessert so me and my family washed it all down with a glass of room temperature coke. I gave my host family cards from home with pictures of the tulip fields in Mount Vernon and the Puget Sound. I wrote a nice note (in all Swahili) thanking them for making feel like a part of their family.  I then gave them a gift of laundry soap, toilet paper, bars of soap and some earrings for my mama. She asked me the next morning if all of that stuff was for them… I guess not realizing it was a gift. I went to bed with my room packed up and feeling sad to be leaving this little room of mine behind.

The next morning I got done up in my traditional African dress that I had made and mama told me how “smart” I looked. We walked up to the Peace Corps hub for the host family appreciation ceremony and lunch. A group of us put on skits for the families about all of our crazy experiences over the past 10 weeks. One was showcasing the telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) that Kenyans absolutely love to watch. The worst part about them is that they are overly dramatized then dubbed over in English which, I swear, is done by only one person in a bland monotone voice. It can be painful to watch. Other skits were about how we scream like little girls when we find bugs in our rooms, how we had no idea how to bathe out of a bucket when we arrived, and how Kenyans and Americans palate for food differ so greatly. We all laughed and then cried when one of the host mothers gave a speech about how much she will miss her new “daughter.” We all hugged our families’ goodbye and prepared for the next stage in our adventure.

We were all loaded up on matatus (large vans used for public transportation) and took the 4 hour drive back into Nairobi. It was so nice to take a hot shower and have an inside toilet all to myself! After class today we found out our “Supervisors” were coming to dinner with us to attend our training workshop tomorrow. Our supervisors are the people who requested a peace corps volunteer for their organization and are responsible for the care and feeding of us until we gain our sea-legs at our sites. It feels like going on a blind date and a job interview at the same time, except the stakes are higher because you very well might accidentally do something culturally inappropriate without realizing AND you have to actually live and work with this person for the next two years. The pressure is on!

The Peace Corps staff was talking about “maintaining strong emotions” yesterday. They said the experience of doing Peace Corps is similar to the top three stressors in a person’s life:  Moving, starting a new job, and the death of a loved one (this one being the loss of all our friends who we have met in training which are our new Peace Corps family now.) It’s the unexpected that weighs the heaviest right now. All of these strong ties that I have built with people are going to be nothing but long distance phone calls as I move into another new life. On the bright side of things, I cannot wait to have my own little house and buy my own bed and new dishes! This is the final step I’ve been waiting for. Of our original group of 56 people, only 49 remain.

Maybe I’ll have a new spider I can name Ivan at my new place J

Siku ya Zaliwa

My life as a peace corps trainee is about to come to an end. I started packing today and reflected a little bit of my journey so far. I have learned enough conversational Swahili to pass the Peace corps required level, I am getting pretty good at washing a large load of laundry by hand, and I can bake a batch of brownies over a charcoal fire. Yup, I think i'm ready for the real life Peace corps volunteer experience. We will have one last host-family appreciation party next saturday and then we will all head back to Nairobi to prepare for our swearing in celebration at the US ambassadors house. It all seems a little bittersweet. I have gotten so close with my host mama (she promises she will call me once a month after I leave). I am so excited to start the real peace corps service, to start projects, set up my own house, and cook my own foods! However, I went to the market yesterday to do a little shopping and meet up with a friend. I chatted with Mama Mauwa (my favorite clothing seller) in Kiswahili, greeted several people on the streets, informed a group of heckling men that I wasn't a "muzungu" and that I had a name, did some shopping and bargained a blanket down to the best price. I then checked my phone and it was time to meet my friend at the gas station. I was feeling great and thinking to myself... this is what life is going to be like when I get to my site! EXCEPT for the part where I get to meet my friend or share my day with someone. I didn't expect I was going to become so close with so many people in a few short weeks that I was going to miss them as much as I miss my friends at home. I plan on making the most of the next few days with them before I head off to Rongo, Kenya on August 18th!

On a second note... I had an amazing 25th birthday! My wonderful friend Breezie gave me some easy cheese along with cheez-its that she had gotten from the states. I can't explain to you how wonderful cheddar-bacon easy cheese is on a bowl of lentils! I had messages and phone calls from home! I got a pair of grape-chinese socks from my friend Jo! I even got a brownie with sprinkles (my birthday cake) from Lussia and Ryan. I cooked KRAFT macaroni and cheese for dinner with my friend Breezie and my host mama sat and watched us intently throughout the entire process. It could be because she has never seen food cooked out of a box before, or maybe because she has no idea what "cheese" is. She followed us into the sitting room to watch us eat our concoction. We then asked her to take a picture for us and handed over the digital camera, after about 5 minutes of trying to explain, we ended up with a picture of our knees and part of the table. Mama has never seen a digital camera (or maybe any camera) before. I went to bed with a belly full of cheese, twislers, and oreos! I can't remember those things ever making me so happy at home. Thanks again everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes. I can't wait to update you again once I am a sworn-in Peace corps volunteer.