Another week has flown by here in Malava. We've been here for almost a month!
i’ll begin with some funny observations from last Sunday at Mass. Since I can’t understand the homily, I usually look around and check things out, see what’s going on. First of all, there was a little boy who was wearing a shirt that had one of those “No smoking” circles in it, but rather than it being a cigarette in the middle, it said “Tan Lines” and the shirt was an advertisement for some nudist beach (either that or some Abercrombie Shirt) I have to believe his parents did not understand the English on that shirt, or that would have never let him wear it. There was also a little baby in front of me clothed in a full on winter jacket and ski hat. She was also wearing little gym shoes that I originally thought were “Nikes Airs”. I thought that was funny, since those shoes tend to be expensive, until I paid attention to that way it was actually spelled…”Nkie Aib”. Nothing like Kenya knock offs to give me a chuckle at church.
After church, we had our first volunteer brunch/ lunch. It was very nice…Michael and Tom came to our house and Jean and I made spaghetti with steak (not your idea of steak, trust me) and fresh tomatoes...not too bad.
Monday was back for our second week of work. We had a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with Neto (who does play therapy), Sr. Joy (who does admin stuff) Sr. Judi (our director) Tom and myself. We sat down and really had a chance to hammer down what we were all going to do and what our roles will be. While Tom and I are at the center, we will help to take some of the record keeping off of Neto’s hands and do play therapy when there is a need. We will also help to build new play therapy aids in the afternoons, as well as some other responsibilities. We’ll see how things play out. I told Sr. Judi I would be willing to drive some of the kids to appointments they have, since I know how to drive a standard. Looks like I’m going to have to start practicing driving on the wrong…I mean the left…side of the road. So work progresses on and Tom and I continue to do the best to make ourselves a niche where we can make a difference.
Lets see…also on Tuesday, we stopped being able to have running water and electricity at night. The little indicator in the well had gotten stuck on the side, so the sisters didn’t know that the holding tank was almost empty. Therefore, the whole day on Tuesday we didn’t have running water while the holding tank was filling and we didn’t have a chance to shower again (well besides bucket showers) until Thursday.
Wed was a great day at work...we felt really busy. We kept pretty busy updating client files, but I had some time to do play therapy with one of my fav little girls, Elisabeth. I think she’s around 5 or 6, but it’s hard to tell since her cerebral palsy seems to have made her a little smaller than average and she has very little speech. Still, she tons of fun, and has a great smile. She’s a really good walker, her legs were almost completely unaffected, but she has some pretty bad damage to one of her hands. So we tossed a ball back and forth in an effort to force her to use her bad hand and try and stretch out some of the contractions. She’s pretty good about it, but when she gets tired, she switched to her bad hand and you have to help her use the other one again. After work, we got a text from Michael and Jean, wanting to know if we would like to join then for lunch at the petrol (gas) station. Tom and I had a little extra time, so went to find the entrance to the Malava forest, which is supposed to be close to there. We went on a little walk in the forest, and were treated to a few sightings of the local colobus monkeys! They live there like raccoons live in the city. Ok, that’s a bad analogy, but its strange for something that I’ve only seen in a zoo so common place in their natural habitat. It’s very neat. More on the local monkey and baboon population shortly. We had a really nice lunch of chapatti (flat bread) and fried chicken for lunch and enjoyed each other’s company and the (very hot) afternoon. And we found out there are more American volunteers coming through some program in Georgia in April and July. We’re all very excited for new Mzungus!
