Wow, so if you follow my blog, let
me start with an apology. It’s been two months since I last posted, and I can
only imagine what you were thinking! (but not really, I know most of you have a
facebook =) ) But for those of you who don’t, I’m sorry for my dropping off the
grid. I guess I’ll start with a quick recap of what’s been happening since last
time.
So November ended up being quite
the busy time for me, because as I told you, I was doing household interviews
in all of my 18 villages within my sublocation, and yes I finished them all! It
took a hot minute, but I was glad for something productive to do. The
interviews were about 65 questions long, and I asked things such as how many
people lived in the household, what level of education the interviewee had,
knowledge on HIV/AIDS, hygiene, substance abuse, water access, farming,
children and education, and jiggers knowledge. I interviewed a total of 86
people, mostly women, and received many of the same answers from them.
Unfortunately, many of them only completed standard 8 (pretty much like our eighth
grade, which they consider the end of primary school), or they continued to
secondary school, but did not complete it. This was often due to a pregnancy,
or the woman was getting married. In my area, many of the women are not
originally from here, but have married into this area. However, the men when
asked where they are from, they often responded with, “hapa!” (which means
right here, in Kiswahili). They often inherited the land that they grew up on.
In Bukusu culture, the women do not inherit anything, and they actually do not
have complete control over their children. If they decide to leave the family,
the children are not technically considered the mothers. This is not the case
in all of the tribal cultures across Kenya, but something I learned about mine
recently. I also learned that many people were not up to date on how the
transmission of HIV occurs, and how to prevent it. This was an area that my
counterpart and I would teach on if we came across the lack of knowledge. We
learned that substance abuse is a big problem in my area, mostly local brewed
alcohols, and “bang”, which is the term for marijuana here. They also said
there’s little that the community is or can do about the problem, and many
people responded that this was how people generated income for their families.
Jiggers were also a big health issue I discovered in my interviews. This is a
small flea that burrows into the skin underneath the fingernails and toenails,
and can cause itching and pain, and if left alone long enough can cause auto
amputation with repeated infections. It leads to problems in school as well for
children because of the discomfort. This is an area I want to do a project on
in the future.
At the end of the month, some of
my fellow PCV’s and I celebrated Thanksgiving together in Bungoma, which is the
“larger” town nearest to us. I use quotes because its not that big, but it does
have a supermarket, and a few nice places to eat and relax. That weekend was
busy, because afterwards my friend, Joy, had an outreach program for Jiggers
that she had planned. A few volunteers and myself helped her out, and we were
able to get about 150 people treated for jiggers. The problem with jiggers is
the treatment is expensive, and it needs to be holistic because in order to try
and prevent reoccurrence it is important not only to treat the person but the
household as well to kill the fleas at the source. The medications for both
people and fumigation are expensive, so when I get to working on this project,
it will definitely be grant-writing time!
The day went very well, and then it was almost December!
At Joy's Jiggers Outreach! Here you see those infected soaking their feet and hands in potassium permaganate (sp? lol) which kills the jigger and the eggs it lays in the body. This is the non invasive way to treat them.
Now onto the whirlwind of
December! Quick shout out to the best mother in the world, December 1st,
is her birthday. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! Anyways, I spent the first two weeks in
Nairobi for my In-Service Training. This was wonderful, because I got to spend
a ton of time with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in my class, as well as a
few others who were in Nairobi to teach lessons at our training. But besides
spending day in and day out in lessons and classes, we also got to do some
seriously American-esque things! Like see a movie?! I know, crazy right. Now
there weren’t many options so yes, I saw the last installment of Twilight, but
hey had to complete the series I guess right? Haha. It was great just to be
able to sit in a theater and watch a new movie, and on a HUGE screen. Its
amazing the difference from your computer screen everyday to something so
large. We also got to get good food on several occasions, burgers, frozen
yogurt (think Pinkberry, or 16 Handles, it was just as good!), good coffee and
drinks. We even found beer that wasn’t Tusker! Micro brewed beer in Nairobi,
amazing. We also did our fair share of shopping around in the markets, and were
even able to go out a couple of the nights. But don’t worry, we did learn while
we were there! We got some good information on places to look for grants,
learned about jiggers (Joy came and taught about her day, which was fun because
I was actually at it!), discussed malaria, life skills teaching, and went on a
field trip to a place called Real Impact that works on new ways to farm and be
environmentally friendly, such as planting vegetables in sacks.
After this amazing time, I
traveled home with one of my best girls, Lori, who lives pretty close to me at
site. We got back, tired and longing for a shower and the Wifi access we had in
Nairobi. But neither one of us had long before we turned around to another
adventure! Lori was off a few days later, to fly to Guam and spend her holidays
with her family, which I was supremely jealous of. I was relaxing for a few
days, and then spent a few days with Joy, and some of our friends for her
birthday! We went hiking on Mt. Elgon, which is very close to our sites. (Have
I told you yet that Joy, and Breezie are two volunteers really close to me at
site? I see them a lot if you haven’t picked that up yet haha). The hike was
awesome, we went to some caves, one that had a waterfall going over it, and
then went to see the other larger waterfall that flows into Kuywa River. I of
course had a few spills during the hike, in accordance with my clumsy self, but
still it was a great time. The next day we went into town and hung out by a
pool at one of the nice hotels, and then had a nice dinner and went out for
drinks.
