The last few days have been crazy eventful. Last Thursday was an Eldoret day and also my first time driving the big 11 seater matatu. It was a challenge and honestly, the less I have to drive it the better. I did make progress with a little girl names Priscilla. She usually screams when I come near her, but I guess she decided on Thursday I was cool and wanted to be my friends. I also think she's associating me with the toy library and what kid doesn't love the person who gives them toys.
Friday I headed to Tumaini with Tom and Michael. There was a group of 12 Americans from an Evangelical Christian Sports Mission group. They had been running a sort of summer camp all week, playing games and telling bible stories, so we went to help out where we could and have a chance to talk to some more Americans. My day started with taking my buddy Clifford back to the hospital so the doctor could check out his broken arm and hematoma that formed from his mom not taking good care of it. The doctor had good news and it looks like he won't need surgery, but he's going to keep on monitoring him. My afternoon at tumaini was spent chatting with the new Americans, playing jump rope with the girls and basically being a human jungle gym for the some of the little kids.
Friday we were invited to lunch at John's house. John works in town helping to put people on the matutu. He had been reminding us all week, but he was no where to be found when we showed up to meet him. We had to send the other Matatu man, tyson, to go find him at the chaanga den (changa'a is an illegal alcohol that's brewed here and sold really cheap). John finally showed up three sheets to the wind and took us to where he lived. An afternoon that was supposed to be lunch with his family turned into a three hour hike around rural Malava meeting all of his family, seeing where his church is and where his kids go to school. All the time he was talking to Michael trying to negotiate a bride price for me or Katie. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but polygamy is not only legal here, but widely practiced. He already has a wife and four children but recently decided that he wants an American wife and more children that would be African American. I guess John kept telling Michael "I just want one American girl and you have two. Surely you can give me one". I went from being throughly entertained to really pissed off to shrugging the whole thing off as a learning experience. Michael did finally convince him that we were both married to American men, but promised to look for any American women who might want to come back and marry him. The whole thing was just really crazy. Here was this man who is probably old enough to be my father expecting me to just be handed over to him to be his wife. No one ever asked me, it was just expected that once they negotiated my price that I would be handed over. Michael tried to explain to him that he wouldn't want an American wife- that I wouldn't cook or clean or listen to him or be quiet, but John didn't understand. All he could see was the money and prestige that an American wife would mean for his family. The day ended with a lunch of ugali and veggies where his wife reiterated how much she would also like an American wife. Luckily his children were adorable and kept us entertained for most of the day.
Sunday was my day to make brunch, but the girl who does laundry for tom and Michael needed some extra money for a doctor visit so we pushed my lunch and invited all the Tumaini American volunteers over for a laundry girl pilau lunch. The pilau was DELISH and hanging out with Americans my own age who were Tom, Michael or Katie was really fun. I have to be honest, being around that many Americans after 7 months out of the states was kind of overwhelming. Tom put it really well. When all the conversations going on around you are in Swahili, you can tune them out b/c for the most part we can't understand them. But Sunday all the side conversations were in English, so I couldn't really tune them out. So it just felt like there were a ton of people all talking at once. But besides that, it was really nice to meet some friendly new volunteers. Unfortunatly that was the extent of our interaction with them. They leave today.
Monday it was back to Eldoret in the big matatu for me. One of our clients who is in school needed to go in for surgery for an abscess above her eye and our night watchman needed to see his doctor. Sr. Joy and I left at 6:45 in the morning and didn't get back until 7 pm. This is a long long week in front of me. We had a staff meeting today and Friday we have an epilepsy clinic before which I have to pick up the doctors for the clinic in Mumias. There is also a Harambee and wedding this weekend and trivial things like the fact that I desperatly need to do laundry. So there should be lots of good stories after next weekend.
I'm sad to miss seeing all of my Casey family this weekend. An early congrats to Caitlin and Mike on the wedding!
Also, the volunteers being at tumaini this week reminded me that I don't think I've ever blogged about the sponsorship program at the school and orphanage where Michael works. For about $25 USD a month, you can sponsor a child who might not be able to afford school fee, uniforms, doctors visits, etc... Anyways, if this sounds like something interesting, go to http://www.tumainimilesofsmiles.org/.