"Place of Trash"

First to respond to a couple of you. Cait, yes there is a lot of Tusker here, it's my beer of choice usually. Phred, if you are reading this, I got your postcard. Well, actually it traveled from China to Brookline, then to Martha's Vineyard and my mom read it to me over the phone.

First, we have been getting creative with food here. Last weekend a bunch of us got together to make spring rolls and fried rice. The spring rolls were awesome, the fried rice turned out more like a watery/salty/ cilantro mush and was not too appealing. Then, sunday I had 3 friends over and we made Mexican food for my family. I used the taco seasoning back to flavor some beans, and we made rice, guacamole (which my family loved), salsa, and tortillas. Also, One of the boys made a "dressing" with garlic and ginger and hot peppers. His eyes were watering as he made it, so I didn't even try it. You all know how I do with spicy food... When we set up the table for lunch I told my 8 year-old sister and her friend not to eat the dressing because it was kali sana (really spicey) but of course, being 8 year-olds they did anyways and were running around waving their hands at their mouths.

OK now the fun news. I found out my site on Tuesday. I'll be in Oyugis, which is a semi-large village of 145,000 people in Nyanza province. It's in the west near Lake Victoria (yes, near Obama's relatives). In the Luo language Oyugis means "place of trash," but I've been assured it's not named that because it has a lot of trash, it's named after a person. I'm excited because it's 1 hour away from Kisumu, the 3rd largest city in Kenya and I'll be near a bunch of my fellow volunteers. I don't know a lot about the specific work I'll be doing yet, but I'll probably be training community health workers and working with the community groups for people living with AIDS. 16% of the people living in Nyanza have HIV/AIDS, which is a huge amount. They told me in my community there are 52 households run by children because they have been orphaned by AIDS.

We're almost done with training here in Loitokitok. I started learning the Luo language with the other volunteers who will be going to Nyanza too. We go to Nairobi for a few days before swearing in and going to our sites, so we're hoping to get to see the new Harry Potter movie, which should supposedly be there by then.