Now, finally we reach my holidays
vacation. I traveled down to the coast with several of my friends from my class
and spent my Christmas on Diani Beach (south of Mombasa), relaxing, hanging out
with my friends, riding camels; you know the usual beach stuff. We did our
vacation hostel style in order to save some money and it was a great time, we
all got to be together, and we also met a lot of cool people.
A view of the hostel we stayed in at Diani Beach! So nice!
Diani Beach, sooo beautiful!
I continued on
this hostel tour when I left Diani to meet up with another group of friends
(which included Joy and Breezie haha) and we went to the north coast town of
Kilifi. This hostel was AMAZING! Super spacious, and the showers, they were in
bamboo trees. It was awesome.
Everything was eco friendly and it was off the
beaten path, which was also really great. We stayed here for a short time,
because we were heading up to Lamu a few days later for the New Year. Note to
self: Never ride in the back of the bus when the road is bad. You will have
back issues after. I’m pretty sure I caught air on several occasions. But after
the six-hour beating on my spine, we made it to the boat, which would take us
to the island of Lamu. This area of Kenya is SO different from where I live. It
is mostly Muslim, there are no cars on the island (only donkeys, bicycles and
boats), no one is constantly asking me “how are you?!”, and everyone is super
friendly. It is much more conservative, but it is a wonderful atmosphere. Fresh
fish was on the menu pretty much everyday, along with fresh squeezed mango
juice or some other blend of deliciousness. The mangos here are also HUGE
compared to my site. It was awesome because I LOVE mangos. The girls and I got
to take a dhow boat ride one day, which was an all day affair, and we also got
to see the ruins of a small village on a separate island.
The dhow boat we hung out on for the day. Such a relaxing good time, the men who ran the boat also cooked us a wonderful seafood curry for lunch!
Myself in one of the arches in the ruins of an old mosque.
We spend New Year’s
Eve on a beach, relaxing, listening to music, having a drink, and then having
some fun in the African drum circles that were forming. We all got traditional
henna before leaving the island, and concluded that Lamu was definitely one of
our favorite spots in the country.
As is expected in Kenya, travel is
never as simple as you would like it to be. When we left our vacation in Lamu,
preparing ourselves for the reality of site, we had a few mishaps. First, our buses
engine was not in the mood to work, and we broke down about, mmm 4 times? That
was fun. But what was better, was after this happened, less than a half hour
after the last break down, we got a flat tire, which we had to stop twice to
fix. We finally made it back to Kilifi, where we stayed one night because
making it to Mombasa was a no go for us that day. We went the next morning to
find that the bus company had given away our reserved seats, and then had to
scramble to find a different bus. We found one, and then had to kill several
hours in town. Finally made the
bus, got to Nairobi, found a shuttle, and then took the remaining 9-hour trip
to get home. These small hiccups make you appreciate the quality of bus
companies, subways, and pretty much all public transportation in the U.S. even
if it is not as abundant as here.
Now, it’s been a few days, but I’m
back at site. I checked my mail, and received several Christmas cards, and
holiday packages, and again, I can say with confidence, I have some of the best
friends and family a girl could ask for, so thank you all so much! As a public
health volunteer, a work plan is something we have to pretty much come up with
ourselves. So, if you’re still reading this, (which I give you kudos for!)
remember when I mentioned lack of HIV/AIDS knowledge? I decided that in
February, I’m going to hold an HIV/AIDS Health Awareness Day. It will consist
of several stations teaching on the subject, as well as family planning, how to
properly use contraceptives, STI’s and proper nutrition. I will be working on
setting this up, as well as hopefully going back to the girl’s secondary school
to start the Health Club back up. The compound I live on has also been building
up their school, and now have up to class 4, so I will be trying to teach a
life skills class to some of the older kids. I am bouncing around the idea of
creating a world map on one of the walls of the school, as well as trying to
create a library of books in the school so the kids have something to read and
keep them learning. These are just some of the things I’m working on these
days, and hope to get off the ground. I really hope the health day goes well,
so cross your fingers for me!
I hope you are all doing well at
home, and around the world! I am always missing you and thinking of you all!
Again, I’m sorry this update is RIDICULOUSLY late, but I hope you get a little
sense of what I’ve been up to, and feel free to write, email, call, message me
if you want to!
And of course my current
entertainment:
Reading: West of Jesus by Steven
Kotler AND The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
(yes I finally finished Pillars of
the Earth. Took a minute, but worth the read!)
Watching: Season 6 of 30 Rock. I
had to skip season 5 because I didn’t have it, but this show just gets me to
laugh out loud every time! Also finally started watching Modern Family, I know,
slow to jump on the bandwagon, but I’ll catch up.
Any book, movie or tv suggestions
are always welcome!
Much Love,
Lindsey Rae
P.S. even though I had a wonderful time on vacation, this will always be my favorite place on earth....
God Bless America =)
