Its been kind of a sad week. Another client died, and while its terrible when ever any child dies, this one hit close to home. His name was Kevin and not even a year old. I'd been to his house, taken him to the clinic. He came to therapy almost every week. And his story is so sad. His parents are super young- his dad is away at secondary school, his mother is 16. Her parents kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant and she was living with the dad's parents. But mostly, its sad b/c he died from neglect and it was completly preventable. And in some ways, I feel like St. Julie's is partially at fault. While I was going over his file, I found the reports from his Community Based Rehab Worker and each of the last four visits said that the child was too ill to do anything. I just wish someone had alerted us to his condition. We could have provided him with help at the hospital or food. But we didn't know, so we couldn't do anything about it.
Next week Tom and I are headed out of Kenya. The center is closed on Wed and Thurs so we're using 5 days off to see Uganda and Rwanda. It'll be whirlwind, but I'm so excited to have a chance to see more of East Africa and quadruple the number of stamps in my passport. Expect a long entry and pictures sometime after the trip.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel the trip to Karunga this weekend. We'll miss partying with Americans, but we're going to have a smaller version with all our Malava friends on Saturday. I still don't have a costume, but I have one more day to figure it out.

There's alot to report for a week that feels like its flown by.

Two of our clients- Vincent and Priscilla- needed ultrasounds before they could come to the clinic in Eldoret with us in November, so I played babysitter Tuesday for the kids while at Kakamega Provincial Hospital. After wait for a good half hour (quick by Kenyan standards) we were all called into the examine room by the doctor who took one look at Priscilla and exclaimed she was too big to have an ultra sound of her head. She has hydrocephallus and the docs at Eldoret wanted an ultra sound of the ventricals in her brain. She's absolutly tiny- a year and a half but about the size of an eight month old. As usual, the doctors assumed I was a doctor/ nurse/ physical therapist and proceded to do the procedure on Priscilla just to prove it wouldn't work. Now I have to take her to Moi Teaching and Referal Hospital later this month so she can have a CT scan. Vincents ultra sound of his kidneys and bladder was sucessful, even though he screamed through the whole thing. I don't think I convinced the doctor that I was not in the medical profession, however, b/c he gave me the results of the procedure in words only a nurse/ doctor would understand. Oh well...as long as the docs at Eldoret understand, thats all we need.

Tuesday was Kenyatta Day...the birthday of Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta. It also meant Tom and I didn't have work, so we headed to Kisumu for a day trip. There is an AMAZING craft market there that has the best prices I've seen in Kenya. And everyone at their shops are hand making the things that they're selling. I bought almost everything I need for the Christmas holidays for less than $60 USD. We also went out to their airport to buy plane tickets for Kate and Kiirsten (his girlfriend) who are flying to Kisumu together in December. I'm so excited for Kate to get her, and October has flown by. After a few other errands, we took one of the nicest matatus I've ever been in (no stops between Kisumu and Malava, less than two hours to get home).

Thursday was our meeting to review the findings of the consultants who came to SJC a few weeks ago. In standard Kenya fashion, the meeting started an hour late, took three hours and was more preaching the reviewing. We went point by point through each of the strengths and challenges of the program while also going off on wild tangents and having disagreements about almost everything. By the end, I was so burned out I wasn't even really paying attention to the suggested reforms. The consultant made some really excellent points on how to improve the program, but I just think he didn't spend enough time at the center to really get a feel for us. Which isn't his fault, he was hired only for a week, but I still felt like the whole thing could have gone better. At one point he listed poor staff commitment to the program as a challenge, which I throughly disagrees with. Our staff is small, but each of us is fully committed to realizing the vision of SJP.

Tom and I promised Pst. Jairus (a community based rehab worker for SJC) that we would come to visit the school where his wife is the head teacher again so we could sit in on some of the classes. We went a few months back to meet the kids, but this morning we headed out a little earlier to see the teachers in action. The school is very small, but they're working hard to expand it. Right now they just have nursery thru class 4, but are hoping to add class five next year. To do that, they're need new classroom space, new land to expand the school, new teachers and new text books. Everyone there is working so hard, but like so many schools here, its drastically underfunded. If this sounds like a project you might like to help out with, I can put you in contact with Pst. Jairus. Check my picasa page and Tom's blog for pictures.

So thats what's been going on. The sisters are all in Nairobi this weekend, so Katie and I have the place to ourselves. The pump for the water turned out to be defective, so there's not running water again until we get a new one. I've found a way to prep myself for cold bucket showers. I put on my ipod in my room and dance like a fool until I'm hot enough that a cold shower feels good. I look forward to the return of running water. Tom and I are going to Karunga to visit Lauren and Krist (the other CMMB volunteers) next weekend- including a Kenyan toga/ halloween party. It should be a ton of fun and we'll get to see a part of Kenya we havn't seen yet. Looks forward to new pictures.

Water wate everywhere...

I have reached a new level of excited. After a month(to the day) of having no running water at all, I got the heads up from Sr. Katherine today that not only could we use water in the taps, but we could also use high volume things like the shower and flushing to toilet. There are no words to express how happy I am. I have been bathing my self from a bucket of cold (sometimes warm if I wanted to spend the time to boil water before hand) water for 30 days now. I finally get to take a real shower.
I think today is just an example of how crazy different my life is here. I can't remember a day (expect for camping trips) when I did have the option of clean running water. As I exclaimed my excitement at work today about the opportunity for a shower, I realized there are a ton of people here that I see every day who have never taken what I think of as a shower in their whole lives. More over, I know lots of people who have never lived in a home with running water, let alone clean water you can drink right out of the taps. It just makes me think, for the millionth time this year, how much I take for granted at home.

