What's Been Happening

So it has been quite some time since I’ve posted. Well, lets just say the month of October had its fair share of ups and downs. And obviously by fair share I mean everyday, all the time, not my most favorite month..if you catch my drift. BUT with that said, I can confidently say I have some of THE best family and friends a girl could ever ask for. I have the constant support of my mother, who I am surprised has not herself gone crazy listening to my every crazy thought. One of the many reasons I love her. I also have a continuous stream of people at home sending supportive messages, cards, packages, ect. And let me tell you, those are some of the most important things in Peace Corps life. And there is always the volunteers you call up that understand exactly what you’re going through, and make you feel like you are either not as crazy as you feel, or at least not alone on the crazy train.

With that said, about halfway through the month I decided that one way to make myself busy was to start going on village visits, doing interviews and really seriously getting to know my community, the people that live there and how they go about their daily lives. With the help of a couple of amazing Kenyans I have been visiting villages 3 days a week for the past three weeks. This is 9 different villages. Seems like a lot, but I have 18 villages in my sublocation, so I’m actually only half way there. Lucky for me, there is about 3 more weeks until I head to Nairobi for my In Service Training, so I have a schedule for part of the week for the rest of the month! Earlier in the month I had gone around and visited the schools in my area, and found that the girls high school did not have a health club or lesson period. So I decided to create a health club there, and that’s what my Monday afternoons have been occupied with recently. However, this will come to an end for the term soon, because the girls are done with school on November 23^rd. We have only met a few times, but it has been really fun, and the girls are great. I’m excited to really get into lessons with them next term and hopefully they will continue to open up and ask questions as they have already started to do.

I also got to celebrate our American tradition of Halloween with a bunch of Peace Corps friends.  A few of us girls decided to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and we made our costumes entirely out of market day finds, with our shells made out of plastic basins haha. We travelled to Kabarnet, where my friend Andrea’s site is for our get together, and it was BEAUTIFUL. She lives at a pretty high elevation, so her views are amazing. It was really great to get see people after about a month apart.

Hmm…otherwise, I’ve just been trying to keep busy with the usual reading, watching an obscene amount of televisions shows and movies on my hard drive.

Currently reading: The Pillars of the Earth: by Ken Follett (this book is SOOO long. But hey I got time right? And it’s actually really a great story)

Tv Show obsession as of late: Breaking Bad (I’m almost done with Season 4, and yes I watched all four seasons in the past few weeks. Don’t judge.)

Thanks for the Advice Teddy

I know its been quite a while since my last post, but well, not too much has been happening. I've had a lot of ups and downs in the past month, more than I care to remember honestly. But I came across this speech/quote yesterday and it helped me out a bit.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."-Theodore Roosevelt

With that, I promise to update more soon, and even though my weeks have been rough, certain things can really brighten up your day. I had the privilege of helping escort two more healthy babies into the world today. The maternity ward and maternal and child health clinic hold some of my favorite moments so far in Kenya. And yes, there is yet another Lindsey that will be running around the Chebukaka area when she grows up =)

Eventful Week!

These past few days have certainly been eventful! To start off the week I had a meeting with my Community Health Workers. I think that it went really well! I finally got to introduce myself to them as a group and we discussed the major health issues of our area, what they would like to learn, and I had them priority rank the diseases we talked about. Then we discussed how we as a group could combat these issues, and how to best mobilize the community. I did as little talking as possible, and I think that it went really well! 

The CHW's and myself!! =)

The next day I got to meet a few district officials that will I’m sure be very important for me to have good relations with in the future- the District Public Health Nurse, and the District Medical Officer of Health. Both meetings went well!

My most exciting day though this week was yesterday by far. I went over to our dispensary in the morning, preparing to go out on the mobile clinic with one of the nurses. However, when I got there I went to find my supervisor, and I got to witness my first live birth! It was AMAZING. I couldn’t believe how calm the mother was, she never yelled, just stuck it out, and this is obviously without any drugs. She has beautiful baby girl! I found out a little later on that day that she named her daughter Lindsey after me! I was so honored! It definitely made me tear up a little. This morning I went and took some pictures with baby Lindsey and her mother before she was discharged, take a look!

