Lake Nakuru National Park and the Menengai Crater

After a busy month or so of work, Joy Kay and I decided to take a mini break and check out a couple of the cool places that are here in Kenya. We are lucky enough to have so many amazing things to see, and as a Kenyan resident we also get to see it for a really good price! Haha! We decided to visit Lake Nakuru National Park, which is one of Kenya’s most popular parks. It is well known for its bird viewing, and is the home of a very large population of flamingos, which migrate between the lakes in the area. This was my first time going on a game drive of any sort, so it was really fun to get to see the animals up close! (Sometimes you’ll see zebra or baboons on the side of the road during travel, not the same but still pretty cool!) The game drive was so relaxing, but it was a bit weird to be wearing the tourist hat. Anywho, here’s a few photos of sites at the lake! 

In front of the gate at the park!

Baboons just hanging out at the side of the road!

 Impala just relaxing. There is only one male for a whole pack of females.

Zebras play fighting, very entertaining to watch haha!

View of Lake Nakuru =)

 Myself at the lake overlook (rocking my SPH t shirt, thanks Laura!)

Rothschild Giraffe, you can't tell but there are no spots below the knees.

Awesome waterfall that sits at the edge of the park.

Lioness relaxing at the top of a tree. 

Water Buffalo staying cool in the mud.

Family of White Rhinos.

Mama and baby rhino! 

Flamingos!

In addition to the lake, we also visited and hiked a bit of the Menengai Crater, which is located in Nakuru as well.  It is an extinct shield volcano that is 2490 meters high and covers 90 square kilometers.  The crater is a place of pilgrimage for the religious, as well as a place where mystery and folklore are plentiful. The local Maasai tribe claims it is haunted by the 60,000 warriors who where killed there during a bloody civil war in the 1800s.

“Menengai" is a Maasai word that means "corpse", the crater cliff is said to be the site of an ancient Maasai battle during the 19th century, where people were thrown off the hill to their death. It is believed by the locals to be home to many demons and ghosts and is referred to by the Kikuyu of central Kenya as Kirima Kia Ngoma, "the mountain of devils". There are many unexplained mysteries associated in the crater, people have been found to be strayed and lost their ways, and some disappeared mysteriously. The crater has been active up till 1991, and in its last eruption also killed many people.

The views of the crater are beautiful, and it was a great experience! 

Sign at the top of the viewpoint! 

View of the Crater!

Just scaling a crater, no biggie haha!

 Hope all is well back home! Life here is great, love and miss you all! 

With Sunshine,

Lindsey Rae

Open Health Day at Chebukaka Dispensary

Last week, I was discussing upcoming events with my supervisor and she told me of the districts plan to hold an open health day at our dispensary on May 2nd. We are a private faith based facility and often times this causes it to go over looked and be under utilized. There is a stigma that the a person can only go if you are catholic, or that it will be far more expensive than the government facilities. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The dispensary is available to everyone in the community, and costs no more than the government clinics. Our dispensary actually is more convenient because it treats you and then you have a bill to pay. In the other facilities, when you are diagnosed if the doctor requires gloves, or syringes, or a medication, you are required to go out to the chemist (pharmacy that is not located in the hospital) and get it for them before they treat you. This can cause a lot of time wasted when people are extremely ill. So the district decided to hold a promotional day for our facility to mobilize people and inform them on the resources they have in their community.

            They day consisted of entertainment from a local drama troupe as well as the community health workers who both put on plays. There were also several speeches from local officials and my supervisor and myself. Doctors and nurses from other areas were brought in so that we could treat many different ailments, as well as screen for cervical cancer, prostate cancer, test for HIV, administer immunizations, and treat jiggers. It was a huge success with over 700 people in attendance, and gave me an opportunity to talk to the district level workers as well as the large NGO Afia plus. I was able to discuss the process of getting a community unit in my area. This would give my community health workers proper training. They are wonderful and do as much as they can, but with training I know that they could be even better, and the knowledge they would gain would be a sustainable way to continue good health education and practices.

 My CHW's putting on a drama that shows the importance of going a dispensary and being properly treated when you are pregnant.

 One of my community health workers treating a young girl for jiggers. I'm so proud of them and their motivation to help the community! 