Thursday was a bad day. Some sort of stomach bug caught up to me and I spent that day in bed (and in the bathroom). Luckily it didn’t last more than that day, and I got to watch a couple movies. Wow, was Friday a big day. We went into Kakamega to do some shopping, go to the ATM and go out to lunch for Laurie’s (another American working at the school with Jean and Michael) birthday. Tom and I got there around 1, but the others got held up, so we didn’t actually go out to lunch until around 3:30. It was worth the wait though…we had fried chicken and fries…so tasty! Laurie also got birthday cake and ice cream from one of the local supermarkets and we had a very nice celebration. Unfortunately, it was cut short when Laurie and Hezbon (another employee of Tumaini) got a call that one of the kids was very sick and needed to go to the hospital. So the four of us finished up our shopping…getting frozen food and other delicacies like hot dogs that are not available in Malava. I was standing outside Mama Watoto (one of our supermarkets) and this little boy came up to me with a sharpened metal stick in his hand. He proceeded to poke with me with it and ask for money. I yelled “Hapana, Hapana” (no, no) at him, but he wouldn’t stop until one of the Boda Boda (bike taxi) drivers pulled him away by the back of his shirt. And then once we got on the matatu and we were waiting for it to fill up, kids selling really random things…from peanuts to combs…came up to the windows, trying to get us to buy. People are often relentless when they think that they’ve spotted a Mzungu with money. Also, we saw three other white people in Kakamega, the first since Nairobi, and I found myself getting irrationally excited, pointing and yelling “look, there’s a Mzungu!”. I’m finally getting an idea of why the Africans always point at us. Jean and I took a boda boda (bike taxi) from the matatu stand to home…my first trip. You sit on a little padded seat on the back of the bike with little foot rests and a handle under the bike seat to hold on to. It was a little bumpy, but over all very pleasant and only 20 KSH (about 0.25 USD) for a half a mile trip.
Saturday Jean, Michael, Tom and I spent most of our day walking in the Malava forest. We walked in the woods for a few miles, then turned off the beaten trail, crossed over a little stream and walked up the hill back to the tarmac road. We were going to head back, but decided to see what was in the forest on the other side of the road, hoping to see some of the famous monkeys or baboons that we’ve seen a little bit of. BOY did we ever. We say a bunch of baboons in the trees, so we decided to go farther in, in the hopes of getting some better shots. Well…we stumbled into their home on the ground. We were walking, and all of a sudden, there are about 10 baboons…babies, mamas and big male baboons…all just sitting in the path. We crept closer and closer (I know…not the smartest thing to do with wild animals and their babies) trying to get better pictures, and were rewarded with some good ones. I looked down to adjust something on my camera, and I hear someone running by. Then Michael says, waaaayyy too calmly “I think we’d better run now. I think they’re charging.” Well I certainly didn’t wait to see if the male baboon were in fact charging, I turned and ran as fast as I could. Luckily, they weren’t looking for trouble, they just wanted us away from their babies. We got back to the tarmac, sweaty and ready to walk back to town, and we saw a ton, probably 25 or so, just on the road. We figured they’d come back to seek their revenge, but they just scattered when they saw us coming. We also saw some really cool black and white colobus monkeys on the way home…so neat!
The time continues to fly by in a series of wonderful new surprises.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!
We have now been in country officially for a week, and what a week it’s been. Every single day has been full of new learning experiences. Our last day in Nairobi, we had a chance to be touristy and go to Nairobi national park for a Safari walk. We saw a ton off different animals…including petting a real cheetah (check out the picture!) She was very sleep, but help her head up while we took pictures. Our guide there was great; he knew where all the animals would be and how to call them so we could get more pictures. When we figure out a better internet situation, I’m going to try and post some of the pictures I’ve taken.
So after a wonderful few days getting to know the SND community in Nairobi, we hopped on an Akamba bus with Sr. Mary and started our journey up country to Malava. We didn’t make it very far before the bus we were on broke down. Luckily the bus that came to pick us up had cushy seats, which came in later going over the bone jarring bumps on the poorly paved roads. We drove through the Rift Valley and saw a (dormant?) volcano, zebras and a baboon. My photos do not do justice to how beautiful it was. We also drove through some of the places that were hit by last year’s post election violence. There was some rebuilding, but there are still internally displaced people living in huge white tents and the remnants of homes that were burned. After a very, very bumping final two hours from Kisumu to Kakamega Sr. Katherine picked us up from the matatu and we had a chance to settle into our new homes.
