It’s been awhile I guess. I’ve been busy writing my community needs assessment, which is a report that we give to the Peace Corps at our in-service training and will eventually go back to our organizations and help us decide what we want to do as a project. In addition to working on HIV/AIDS, I plan to work in the schools and talk about birth control and especially target the girls. Girls drop out of school more often than boys and teenage pregnancy is pretty bad here, girls as young as 12 get pregnant!
I’ve been working with the bead group and the bag group to come up with some more designs and produce enough so I can sell to the other volunteers and look for a place to sell them in other places in Kenya. There was a holiday in the middle of the week a few weeks ago so I went to Kisumu to pick out fabric and materials for the bags, which was really fun, and also to eat pizza and get iced coffee.
Last weekend I went to Kisumu with some other volunteers in the Nyanza area to celebrate Halloween. We went to Kiboko Bay (Kiboko=hippo in Kiswahili although we didn't spot any on that day) were there’s a really nice hotel with a pool overlooking Lake Victoria. We swam in the pool and hung out there most of the day. One of the volunteers had met a couple that works for the Clinton Foundation or something and they have a huge amazing house. Even by American standards it’s nice. They let us hang out there and we used their oven (yes a real oven!) to make pizza. We didn’t find any pumpkins, but I carved a watermelon. It actually worked out pretty well, I scraped out the watermelon and we put it in our sangria/jungle juice concoction and then I was able to carve a face pretty easily. Because I hadn’t been planning on carving anything I had no plans, therefore it was a boring face.
After, we went out to a bar that had local music and we were the only mzungus there. We were bad Americans and didn't dress up for Halloween. We were already being stared at for being the only white people there so we figured we'd look really ridiculous dressed up. Plus, the other volunteers hadn't brought costumes soo I would have been one of the few. Katie, I hope you aren't TOO disappointed in me.
The bar had tables outside on the grass and there was a huge tree next to us with a fruit/nut that looked like huge sausages; therefore, we called it the sausage tree. At one point we saw a drunk man go up to the tree and put his mouth up to one of the sausages like he was trying to drink from it. I dared one of the other volunteers to go up and try to squeeze the sausage, I said "maybe there’s alcohol in the tree." She ridiculed me, saying it couldn’t be a “booze tree.” She went up and tried to squeeze it and the drunk man came over to her and explained the tree to us. He said if we take one of the “nuts” and bury it after 3 days we dig it up, cut it open and then squeeze it, we will magically get drunk (we wouldn’t even have to drink it). I was right, it is a magical booze tree. We took the “magic booze nuts” home to try it out. I haven’t buried mine yet, but I’ll let you know if I magically get drunk. Haha
We’ve been busy in my organization because our donors have been visiting from the UK so we have been taking them around to see our community groups and schools we work with. Yesterday we had a graduation for the pupils of a nursery school we work with. I had designed the children’s caps and gowns for a tailor to make. They turned out really well and the kids were so happy. Many of the children are orphans or vulnerable children, so they really enjoyed the ceremony. They sang and recited poems and we had decorated with balloons and streamers. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
Yesterday I asked my counterparts how much my dowry would be in Kenya. Since I’m educated, I should expect 4 “high-yield” cows, which amounts to about 200,000 Kenyan Shillings. Therefore, I think the next time a man proposes to me I’ll ask him if he has those cows and the money to pay for them to be transported to America and to see a vet before they leave Kenya. And, I converted my US debts for college into Kenyan shillings and it’s 1.5MILLION, so if that doesn’t deter them, I don’t know what will, haha.
Of course you dressed up! You were Casper! Next to everyone else in the bar, you were white as a ghost, so I'm not disappointed at all and I think your watermelon is adorable. Perhaps you can carve another one for a party or something so you can use the penguin design I sent you.
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