Things To Look Forward To

Things I'm looking forward to in the next month:

1. Have almost a full week to indulge my Martha Stewart side decorating my apartment

2. See Matt!

He's fun to bring to parties AND he cleans up real good.  

He's my favorite.  

3. See my lovely friends 

4. See my family.  Is my brother cute or what?

 

5. Eat a really big burrito 

Women

I am feeling very grateful to be a woman in the time and place that I am.  Being an American woman has undeniable privilege attached to it, even if there are things in our culture I don't like.  Some of the only times I come close to losing my patience here are when a man is being pushy with me or dismissive and I can tell it is because I'm a woman.

I was at a health training and was talking to some women and they said they do not get to decide their physical relationships, if protection is used, or how many children they will have.  These are all men's decisions.  In a world of HIV/AIDs not being able to use protection is frightening.  In another case, I heard about a group of women saying that men will rape and then tell the women if they drink an Orange Fanta they will not get HIV.  Not sure where to start on that one.  One other sad case was a teacher saying that when she discussed the concept of love with her class of girls it was universally accepted that if he loves you, he will beat you.

It's very hard for me, as an outsider, to fully understand another culture.  I can't help but look through an American woman's eyes and I know I miss nuances and complexities and I feel a bit silly trying to interpret what's going on here at all when I've only been here a few months.  But when I see these wonderful women I want them to be able to say no when they want to, decide if and when they will marry, when they are ready to have children and how many they would like to have, and enjoy educational and work opportunities.   

Necessities

Living in Kenya shows you what is necessary.  Turns out electricity and running water are relatively easy to live without.  A few days ago I was whining a lot because I wouldn't have running water for a while.  But two hours in to not having running water I hardly noticed anymore, it just takes a little bit of extra work and getting up 10 minutes earlier to boil water for a bath ;).  My beloved Mexican food is not necessary and neither are my pretty clothes.  I am still very attached to my phone and internet.  Water and electricity I can live without, but when the phone lines go down I feel a little bit of panic.  But the only thing that is irreplaceable are my wonderful friends and family.  It's such a blessing to get to see people in person and spend time together having a meal or playing a game or just sitting together, I'm so excited to be able to do that soon!

Last August

A year ago I was ...

...hanging out with this dog:

Me: Jack, have you been digging in the backyard again?

Jack: What?  No, of course not!  How dare you accuse me of such a thing!  Let's go play ball!

...Going to the beach a lot

...Going to the San Luis farmers market every week and making extravagant meals

....Picking fruit from the backyard and baking yummy things

....Making these lovely curtains, if I do say so myself

....And getting ready to move here

Now I live in Africa.  This is amazing but I miss a lazy California August.

Grateful

Kenya is kicking my butt.  Mentally, spiritually, physically, it requires me to build a new skill or deeper persistence every day.  Last week our housekeeper’s grandchild died.  It is a challenge to me when I see people suffering and I’m crying out to God for a miracle and it doesn’t come.  But it is not fair to blame God.  Most of what I see here are human caused problems.  Government officials pocket money instead of investing it in education, health, or new roads.  But I still want a divine solution!  Can’t He just snap his fingers and make all this go away?  Preferably immediately, preferably yesterday in fact.  It is not my place to know God’s ways and not my place to judge them.  My only job is to express gratitude and try to use my hands, eyes, ears, words, and life to do the acts I want Him to do.  People are hungry so I should try to feed them instead of asking God why He hasn’t done so.  God helps those who help themselves.

 I’m reading a book on gratitude.  Gratitude is the only cure-all pill I know.   The sounds of church music on Sundays filling the streets, little kids screaming “Mzungu, how are you?!” at me on the street and a crowd of 10 of them all wanting to shake my hand, people who care deeply about others, beautiful maize fields, awesome afternoon thundershowers, the amazing stars here at night, encouraging notes from friends at home, chapatti and sikuma and beans.  These are all beautiful things.  And I also have to express my gratitude to Kenya for completely kicking my butt.  Now I know I can survive without electricity, without running water, in a house on my own, that I have ways I can contribute to the world that are meaningful, that you can throw what you want at me and I can handle it, that I can live in another culture, that I can keep my spiritual hunger through hard times instead of turning away in despair.  Life is good. 

Sipi Falls

See that cabin to the right of the waterfall?  That's where we stayed.