To make yesterday even crazier, I was relaxing on the computer later that day, and out of nowhere I feel a HUGE shock travel through my body and then down and out my right leg. Right after that the lights started flickering, but I hadn’t yet unplugged my computer from the power source because there was no sign of a problem, and it had only just begun raining. My computer was perfectly fine though, which was WONDERFUL. I checked in with our medical office, and they said that I probably actually saved my computer from being fried, and I would just feel tingly for a while.

Then today I met with my communities PLWHA (People Living with HIV and AIDS) support group. This meeting also went really well, and I think that I will able to do some great work with them. 

The support group and I!

After the meeting though, what happened? I saw ANOTHER live birth! A beautiful baby boy was born at the dispensary today! I can’t believe how much new life I have seen in the past 48 hours. It has been amazing. I feel really blessed to have been able to have these experiences.

Each day I have been feeling more and more like this is where I am supposed to be, and that this path will steer me in the right direction. Hopefully I feel this way tomorrow =P but for now, I am really loving life here in my little village!

Some September Happenings

Hm, so what has been going on over here in Kenya? Honestly, that answer depends on the day. And many times the hour.  Now that we have entered the month of September though, I have been starting to do some work here and there, and getting started on my Community Needs Assessment (CNA). The first three months at site this is mostly what I will be doing, getting to know my community, integrating myself, and learning as much as I can in order to best help the needs of the area I am placed in. I have been meeting with several local and district officials, which usually consists of me going with my counterpart or supervisor, introducing myself, and telling them a bit about Peace Corps and what our philosophy is as volunteers and the sector I will be working with, which is Public Health. This is important step for me to take and information for them to know because any large projects I embark on it is always a good idea to include them and inform them of what you are doing. It also clearly gets across that we are here as agents of change, and will be building capacity within the community for healthier living, and are not here as individual donors. After this five to ten minute conversation, I usually have to sign a visitor’s book, which I have now done more times than I can count. This initial meeting often helps because the officials now recognize you and know where you are working and staying. It is important to have good relations with them, because they may be able to aid you in your work later on, or help you find information you need to complete your CNA.

I have been learning a great deal about my community at the dispensary, meeting people who come in for clinic, as well as being shown the facility. The dispensary also goes on outreaches or mobile clinics, every Thursday that I have been attending. We travel to the more remote areas of our sublocation in order to bring services to those who would otherwise be unable to travel to the facility and be seen, especially children who need immunizations and those who need to be tested for HIV. The community health workers are used to mobilize the areas that these clinics are going on, and they encourage mothers to bring their children and those who want to be tested for HIV as well. Children of all ages are also brought in because we distribute deworming medication to those who do not receive it in their schools. On one of the outreaches I got to do all of the recording and books, which was nice because even though I am not allowed to perform medical services, I got to feel productive. I also had good conversations with our community health workers and the mothers who attended the clinics.

Here are some pictures from the outreach:

The books we fill out. Nothing fancy, but as long as your accurate it does its job. Our facility has electricity, so the possibility of going electronic is not out of the question. Just something that may take a great deal of time to advance to. 

A baby being weighed. This is a very important thing to keep track of here because malnutrition is unfortunately something that runs rampant in this area, because of the lack of nutritional value in things like maize and the lack of variety in diets. It is also important for these mothers to be exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months of life, and sometimes this does not happen. We usually discuss this with them on the outreaches as well as during clinic to explain to them the benefits of this form of feeding.

A bunch of the kids we dewormed! They were so excited to get their picture taken! And they all sang a song for the outreach to begin. It was pretty awesome.

