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

Anticipation

Anticipation, that’s part of what Christmas is all about right? I can remember in church when the nativity Joseph and Mary moved closer and closer to the manger each Sunday. I remember waiting anxiously for thanksgiving to pass so I could start playing my Christmas music. I remember looking forward to my visits home in the month of December to see what lovely baked goods my mom had prepared and the anticipation for the pie on Christmas eve along with the scraps of pie crust that I had to fight my sister for. We wait all year for this season of good-will and cheer and you can’t help but smile when “Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas” or “Jingle Bells” comes on the radio. Part of the anticipation is in the memories of Christmas. Remember what was so great about past years, makes the next year even more anxiously awaited.

I find myself taking a seven hour bus ride to Nairobi, followed by a 7 hour wait in the airport, followed by a 6 hour flight to Rome to celebrate Christmas this year with my sweetheart, Adam. Part of me mourns the fact that I won’t be part of my family traditions this year. I won’t be decorating Christmas cookies or making Lefse or joking about how horribly my dad wrapped my mom’s Christmas presents. However, I find myself more anxious for this Christmas than any other. Ok, granted it may be because it is taking me almost two days to get where I am going, and it may be because I haven’t seen Adam in almost 7 months. But I think it also has a little to do with the anticipation for the future. This Christmas won’t be like any I’ve had in the past, but that’s what makes it great. Being away from family and loved ones truly makes you love and appreciate them even more. I have been dreaming and thinking about Christmas more this year than any year before and the anticipation is nearly killing me! For those of you who are lucky enough to be around family on Christmas, give everyone a little extra hug this year and put a little anticipation into making next year even better.

Mabera Youth

A member of my community, Brother Richard, is doing his seminary training at a nearby catholic parish in the town of Mabera. He told me he was planning a youth seminar and asked me if I could help with it. So this weekend I made the trip out to Mabera, but I was not really sure what to expect.

My first day, I got the lay of the land.  The tour included the Catholic Church compound where we would host the seminar, the new church being built across the road, and the catholic girls school. There are 42 different tribes in Kenya, and along with the physical introduction, I got a cultural introduction to the people of the Kuria tribe who live in this area. It is holiday break, but the school is full of over 120 young girls who have run away from their families because they do not want to be circumcised. Every three years the Kuria tribe gathers all of their young girls between the ages of 7 and 13, takes them out to a field and performs female genital mutilation (FGM). Although it is technically illegal in Kenya, it happens anyways and you can hear the drums, singing and dancing that goes along with the ceremony. I won’t go into the details about what actually happens when a female is “circumcised.” It can be easily googled for those of you who are curious, but just know it is an awful and barbaric practice. Not only can it cause problems physically, but it is supposed to signify a girl becoming a woman and this leads to many of these very young girls dropping out of school and being married off. There are a few brave girls who escape circumcision but it often means disobeying their parents and a few are unable to return home. I felt a heaviness in my heart that lifted a little as the girls gathered around to sing me a welcome song.

The next morning I got the agenda for the seminar. This included me teaching lessons on self-esteem, assertiveness, communication, friendship, and romantic relationships for about 4 hours each morning. Then I arranged some group building activities and games before we had free time to kick the soccer ball and toss the volleyball around at the nearby field. We had almost 70 youth attending the seminar ranging in age from 14 to 22 years old.  In our free time, some of the girls taught me their traditional dances and in turn I taught them the electric slide and the Macarena. It was an amazing experience and I think I got just as much out of the seminar as the youth did.

The only difficulty of visiting a new community is that everyone wants to feed you. I would start my mornings with breakfast and only one cup of chai was never acceptable. Approximately two hours later it was time to take a chai break… yet another cup of chai. Then a few hours later it was time for lunch. If you do not fill your plate, you will be asked to please take more. Then for dessert you will be asked to take a mango, then a banana, and then an orange because you haven’t had one of those yet. Then another few hours later it is time for more chai. On one of these days we went to visit some members of the community at their homes and I ended up eating two lunches because it is impolite to refuse food when it is prepared for your visit. I came back to the parish with a bloated stomach to drink more chai and then force myself to eat dinner.  I don’t think I will eat for a week now…

I had such a wonderful weekend dancing, singing, and both teaching and learning from this group of young people. I know some of them will do great things in Kenya.

A little Christmas cheer

I had a wonderful two weeks at my peace corps training. It was nice to have a chance to be in Nairobi… which feels more and more like America. It was also nice to spend time with my fellow Americans. I got to drink a real vanilla latte and “real” beer on tap. I also ate some protein for the first time since I killed my last chicken (about a month ago) and took hot showers (sometimes twice a day… just because I could). It’s always hard coming back to taking bucket baths, dealing with lots of bugs (sometimes in my food), and struggling with cultural and language barriers being the only white person in my rural village.

