Kenyan Holidays in the Sun

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. 

This is a hand drawn map of my sublocation, Kibichori, drawn by one of my Community Health Workers!

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.

Joy and one of her organization members discussing and treating people for Jiggers!

Myself and my Community Health Workers who joined me at Joy's Jiggers Outreach! Learning and having fun! =)

Now onto the whirlwind of December! Quick shout out to the best mother in the world, December 1^st, 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!

Taking a ride on the beach with George.

Sunset and Moon Rise on the beach in Diani. Can you tell I really like it here yet? haha!

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. 

Bamboo showers, SO 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. 

Rocking some traditional henna designs in Lamu!

 

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 =)