We started work after having a few days to get settled and last Monday was the first day of work. There are 5 other employees at the center besides Tom and myself, plus volunteers who come in to do play therapy and Community Based Outreach Workers (CBRWs) who go into the children's home to investigate their environments there. The actual therapy is done by David and Angela, both trained physical and speech therapists. Neto is the one who came on last year when there were no volunteers here and he supervises the volunteers who do play therapy and keeps all the records surrounding it. Sr. Joy does a lot of the admin and computer work and Grace is the coordinator for all the CRBWs. Sr. Judi is the director of us all. Monday was interesting. We observed play therapy and what the therapists do one on one with the kids. Let me explain how the day works. We get there and Nancy (oops, she works there too) cleans up for the morning. Then the families come. They sit in the front room and play with the toys that are specific to the goals they're trying to achieve. For example, a little girl named Sylvia is 6 and has Down syndrome. To work on socialization, she and I played with a doll. Another boy, named Samson, has cerebral palsy and has leg braces, so we kicked the soccer ball to help strengthen his leg muscles. All the toys are organized based on the skills the kids should be working on. So anyways, they sit outside in the main room playing until Angela or David calls them into the therapy room. Then they do actually physical (or in some cases speech) therapy with the kids. Then the parents can let them stay and play, or they take them home. There is also a toy lending library, so the parents can continue to work on the skills at home. Everything is based around the parent's involvement. The goal is for them to continue with the therapy everyday when they can't come into the center.
So anyway, Tom and I got to do a little bit of everything this week- play therapy, sitting in on the therapy sessions, learning how to do some of the book keeping and admin stuff. Tom and I also began thinking about what our strengths are and where we can help. What they really need is more money…something Tom and I can def help with. So we have decided we're going to work on grants and fund raising this year. We're also going to try and take some of the record keeping from Neto so he can do more of the play therapy that he loves. I think the roles we're going to take on will develop over the next few weeks.
We also started cooking on our own this week. Everything has to be made from scratch and the beans were especially hard to cook. They had to soak forever. The one meal I made really wasn't very good. We can basically cook with beef, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peppers, onions rice and ugali (which is almost like grits, but much thicker- made from maize flour and boiling water). But we're cooking more and more and I think the meal we made on Sunday (spaghetti with meat and tomatoes) was actually pretty good. I'm loving the fresh fruit. In case I haven't said it yet, African bananas are way sweeter than the ones we get in the US. I have one for breakfast almost very morning. I'm greatly wishing I didn't have an allergy to mangos! They're everywhere, and they look SO good.
We're also learning more and more about the little village where we're living. We're learning the real prices to things, not just the white people prices. We're learning who has the best produce and who has the best meat. People are getting to know us. We even found a little place that will sell us sodas for 25 KSH (about $.30 US). Our little town is very colorful and has a lot of character. I'm less nervous to go into little stores and ask for what I need in a combination of broken Swahili and English. It doesn't feel like home yet, but it doesn't feel so strange anymore either.
Two other things we did this week was have a brief lesson on Luhya (the main ethnic group here) and watched the inauguration. The inauguration was great! At one point during his speech, he has something like "To all the leaders who rule with corruption and coercion…if you unclench your fist, we will extend a hand". I felt like he was talking directly to Mugabe in Zimbabwe. I also got goose bumps when one of the announcers said "The whole world is watching"…b/c we really are. Since where we are is not too far from his father's village, they were also showing people celebrating there. People literally started partying over last weekend and didn't stop until the end of last week. Western Kenya is waiting to see what the new president of the US can do for them. I just hope they don't put too much faith in him, and many of the newspapers are encouraging Kenyans to work on their own country, rather than waiting for a foreign leader to solve their problems.
It's been raining alot, which has helped to cool things off, but it means the postulate has less power since everything is run on solar. Alot of the things we do each day really make you think about resources in a way that you never have to in the US. Cooking and washing dishes in a place without running water makes you think about the amount of water you use (although we're lucky, we just have to go up to the postulate to get clean water). Solar power makes you think about the amount of things that get plugged in. The food you make has you thinking about all the work it takes to cook from the raw ingredients. As the sisters here say...Simple living sure does take a along time.
Hope Everyone enjoyed the pictures!
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