I had a wonderful weekend.  I went to Sipi Falls, Uganda with some great people and it was beautiful and peaceful and I loved it.  Sipi Falls are a series of waterfalls that all feed into each other.  We went hiking and had leisurely two hour dinners and played games and enjoyed being in a really beautiful place.  It is cold enough that there are no mosquitos, hallelujah!  The place was fairly rustic with no electricity so at night everything was lit with kerosene lamps which was beautiful.

Monkeys playing outside our front door.

Hiking!  We walked to the top of this waterfall, and then to the next one.  That stick came in really handy when I started slipping in the mud from the recent rains.  I came back just a little bit dirty and completely exhausted.

Ndere Island

I went to Ndere Island, a Kenyan National Park in the middle of Lake Victoria, close to the city of Kisumu.  I don't think it is one of the more popular national parks because the park rangers seemed so happy to see us and excited to share their place with us.  You could smell Lake Victoria before you could see it as all the villages we drove past on the way there smelled of drying fish.  To get there you take a little boat, that seemed about 2,000 years old, from the mainland and then you're on an island with literally no one else.  We spent a few hours hiking up from the shore to the top of the hills and the views were beautiful.  We were told stories about wildlife but all we saw were a few lizards and a few antelope in the distance that ran away from us.  Later we heard mysterious rustling as we were walking through the forested part of the island and then I was happy not to see anything!  We also didn't see the Nile crocodiles I keep hearing about, which I kind of do want to see, but preferably at a distance.  

Hunger Season

It is the hunger season in Bungoma.  This is time when the previous harvest is gone and the current crops will not be ready to harvest until at least July.  It is a hard time and there are many hungry people.  When we visit the farmers I see many, many children with the big, bloated stomach of malnutrition.  All the children in town smile at me but many children I have seen out in the country look very sad and when I smile, wave, and say hello there is no response.  Everyone is hoping and praying for a good maize and bean harvest and I hope you will too.

My Backyard

Our lovely trash pile out back where we burn  everything - including plastics - there is no trash pick-up here

The very kind gentleman who wakes me up every morning before 6am, without me even having to ask!

Maize fields out back.  Maize is everywhere you look.

Fresh laundry.  Just remember to bring it in before the afternoon rainstorm.

The Road To My House

Jinja

Kayakers in the Nile

Ugandan pineapples and bananas were delicious

The view from the porch of the house

Another beautiful view

Jinja

I went to Jinja, Uganda this weekend, which is famous for being the source of the Nile.  I got to kayak along what was either Lake Victoria or the Nile and it was gorgeous!  I felt like I was living 2,000 years ago.  I stayed in an amazing house right on the Nile.  Uganda is a beautiful country.  I'll post some pictures once I get my camera working.  I also got to properly get to know my new Kindle.  Kindles are very good for pack rats like me: they are compact and allow you to bring everything you own everywhere you go.

The drive between Kenya and Uganda was beautiful and lush and filled with rice paddies and maize fields.  Crossing the border I accidentally gave the money for a travel visa to the wrong man and I think he thought I was bribing him.  It was $50 so he was happy.  Luckily a friend corrected me.  Beginners mistake!

tropical diseases

I spent the afternoon at the hospital because a friend has malaria and because of her symptoms there was some fear she had meningitis.  The hospital was not good.  At all. They lost her tests and didn't keep adequate records so when one doctor came to relieve another, they kind of had no idea who she was or what she was there for.  I tried asking a nurse for help but I had to really push her for any sort of information or attention and then she got frustrated and short with me.  I kind of understood her attitude because getting malaria here is probably as common as getting the flu at home and so to these people it is just not the huge deal that it sounds like at home and they don't want to deal with some pushy person.  But the disorganization was still frustrating and just kind of sad.    The resources they had to work with were very minimal.  It got me thinking how we value human life differently.   It makes me appreciate all the more all the various vaccines I got in New York and how fortunate I am to have access to the anti-malaria medication I take every morning, the pharmacy in my closet I brought from New York, and the mosquito net on my bed.   I want everyone to have access to these things.