I expected to feel a little depressed coming back to the village but I wasn’t prepared for what I would find. I spent my entire Peace Corps stipend and then some in Nairobi so coming back to the village I had just enough money to pick up my packages from the post office and for transportation to my house. Of course I came home on Sunday when the post office was closed so after I paid for my transport back to my house, I didn’t have enough left over to go back to town and pick them up the next day. That’s just how it goes I thought; I’ll get to my packages eventually. Little did I know there had been no rain while I was gone and my outside water tank was completely empty. Also, there had been a lot of male circumcisions while I was gone and the staff used my gas for the autoclave to sterilize the surgical equipment which also left my gas tank completely empty. So here I am, in the middle of a Kenyan village with no water, no way of cooking my food. I am left with one half-full indoor water tank which I need for washing two weeks’ worth of clothes, bathing (although it would be cold because I have no way to heat my water), and drinking. That also leaves my food choices to milk, peanuts, raw oatmeal and jelly. I figured people eat raw oatmeal in granola bars and such, so I poured milk over it like cereal and added a little jelly to flavor for breakfast. It wasn’t awful but I had to eat something because I was going to spend my whole day walking around the village for our last round of the polio vaccination campaign. Was I internally freaking out about what I was going to eat or how I was going to solve my problem of not being able to cook my food? Of course I was. Was there anything I could do about it? Not really. I didn’t have any money to buy gas, let alone pay for the transport to get to town and back with my 50lb. gas tank. Also, the way Kenya works, there was no guarantee that if I went to town, that there would even be gas at the station for me. It seems to be a rare commodity and difficult to get when you need it.

I had already searched my Peace Corps cook book for ways to make “no-bake” granola bars with my peanut butter and oatmeal when Sister Mien came up to me and said “I’m sorry the clinic had to use your gas. They have gas in Rongo and I’d like to go fill up your tank for you.” I asked to go along in order to pick up my packages. Now here I sit with a full tank of gas, warm water for my bucket bath, and I’m listening to my favorite Christmas music with a Christmas tree smelling candle burning and more food and snacks than I could eat in a month.

Buffalo Jerky, twislers, butter and cheddar flavored seasonings, boxed macaroni and cheese, and did I mention the candle that smells like a Christmas tree? I guess everything happens for a reason and I couldn’t feel happier or more loved. Thanks for keeping me going and Merry Christmas.

Traveling Kenya

I was doing the final touches of packing for my trip to In Service Training (IST) in Limuru for two weeks. I looked out my windows and happened to see groups of people (mostly men) walking around with spears, sticks (that look like clubs), and pangas (a machete type knife). I didn’t think much of it because there had been a group of men with dogs that had been wandering around my village hunting with their dogs earlier in the week. I assumed it was just a BIG hunting party. I was finally packed up and on my way out of the village when I came to the junction that is one kilometer from the dispensary to see a large mob. This mob consisted of men and women of all ages with their hands full of spears, sticks, and pangas forming a circle around a few individuals. There were so many people it was impossible for me to pass and I had to wait for the mob to die down to continue on my way. My co-worker explained to me that there had been a few robberies in my village that night and all of the villagers had come together to hunt down and capture the people responsible. Those guilty thieves were now in the center of this angry mob and tensions were high. There is a way of handling such situations in Kenya called mob justice. Mob justice is where a group of people severely beat or kill a guilty party for whatever reason and there are no repercussions for their actions. If a mob kills someone, the police simply pick up the body and the mob goes on with their day. Now I am standing at the junction with no way of passing and wondering if I am going to see some people beat to death in front of my very eyes. Luckily the police arrived, nobody died (that I know of) and I was able to pass and continue on my way.

The junction in my village

The next leg of my journey I am traveling on a matatu. A matatu is Kenya’s form of public transportation in which they pack 14 to 24 people into a 11 seater van. There are typically people hanging out the doors and it feels like a rollercoaster as the driver speeds down an unpaved dirt road littered with pot-holes. This drive normally takes 2 hours, but today it was took me almost 4 hours due to bad road conditions, and the frequent stops to pack more people in. I had almost reached my destination for the first leg of my trip when the matatu was stopped by a piece of rope stretched across the road. This is a common way to stop traffic for police to check vehicles for correct registration or to charge a fare to continue down the road. Our matatu was stopped because we had an illegal amount of people inside and I could hear the police officer yelling in Swahili for the driver to pay him a bribe in order to let us pass. “Leta Pesa!! Leta Pesa!” The man working the door and the driver both jumped out of the car and started yelling back in the police officers face. Some passengers jumped ship and disappeared into the woodworks. Then to top it all off, the entire side door to the matatu fell off. I eventually made it to my destination after the door was put back on the vehicle. It was just a reminder that you should never be in a hurry to get anywhere in Kenya. I am getting a lot of practice in patience and no day goes by without a little cultural experience.