Our first day in Malava was chocked full. We had a chance to see market day- thank goodness Sr. Judi was with us, b/c many of the vendors gave us good deals on our produce for the week. They have been telling us that b/c of the drought and fields destroyed by the violence last year that food has been scarce, but we managed to get everything we needed and give our bargaining skills a work out. While we were out, we also had a chance to greet the community outreach workers who work for the St. Julie Centre. They were having a meeting when we stopped in…so Tom and I got a quick view into our new place of employment. After lunch, Sr. Katherine took us out to the orphanage and school where Jean and Michael will be working. The kids were all ready for us with a song and a poem and were much better behaved than some children I’ve seen in the US. We also had a chance to meet another American volunteer names Laurie who will be working on sports with the kids in the school for the next 6 weeks.
Yesterday we went into Kakamega to get the rest of the things for our houses that we couldn’t get in Malava. The idea of a supermarket in Kenya is a little different than running to Kroger. It is literally a big market, but inside, where you can get everything from this week’s milk to towels for your house. The road from Malava to Kakamega is very torn up and very bumpy. It’s interesting with three adults in the back seat of a pick up truck. We had most of yesterday afternoon off, after Sr. Judi showed us a few more practical things. It was the first time in a while where I could kick up my feet and read for four hours straight. It was very nice.
Today we went to mass at the parish church by the guy’s house. It was our first experience with full on Kiswahili and I thought it was amazing. The music was beautiful and there were little girls who danced in the aisles. They said it’s the longer mass, but I really couldn’t tell. It was interesting to listen to the homily in Swahili and see how many words I could pick up. At one point a women who had been sort of wandering around came and sat next to me. Then she got up, tugged my skirt out so she could sit on it right next to me and stared without looking away for a good 5 minutes before one of the people who was working in the church came and asked her to move. I may have been uncomfortable, but everyone else thought it was very funny. I felt bad b/c she was saying something to me, but I couldn’t understand her and she didn’t’ speak English. The father also asked us all to stand up before final prayer and asked someone from the congregation to interpret for us. Occasionally, the whole congregation would burst out laughing, but we really didn’t know why…another language barrier thing. Hopefully they were just laughing at his translation.
We had the afternoon off again today, and after tea with Tom and Michael and being walked home by our little neighbors Grace and Eunice, Jean and I headed back to Kakamega, this time on our own. We were successful in using the Matatu, although the one coming home was quite overcrowded and poorly ventilated. I think that almost every group of children between here and Kakamega yelled “Mzungu, How are you?” to us on our little adventure. It’s really funny, b/c you say “I am fine, How are you?” and they just either giggle or yell back yes b/c most of them don’t understand more than “I am fine”. Even the little ones on the matatu openly stare at us. There were even some little ones at church who sat completely turned around for the entire service staring. I think it’s cute now, but who knows how long it will last. I think once we’ve been here for a while, people will start to get more used to us.
Tomorrow is our first day of work and I’m really looking forward to it. I think it will help me realize that this is not a relaxing vacation and that we’re really here to learn something new and work hard. I’m sure work will offer a whole new day of learning experiences. We’re also having a lesson in Luhya greetings and culture tomorrow afternoon- as most people here are a member of that group. Many people speak Luhya, Swahili and English, so it’s helpful if we know as much as we can.
African observations:
- I’ve never seen the stars as clearly as I can here, but it’s from a completely different angle than the US. I’m going to have to find an astronomy book
- A bunch of the little kids wear sweaters with their school uniforms while us Americans are practically melting in this equatorial heat. And everyone keeps asking us in the late afternoon and evening if we’re cold.
- The matatus (mini buses- public transportation) in Nairobi have crazy themes like Obama, Jesus and Ludacris and often play quality American music like “Wind Beneath my wings”
- A ton of the kids here think we’re absolutely hilarious. The other run away crying.
Sorry there are no pictures yet. I'm still working on figuring out this very slow internet.
Baltimore Harbor