Yesterday was another Kenyan first, but not a happy one. The nightwatchman for St. Julie's Center passes away over the weekend and we went to his burial yesterday. It was actually not that different from a US memorial service in content. We got to his home (actually it was the home of his second wife, there was some confusion because he has had three wives) and paid our respects. His coffin (covered in bright red velour) was propped up in his bed frame with one of his widows sitting next to it. After greeting her and the women from St. Julie's singing a Swahili song, we joined the hundreds of other mourners sitting around the yard and listened while a variety of people talked about Samuel. It was mostly people from his church, the African Holy Spirit, but Grace got up and spoke for St. Julie's. Apparently they wanted all of us to greet the crowd, but we didn't understand b/c everything was in Luhya and Swahili. Thank god, I don't think I could have stood in front of that many people and spoken in a language I barely know. After being squeezed on a narrow wooden bench in the encroaching equatorial sun for and hour and a half, we were invited to join the hosts for lunch. There were obviously grades of food people got and most were having tea and ugali, but we were asked into the house for rice, goat and sodas. It was a learning experience, and like so many other times here, I wish I understood the language better. Then I would have known all the nice things people were saying about Samuel. But the truth is that most of it was in Luhya which I don't even try to understand beyond greetings.

Looks like we'll be going to Karungu to visit the other CMMB volunteers Lauren and Kristy for Halloween. Apparently there is a Kenyan style toga party that weekend. We're all really looking forward to it!

There hasn't been a whole lot going on, but here's a quick update.
Life at St. Julie Center has taken on two new additions- professional consultants. They'll be here for the whole week, assessing how productive we are as an organization. They're meeting with our board, community members, local churches and medical professions, children, parents and of course the staff. We had our meeting this afternoon- me, Tom, Angela and Grace had a chance to sit down with them and answer some questions about how we influence the program and what we think about how to sustain the program. For a meeting in Kenya, it was pretty quick. The whole process was initiated by the leadership of the SND's, so I'm hoping that the report that put together says good things.
Life otherwise has been pretty uneventful. I seem to have recovered full from the most recent battle with malaria. Here's hoping I'm done with it for good. Next weekend we have a staff outing for St. Julie's center, although we still haven't all agreed as a group where to go. Later this month we'll head to Kisumu for an overnight (probably for the last time) to buy vacation plane tickets and enjoy being in a city. Its hard to believe its October and in just a little more than two months I'll be back in the states. Kate comes to Kenya on December 8th and I'm so excited. Its going to be wonderful to be able to share my life for the past year with someone from home.

Happy birthday to Laura and Stacy!

Well I was afraid this would happen sooner or later. Looks like I have malaria for a third time. Its not too bad, but they decided to treat it this time with quinine (the stuff they put in tonic water to make it bitter). The side effects may actually be worse than the malaria. It makes me really dizzy and leaves that tonic water bitter taste in my mouth. But the weirdest thing is that I feel like my ears are stuffed with cotton and they're ringing like I just left a night club. But hopefully this will be it. Quinine is apparently very effective at getting rid of malaria that is other wise drug resistant. I surely hope so!
Otherwise there's not much going on out here in Malava. Things have been quiet at St. Julie's since we got back from our Nairobi vacation. We have a staff outing and teaching Kenyans about Halloween to look forward to in October- and if anyone wants to send us candy, that would be awesome!

I realize thats its been a while since I posted last and I want to let everyone know I did get back safely to Malava a week ago. Vacation was really nice, but it made me realize I'm so happy I wasn't placed to do my service in Nairobi. First of all, its really expensive (at least when you make as little money as we do). Secondly, there are lots of places where you can really forget you're in Kenya. One night I went to see a movie and while waiting for Tom and Michael to get out of the movie they were seeing, I sat and read my book at a nice little coffee shop in a mall. I realized that I could have been anywhere at home, doing the same thing. It was nice to get back to our little community where everything moves a little slower.
Last Saturday we went and saw my friend Lucy take her first vows as a sister of Notre Dame and celebrated with three other sisters who were celebrating their golden jubilee (50 years). The whole thing was great- full of music, dancing and great food like most Kenyan celebrations.
I was on my own this week at St. Julie's Center since Tom was still on vacation with his family. If you haven't check out his pictures from Masai Mara, you should, they're amazing. It makes me very jealous to know that I won't have a chance to go down there before I leave. Anyways, being there by myself didn't make it that much busier, but I did get the preliminary draft of a grant I've been working on done which was a big relief. If we get it, it could mean up yo $10,000 USD for our program.
We've also had a lot of visitors with us recently. There are two SND novices who are from Zimbabwe (but live in S. Africa) staying with us for a few weeks. They're been at St. Julie's center and i've been able to ask them lots of questions about what Zimbabwe and S. Africa are like. Tumaini also had two British volunteers last week who stopped by St. Julie's to see what it was all about. Finally, Katie's sister Amy has been with us for almost three weeks and heads back to the US this Wed. Its been so nice to have Amy here and I hope she's enjoyed having a chance to visit all our service sites. She's going with Michael to school tomorrow to test out her English teaching skills.
The rest of this month will be filled with grad school applications and making bookings for Kate's big visit in December. It's strange to think that I'll be back in the US three short months from Thursday.