 Just hanging out with the local kids, playing games and taking photos! They provide hours of entertainment =)

In Entertainment news, I finished up reading They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, a book about the Lost Boys during the war in Sudan, and am now reading The Book Thief. I am obsessively watching Downton Abbey and have already made it to season three. I just can’t stop its so good! I hope everyone is well, and I miss you all! Send me updates when you can, I love to hear from you!  xoxo

With Love and Sunshine,

Lindsey Rae

World Malaria Day

Malaria is a disease that we in the United States are lucky enough not to have to worry about fighting off. However, across the globe it is one of the most deadly diseases. It is the leading cause of disease and death in Kenyan communities, especially in the under 5 population. In this cohort in Kenya about 34,000 deaths are recorded each year. During pregnancy if a woman contracts the parasite it can cause her baby to have low birth weight or even be still born. She is especially vulnerable because the parasite thrives in the placenta. It is a disease that is made worse by poverty, and unfortunately that is a main reason for its huge presence in the area of Kenya that I live in. 77% of Kenyans, about 28 million people, live in an area where the plasmodium flaciparum parasite is present. Throughout the country the disease accounts for 35% of outpatient visits to hospitals and clinics.

           

            This is why organizations such as Peace Corps, USAID, and PSI are putting huge efforts to effectively treat and prevent the disease and hopefully eradicate it. As a part of this effort, the organizations teamed up and Peace Corps Volunteers were provided with free t-shirts, messenger bags, and footballs (soccer balls) with malaria messages on them. We were able to hold events that promoted malaria prevention and awareness in honor of World Malaria Day, which is April 25.  

 Myself, Breezie and Joy held a day event on April 27^th to promote this education. We had a girl’s football match as well as a boy’s football match along with a small lunch and malaria awareness education. The event was held at a local secondary school in my area. We discussed malaria itself and what it is and how you get it, as well as the cost of malaria, whether prevention or treatment was cheaper, and how to properly use a bed net and how to repair it. The education was successful and the crowd was over 200 people, which was a great number! 

 The girls team I brought to participate in the event from Chebukaka Secondary School!

 The boys team I brought to the event from Teremi High School!

 Working with my CHW Fred to discuss the cost of malaria. Both preventative costs and treatment costs, and how prevention and proper bed net usage can save families thousands of shillings each year!

 Finishing off the event with a raffle of the items that were left over from USAID/PSI, as well as a couple of bed nets provided by the district!

            However, with ups come downs, and there were several frustrations that cropped up. Most of them revolved around the issue of free items. The t-shirts and bags we received from the organizations were a wonderful way to bring people into the event, however we were not provided a limitless amount. Instead we had enough to provide one for the students who participated in the event, as well a few for our health workers and some to raffle off at the end of the event. This was difficult because people often just came up to me saying, “Where is my shirt?”  or, “Why is there not one for me?” This was frustrating for me because it was often adults who I had previously discussed the event with. The shirts were for the students and that was not the main point of the day. This showed another instance of the donor syndrome that is so apparent in my area. I was disappointed because the people who were continuously asking were adults who knew better, not children. Having an event with “swag” like this was definitely a learning experience, and I believe that if I have the opportunity to do something similar I will organize it differently. The focus of these types of events is to have fun while learning about health topics that affect the people in the community, not about what can be given out for free.  I am glad to have done the day and educated the people in my area, and even though it was not my favorite day in Kenya, I can’t say I regret doing the event. With each new experience you learn about the people and the culture, as well as yourself and what you will deal with and what your values are. You have got to just keep moving forward, and that’s exactly what I did! =)