Different Lives

When I got to work this morning I asked a Kenyan colleague if I could use her computer to print something.  When I sat down, her web browser was on yahoo.com and the main story on the webpage was announcing a celebrity engagement and describing the 2 million dollar engagement ring.  This colleague of mine seeing this news probably makes around $200/month and that is considered a good wage, although nothing extravagant.  It felt so weird to see that story having just come in from the main road that is dotted by what are essentially shacks by American standards.  Man, we've got a crazy world where some people can afford such incredibly luxuries and others struggle to get by.  It is hard to comprehend and I'm still wrapping my head around the poverty here.

Yesterday the internet went down for the afternoon and most of the evening, the entire town ran out of petrol, and then the electricity went out.  I felt really isolated and it was a tough night.  Then I thought the town was on fire and had a brief moment of "What am I going to do?!?!  There is no gas in the cars!?!?", but it turns out the sunset just turns the sky bright orange enough to look like flame.  It was gorgeous once I knew it wasn't fire ;)

I'm Wired

Bungoma is obviously a poor place.  The buildings are run down and poverty is apparent.  But what’s amazing is that everyone has a cell phone.  And it’s just like the U.S. where everyone checks their phone every 5 minutes.  I got a cell phone from a stall in Nairobi airport immediately after I stepped off the plane.  For 40 USD I got a sweet Nokia (the ones that were very, very cool when I was in high school in the U.S.) and a decent amount of minutes.  To call the U.S. it is only about 0.02 cents a minute which is awesome.  And what’s even more amazing are the USB sticks you can buy that connect to wireless phone signals and the internet wherever you are.  Yesterday I was literally sitting in the middle of nowhere with chickens walking around and was online.  In Nairobi, Kisumu, and Bungoma I saw Safaricom (a huge phone provider) stands everywhere where you can load up on pre-paid minutes.

 It’s interesting to see a place that struggles with things we take for granted as basics in the U.S., like clean water, have this very modern technology.  But it is doing good.  People use phones to move money around in places where banking systems are undeveloped or receive information on crop prices so they can decide whether to sell their crop now or later.

Basically, the point of this post is a just a big hint to use your cell phone and call me because I already miss everyone J   

Safe and Sound (and tired)

After a 6 hour flight to London, an 8 hour flight to Nairobi, an 8 hour layover in Nairobi, a 1 hour flight to Kisumu, and a 2 hour drive, I am settled into Bungoma, Kenya.  I arrived at 10:00pm Sunday night and started work at 7:45am Monday morning.

The journey to Bungoma was LONG.  On the way to London I sat next to a nice older woman who I startled by bawling during takeoff after saying goodbye to Matt in the airport, and just being overwhelmed in general at what was ahead of me, and then conking out for a good 4 hours.  When I finally woke up she was very concerned.  We started talking and she told me about her 10 children.  10!  And how she lived in Guyana and her husband died when her children were young and she was left to raise them all alone.  Now they live all over the world and are engineers and chemists and she already has twenty-something grandchildren.  What a woman!

On the flight from London to Nairobi I sat next to an older Kenyan man named James who had grown up in Nairobi but now lives in San Diego.  He was very encouraging of what I was coming to Kenya to do and then started to share his story with me.  He married an American woman who couldn’t stop drinking, destroyed her liver, and died within 2 years of their wedding.  But before she died she asked him to promise to take care of her father who has alzheimers.  This man quit his job and now spends every day caring for his father-in-law.  I was very touched by his devotion but also so sad for him.  When we got off the plane he told me that God’s grace is good and would carry me through.

And then I was in Nairobi!  Visa granted and cell phone purchased, I had an 8 hour layover until my flight to Kisumu and was planning on staying in the airport but after being approached by 5 different random men offering to help me, and knowing I had a lot of money on me, I decided to just rent a hotel for the day.  So I took off in a car towards the hotel with a random man, a lot of money, and all my earthly possessions and immediately spotted a giraffe!  The random man was very sweet and pulled over so I could oohh and aahhh.   

When I arrived in Kisumu I got picked up by one of the people I will be working with.  We had dinner at a restaurant on Lake Victoria in Kisumu with some of his friends and I got to watch the sun set over the lake.  It was surreal.  I had my first Tusker and it turns out that I have several friends in common with my dinner mates, which is a good, comforting feeling.

After dinner, we drove for 2 hours, in the dark, to Bungoma, my new home for the summer.  The potholes are like meteor craters and people drive giant trucks and bikes at night with no lights.  At home, I am the person who checks twice that their seatbelt is securely fastened but it’s time to get used to a new reality.

More later.