Birthday!

I have been in Kenya for over a year now. Wow. Last weekend I spent my second birthday in country. This year’s birthday was a lot better than last year’s. This is not to say I had a bad birthday last year, but it was four days after arriving in the country and two days after meeting my host-family, so I didn’t know many people and didn’t really get to celebrate. This year I had a triple birthday with two other volunteers who had birthdays within a couple of days of me.

We went to Kisumu and basically did a lot of eating. On Friday we went to an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet and we ate so much that most of us couldn’t move enough to want to go out dancing, haha. We know this couple who works for Walter Reed and has a nice house/fully equipped kitchen, so they let us cook a Mexican feast there on Saturday. We spent most of the day preparing. It was great, we made tortillas, bean/corn salad, nachos, meat tacos, guacamole, salsa and we had shredded cheese, lettuce, and sour cream to put on top!! A friend of ours baked us a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Oh, it was soooo good. A few of us went out dancing afterwards too. It was a fun weekend and was nice to have people to celebrate with.

On my actual birthday my coworkers cooked fried chicken, French fries, salsa, and a yummy egg curry thingy. I made brownies from brownie mix mom and dad had brought me, although my jiko oven didn’t cook them very well. They were nice and gooey, and I haven’t gotten Salmonella yet, so that’s good news.

This past week we took some members from our sister organizations to visit some of our groups. For lunch we had aluru (quail). I’ve never had quail before and I felt bad because they were so small and looked like baby chicks. However, they were so tasty, so much better than chicken. People here are used to eating the bones and all (because the bones are soft). I refused to eat the bones and one of my coworkers told me I was a disgrace for not eating the bones, that if any mama walked in and saw the bones on my plate she would be ashamed. Oh well, I ccan deal with being a “disgrace” haha.

Not sure how many people out there care about the World Cup, but it has begun! I don’t usually care, but it’ pretty cool that it’s taking place relatively “close” to here. One of the youth groups we work with has a small TV and a battery/generator to power it (because there’s no electricity there) and are showing the games and charging people to watch it as an income-generating activity. On Friday I went to their “hall” (which is really a nursery school in the mornings) to watch the opening ceremony and the beginning of the first game. I find it kind of ironic that I’ve never watched a world cup game before when I’ve had easy access to televisions and electricity and there I was, out in the bush in Kenya without electricity, watching the game. I could’ve probably found somewhere in town to watch also, but I figured I’d support our youth group and that way I was around familiar faces. So, maybe soccer isn’t so boring after all, I quite enjoyed watching it with a large group of people. I was the only one cheering for Mexico in their game against South Africa. Kenya didn’t make it to the world cup so most Kenyans are cheering for all the African teams. I don’t really care that much, but I will be cheering for Argentina and the US obviously, and I have a feeling Brazil’s gonna take it all.

I’m very impressed by all the work that youth group (mentioned above) has accomplished. They are the same group that does beekeeping. They just harvested honey two weeks ago and have already sold all 30 containers of honey and they used the money to buy the battery to show the world cup games. They also run a nursery school and grow other crops that are good for making a profit (such as sorghum, pineapple, and peanuts). Right now there are some elderly/sick people in their community that are supported by my organization and provided with food support monthly. They, along with salaries of nursery school teachers are paid by the donors, but the youth group is looking to find a more sustainable way to provide that support in the future. The group has received training on beekeeping using a better type of hives (called Langstroth hives) which will allow them to harvest more often and will be better for the bees. They are also hoping to get a centrifuge machine, which lets them get the honey out of the combs without destroying them. This allows them to harvest more honey because the bees don’t have to rebuild the combs each time after harvesting and the honey is also of higher quality and can be sold for more. They would also be able to rent out use of the machine to other bee-keeping groups because there is only one other place in Oyugis that has a machine but they don’t let others use it. I’m hoping to help them get funding for the centrifuge machine so they can increase their income and can better support the nursery school and the vulnerable people in their community. I will be working with my organization on a proposal whether it be through the Peace Corps Partnership Program or some other funding source, so stay tuned…