The outreach pictured was from a week or so ago. After this I have just been attending several meetings with important officials. I have met the District Commissioner, District Public Health Officer, chiefs, assistant chiefs and village elders. I was also officially introduced to the congregation at church last weekend. Instead of using my American name though, I have officially been dubbed Nafula. This is a Kibukusu word, which is our mother tongue in the area, and it means “comes with the rain.” I was born in July, which is during the rainy season here, and showed up to this community during the tail end of the rains so I now have this name. I actually really like it, I think it really helps me become part of the community, and it sounds really nice.  Anyways, I’m telling you this part now, because I have also been introduced BY the District Officer to a large number of people in my area because I attended the public baraza held by the District Commissioner. This is where people come together to address the concerns of the community, and having the DC there is a very big deal because he is an important figurehead of the community and a very busy person. I was introduced to them using my new name, and got the chance to explain what I was doing in the community very briefly in what little Kiswahili I know.

Here is a picture of the DC speaking on the current issues of food security, schools, and practicing peace in the upcoming months to the community.

This is just one shot of the people who attended the baraza. They sat me in the front because I was being introduced. The woman on the left of the photo with the orange outfit on is Ann, she is my counterpart =)

Other than that, not too much has been going on over my neck of the woods, just been continuing to meet people and work on my Community Needs Assessment. I will be able to meet my community health workers as a group officially tomorrow, which will be great! Everything here goes slowly, but I’ve been doing my best to adapt to life, and gone through my fair share of books and episodes of 30 Rock already haha! I hope that everyone is doing well at home I miss you all greatly! Keep me updated, I love snail mail, and promise to respond if you send me something! sending lots of love! amani.

A Small Jubilee of my Own

Well it’s been one whole day haha. But I did promise cows, and a bit of an update on this week. So as you have now seen my home, for the past couple of weeks, since I have arrived at site, I’ve just been setting up my home, and “relaxing”. Which as I have mentioned can take its toll. However, I did have a few things planned for this past week, which was definitely a good thing.

On Tuesday, I traveled with one of the sisters, and the parish priest to the town of Kakamega, where a celebration would be held in honor of seven nuns. Six of them were celebrating their Golden Jubilee, which is the anniversary of their fiftieth year as a nun, and one was celebrating her Silver Jubilee, which is 25 years as a nun. This has been planned for quite some time, and the reason I was included on this venture was that one of the nuns celebrating her Golden Jubilee resides here on the compound in Chebukaka, and I still had not met her. Now my first thought on this celebration is, HOLY CRAP. These women have been nuns for half of a century. Which means they are a bit older than that, pretty much overcoming the Kenyan life expectancy by default because it is somewhere around the age of 60-63 the last time I checked. We entered the church, and of course I was the only mzungu present, which most definitely got some stares. But all of the nuns we were around were very welcoming. All the while, during the three-hour church service, which although some of the speaking was in English, all of the singing was in Kiswahili, I was just in awe of these women.  They have devoted their entire lives to serving God, and of the ones I have met they are some of the happiest, hard working people I’ve met. Afterwards, I finally got to meet the sister who stays on the compound, and her face just LIT UP when she saw that the “visitor” had come to celebrate with her. I had been feeling a bit out of place, but her reaction to my presence, just made the entire day worth it. It is those small victories that I will consider my own personal jubilees. I think that as a Peace Corps Volunteer, although they may be few and far between, these are the moments you remember, and they make the whole experience worth it. I am so sorry I don’t have any photos from this day to share. We left home so early I completely forgot to throw my camera into my bag.

The very next morning I was also able to experience another small jubilee, accompanying some public health workers on the last day of the polio vaccine campaign. This was the tail end of the campaign, so we were assigned to an area, and were “mopping up”, making sure that every child under five had been vaccinated for the disease. This door-to-door campaign is exactly the type of community health work I imagined, so I was very happy just to tag along. The workers whom I accompanied were very accommodating, answering my many questions about the area, their lives, and health issues of my area. We discussed jiggers, and malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, and several other topics. It was so nice to have some real conversation with people interested in the same activities as myself. We walked around for over four hours, canvassing areas that may have already been seen but making sure to ask if every child had been vaccinated. We vaccinated 8 children that morning, and although that was a small number, that is eight more children protected from polio in my area. The workers said they vaccinated hundreds of children in the previous days. The grassroots campaigns are what make 100% coverage of children’s immunizations a possibility.