More next time- love and sunshine,

Lindsey Rae

Elewana Education Project

            I know it has been a bit since my last post, but a lot has been happening over here! April was busy with work. In the beginning of the month we had a small celebration for a friend’s birthday but then it was down to business. I spent the larger portion of the month of April working with an NGO called the Elewana Education Project. The project has scholarships for intelligent needy children, but also puts on camps for different cohorts during each of the breaks from school. This breaks camp was specifically for Form 3 and Form 4 (11^th and 12^th grade) boys. It was a leadership camp that focused on teaching the boys leadership, goal setting, like skills and health, math, English and computers. There were also sessions on careers and prep for the KCSE, which is the huge exam every Kenyan student must take before graduation. Myself, Joy, Breezie, Lori and another American (who is not in PC) named Natalie all helped to plan and coordinate the camp, as well as participated both as facilitators of several sessions and counselors to the boys. The camp was a great opportunity for all of us to be able to really take charge and be in control of what happened and what was taught. We planned a bunch of activities and tried to keep things as interactive as possible, because a lot of the teaching here is straight lecture and memorization during school. We had team building exercises in the beginning of the camp, one where we had them build a tower out of straws without speaking. This was a lesson in leadership and working together to a common goal while overcoming an obstacle. We also had them be blindfolded and have to lead one another across a field with “land mines” (aka flip flops and soccer balls) teaching them communication and trust.  We planned a scavenger hunt for the boys as well, which brought them to larger establishments in the area, and they collected clues as well as got information about the town and the needs and goals of the places they visited. They then brought back the clues and put together a “puzzle”. 

 

One of the Teams putting together their tower! 

Working together to get across the land mine areas while blindfolded! 

 The finished product of the scavenger hunt! Go team! 

 

Myself, Joy, Breezie, Lori and Natalie

Just us facilitators being silly!

             Throughout that week we also discussed goal setting and decision-making, and helped the boys learn to use the computers and type. Computers are not something a villager has access to regularly, so their skills are not as advanced. They wrote life stories, which gave them an opportunity to talk about their past and goals for the future as well as have something to type up for practice.

            We also brought the boys to a local monument, called the Kakapel Monument. There we took a short hike up to the top, as well as explored the caves and learned about the history. The monument has several cave drawings, which are about 2,500 years old. The site is located in Teso land (a small tribe), which is very near to the Ugandan border. The hike wasn’t too long, but the view from the top was beautiful and you could see the Ugandan hills in the distance, and far off into Kenya in the other direction.

  Made it to the top! hahaha

A view from the top of the monument! 

 Some of the boys and myself!

 The whole crew at the top!

            We also had a session on sexual assault because April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  There was a discussion on sexual assault and what it was, as well as discussed how they could prevent it. They created what are called flags of hope and on them each boy started with the phrase “I am creating an ideal world by…” after which they would list the ways they would do so. 

 Us and the boys with their Flags of Hope!

            And last but not least towards the end of the camp we discussed HIV/AIDS and STI’s. This was a very eye opening discussion because although we knew the boys were well educated, they still had some very false ideas about prevention and ways that HIV was transmitted. Many of them still believed that saliva and pus were fluids that contained the virus, which we were able to talk about and clear up, along with several other questions they had. The good thing about this session was that it was later in the week, after the boys had warmed to us as facilitators and they were not afraid to ask whatever questions they had. This is really important because the subject can be taboo in many areas, but because they trusted us and knew we were not judgmental they felt comfortable asking almost anything. After the discussion we had a little race game, where the boys broke up into teams and had a race to see what team could put a condom on a banana as quickly as possible while still doing it correctly. This includes everything from checking the expiration date and that there is an air bubble in the condom, down to remembering to tie it off before throwing it away in the latrine or dustbin. If they forgot a step it was back to the end of the line. This was really fun, except towards the end when the bananas started to get a bit squished haha! 

 Condom Races!

            I really enjoyed working at the camp, and it gave me great experience working with the youth population in Kenya. While I was there I also got some good news about one of my students at the primary school on my compound!  A while back there was a poster contest issued through PEPFAR that had students creating a poster using the theme “Working Together for an AIDS Free Generation”, specifically targeting the relationship between the United States and America. Well, out of the 75 entries in the country, my student was one of the finalists! Her name is Phidencia, and she is in standard 4 (4^th grade), and drew a poster of two eagles each colored in with a Kenyan or American flag, holding a ribbon between them. I am so proud of her, and whether or not she wins it was a great thing to be able to congratulate her for getting that far! 

Congrats Phidencia! Such a cutie!

            Although that’s not all that happened in April, I am going to start a new post because this one is a bit lengthy. I hope everyone is well, missing you as always!

Love and Sunshine xoxo

Lindsey Rae