emotional rollercoasters

First, the bugs are ants, not termites apparently. My male counterparts got rid of it, but within 2 hours they had started rebuilding. After 24 hours the mound was back to the original size! I’m impressed and grossed out at the same time. I started feeling guilty, thinking maybe I shouldn’t kill them, they haven’t bothered me, maybe I’m just being a wimp. But then I thought to myself, this would never be allowed in my room in America so I shouldn’t allow it here. So, I doomed them again and am going to have my counterparts knock it down again and THEN I will spray a pesticide in all the nooks and crannies of my house where they could possibly be entering from.

So it rains A LOT here. I’ve never seen anything like it. It just gets cloudy around 4:30 and starts POURING. It lasts maybe ½ hour and in that time I can collect 60 liters of water then the sun comes back out and sets. Last week we had a storm that another volunteer called an “end of days storm” because the rain was more intense with wind, thunder, lighting, and hail!

So when they tell us that Peace Corps is an emotional rollercoaster, I believe it. 2 weeks ago I went with one of the women in our group to watch her give a session on HIV/AIDS and discordant couples (where one person is HIV positive and the other is negative). It ended up being quite the journey. I got to see Kendu Bay, which is nice (and very dusty, almost as dusty as Loitokitok) and we also passed Obama’s grandfather’s original home on the way, of course they had signs for the tourists. We went to a pretty remote village, met the chief and then had the session under a large tree. I was feeling really happy, to be out actually seeing what my group does, but then during the session (which was given in Luo) I realized I understand almost no Luo. I heard “ayaki” (AIDS) and “chiemo” (food, when they were talking about nutrition for PLWAs) and those were about the only things I got. The facilitators wanted me to contribute, but I didn’t know what had been said already or what people were asking.

Afterwards, we sat on the side of a road for 2 hours waiting for one of the guys we were traveling to show up and then we couldn’t find any transportation. The only vehicles passing by were pikipikis (motorcycles), which we aren’t allowed to ride we can get kicked out of the Peace Corps for riding one. So, we walked a kilometer to another town and finally found a matatu. One of the guys who was at our session knew I needed some sort of non-pikipiki so he rode ahead and stopped a matatu and made it wait for us. It was nice of him, but I was just really frustrated with all the people we talked to who were laughing/not understanding that I can’t ride a pikipiki.

I got home just as the sun was setting and was starving because we didn’t eat lunch. I was not in a good mood at all. Then, because I had taken my antimalarials I couldn’t sleep well, but I did have a crazy dream. I’m sure some of you have been feeling withdrawals from my dreams, so here’s a good one: I was at a Nakumatt (see one of my other posts for description) with another volunteer and Sawyer from the TV show Lost. We were drooling over the idea of just baked cookies in a bakery at Nakumatt (I’m not sure if in reality they have cookies). This other volunteer, Sawyer, and I were planning which types we wanted I was excited about a gooey chocolate chip cookie. They volunteered me to go buy them all and when I went to the bakery all they had were one type of old dry cookies with that icky hard sugary frosting you find on cakes at grocery stores. I told the sales lady I wasn’t going to buy any because they weren’t what I wanted and she told me she wasn’t giving me my money back. I told her I hadn’t paid yet and she started calling me a thief so I ran away with Sawyer and the other volunteer and without any cookies and we escaped because our original car we had come in had been “pimped” like in “pimp my ride” (anyone remember that show?) so it was now a bright green jeep/hummer thing and we got away.

Then another day I went to Kisii, a city around 40 minutes away by matatu, with my supervisor (Sophie) and another woman from my group (Eunice). They were going to do some business for the group and I wanted to buy a gas stove. We shopped around and they helped me find good deals. At one point we were deciding what to do next and Sophie said “we can’t go yet, I haven’t had my ice cream!” I thought to myself, now this is my kinda lady! So, before we got on the matatu to go back we bought ice cream, yumm. As we were sitting on the matatu waiting to leave a guy came by selling cold bottles of water I asked how much and he said 35 shillings. Eunice and Sophie said “no, 20 shillings” so the guy gave it to me for that price. Some other guy in front of us made a comment, probably something along the lines of me being white and having money or should have to pay more and Eunice and Sophie started screaming at him. I didn’t catch a lot of what was being said but they were definitely saying something about being fair and whatnot. I felt a little uncomfortable but mostly happy that those ladies got my back.

I came home, got my cabinet delivered (I hired a carpenter to make me a coffee table, stool, and cabinet to put my clothes in) and had a grand ‘ole time finally finishing unpacking, and eating cheese and crackers! I now know that if I get really desperate, cheese is just a 40 minute ride away. It’s crazy how much happier cheese can make me.

The kids on my street are putting me through an emotional rollercoaster too. I’ve taught them my name so they won’t call me mzungu anymore. It’s kind of exciting every time I come home I have a chorus of “LIZZIE, how are you?” from all the way down the street. They like speaking Kiswahili to me so that’s exciting too because I haven’t spoken it for a while, everyone here wants to speak Luo. But, they also look in my windows and ask for everything they see, like, “Lizzie, give me juice” or “Lizzie, give me biscuits.” I told them it was bad manners and they can hang out with me only if they stop asking for things, we’ll see how that goes. Then, yesterday they picked flowers and gave a bunch to me, which was cute.

sorry that post was all over the place