Here is a picture of the public health worker giving out the vaccine. The polio vaccine is just an oral vaccination that is two small drops into the child’s mouth. This is easy for the child and health worker because many of the kids immediately begin to cry.

This is what we were carrying around with the vaccine in it, because it is temperature sensitive and must be kept cold. If it gets left in the sun for too long the color of the vaccine changes so that the worker knows it no longer is effective.

This is one of the workers with some of the children we just immunized! The man has a marker and a piece of chalk in his hand, because once a child is immunized, they mark their right pinky nail in order to make sure it does not get duplicated. The chalk is used to write on the doors of the homes, with symbols marking that they have given out a vaccine there, and what team of people did it, and how many children were vaccinated. There were eight teams in my area, and these are just two people who canvas areas for children that require the vaccination. 

Okay, so that was the fun public health item I got to do for the week. To change the topic completely, I promised some pictures of cows. Well here goes. This is outside my house everyday. And a little baby one was just born two days ago! I think I may name her Daisy just to be super stereotypical.

 As you can see they graze on the compound quite frequently, there is also a pasture they go to, but sometimes its just right outside my house.

 Right out side the window haha. Now it has seemed to happen a little less frequently, but its definitely an interesting site in the morning. Hope you're all getting a little bit of a feel for my area, and life here. Missing you all a bunch!

Nyumbani Yangu

This is my home now. Slowly but surely the house that was provided for me is becoming a home. I have a bed frame, a coffee table and some seating, and I will hopefully soon be acquiring a kitchen table, bookshelf and some sort of shelving unit for my clothing. Until then, I will continue to live out of my suitcase, which has become something that I’ve almost gotten used to during my time so far here in Africa, seeing as I have been moving from place to place so often. But hopefully now when I am able to fully unpack, I can really begin to see myself in this place as my home.

To explain the pictures:

This is a view of my front room as you enter into the house. It’s a really long room, so there are a couple of angles to show. The sink in the corner is basically a decoration, since I don’t have running water, but I’ve come to use it as a storage spot for now. The large empty area next to it is where I’d like to have a kitchen table(more of one to work on) made and put up.

The opposite angle is the sitting area of my house. I had already bought the plastic chairs, so when I finally found a fundi (carpenter) I just got the sofa and coffee table made. Overall the room is a pretty large space, so it has several uses for me.

Next is a view of my corridor, which is sort of awkward, but serves its purposes. You can see here how the rooms all attach now.

Here is my bathroom. Used for going to the bathroom as well as bucket bathing. Yes, you are correct that is a western toilet! But again, no running water, so you have to fill up the tank. No big deal, makes you realize how much water you actually use to flush the toilet. It’s kind of ridiculous.  Notice though that there is no light in the bathroom. Therefore I usually just leave that door open.  The beginnings of being a person who lives alone right? Haha.

Move a few feet to your right, and you see the random area that was supposed to be deemed my kitchen area. Well there are no windows, or a light, so I would not want to cook in there. And now that I eat with the nuns, hey why bother. So it is now dubbed the storage area.

Turn 90 degrees and you have now entered my bedroom. My bed is one of my favorite things in my house, now that I have a quality mattress, and an awesome bed frame. It may not be noticeable in the photo but the headboard area has small shelves, and a lock bock in it. Awesome!

Change your perspective on the room and you now see where I am living out of the suitcase. This is where I’d like a shelving/dresser unit to be placed.

Last but not least, here is a photo of a view from the outside, as you can see, its made of concrete, and is sealed up pretty nicely. Sometimes at night, you hear interesting noises on the roof. Sometimes there are flies and other creepy crawlies inside. But overall its pretty bug free, and its a nice place to live.

Anyways, that's all for now, mostly because my electricity is out, and my computer is going to die soon. Hope you all get a better feel for where I'm at now! Soon to come: pictures of my MANY cow friends here on the compound and the few activities I got to do this past week.

African Address!

Hi everyone! I'll be keeping this one short, but I just want you all to have access to my new address here in Kenya! So feel free to send letters, goodies, ect. I want to hear from you!

Lindsey Jackson
P.O. Box 357-50202
Chwele, Kenya

Asanta Sana! Amani =)

Better Late Than Never Right?

Well, true to my personality, I’ve procrastinated starting this blog. First things first, I am in Kenya. Most of you already know that, but just throwing it out there. If you’re reading this back in the states, you may be thinking the title of this blog is a bit interesting. Well the reasoning behind it is because first of all I am not creative enough to think up a pun dealing with Africa or Kenya that hasn’t been used a million times already, and secondly, because many of my friends have come to call me Rae here, which has grown into a plethora of nicknames. So I’ve decided to play along and in this blog write my reactions to my time here as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

It’s closing in on being in Africa for three months now, and training has finally come to an end, we have been sworn in as volunteers and have all be shipped out to our sites. Alone. We have all gone from being together as a group of 30, everyday, to being completely on our own, some of us hours from our closest friends. As one of the younger volunteers in our class, this is my first time to be living alone, let alone living alone halfway across the world. Even though this is a daunting reality, I am so grateful for everything I have encountered so far on my journey.

I am living in a small village called Chebukaka, in the Western province of Kenya. It is located close to the base of Mt. Elgon, and relatively close to the border of Uganda. It rains almost everyday at around 4/430 pm (except November-February which is the dry season). The village is small, and although I have not done too much exploring I know it does not have its own posta and you must go to the next town over for mail, in Chwele. I have been partnered with a faith-based organization, called Our Lady of Peace Dispensary, located on a catholic compound. I live on the same compound, about 3-5 minutes away from the dispensary, and in my own home next to the convent where the nuns reside. My supervisor is one of the nuns, who also is a nurse and works at the dispensary.  The compound is also only about 5 minutes walk from the main road, which is a very lucky thing up here in my area. I have also been blessed with the amenities of electricity and a western style toilet! Although I do not have running water, I can easily fill bucks and manually flush the toilet, bathe and wash clothes and dishes. The compound also houses its own maize farm, several cows and a large chicken coup.

The nuns have also invited me to eat with all my meals with them, which I have chosen to do so far, because I’m not much for cooking, particularly for just myself. I did purchase a small gas burner and some essentials though for times when I may need it, but it is nice to have balanced meals, and have company. They are so helpful, and have helped me set up my house, taking me into town to purchase items for my house, and make sure I am getting good prices on things I’ve had made, like my bed frame and coffee table. They have been really kind and I think I’ve lucked out with such great people to work with and live for the next couple of years.

Speaking of work, I have also met my counterpart, who is a Community Health Worker in my area, and in reality I sort of have two counterparts, because one her other CHW friends is always with her, which is totally awesome for me!

Besides moving into my new home, doing some shopping and going to my first Kenyan Catholic mass, I haven’t done too much since being at site.  It has been a lot of reading, writing, and communicating with friends and family both here in Kenya, and back in the United States. I am excited for things to start happening though, because as much as one can relax, it can start to make one a bit stir crazy having absolutely nothing to do. But that can sometimes be the life of a volunteer, and it is something we have to learn to deal with. These next three months of integration into the community will I’m sure be difficult, but will hopefully help us to strengthen our abilities as volunteers.  Two thirds of the Peace Corps goals are cultural exchange and that happens by default if you put yourself out there in the community and learn about the people around you, and they in turn learn about you and your background.

I’m not sure what will happen next but I’m excited to find out! If you’ve actually read this entire post, thank you, and know that I won’t always subject you to novels, but I think it is okay since it is my introductory post. Also, know that I’m by no means eloquent so please bear with my writing style if you actually chose to follow my ranting and ravings. Hopefully soon I will have some small interesting anecdotes about life here at site to share, once I have been introduced further and explored more with my supervisor and counterpart. Until then, thanks for reading! Amani. (Peace)

Our Training Class! =)