June and July

Sorry it's been so long.

My big project so far has been a home-based care manual for community health workers (CHWs). All our CHWs have been trained, but it’s been awhile and they don’t have any sort of references so I worked on a manual. I finished the 51 page manual at the end of June and it includes topics on treating water, family planning, caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, recipes on alternative nutrition, and a “how to” section with directions on making a sack garden, a hand-washing device, and re-usable sanitary pads. After it was printed I did a training for all our CHWs with a Luo translator. I think it went really well and found it very interesting that the topics they were most interested in were rabies and HPV.

I started my very long journey from Oyugis at the beginning of July. On the 4th of July I went to a place outside Nairobi for the day for a picnic/goat roast with some friends from Nairobi. It was at a really pretty place that had waterfalls and a little pond. I then went back to Loitokitok (my training site from last year) to help with training the new group of public health volunteers. I visited my family and Esther (the youngest host-sister) is soooo big now! It took her like 15 minutes to recognize me but then she started crawling all over me. I had a great time meeting everyone in the new group and a lot of them will be near my area so that’s nice.

As many of you know, I went back to the States in July. Throughout the 2 weeks I spent time on MV, in Boston, a night in Maine, and a weekend in NYC. It was actually a little stressful for me at the beginning because I was running around trying to see as many people as possible, trying to get a store to sell the beads and bags for the women’s groups, and additionally I was very sick. On one of the plane rides home I had gotten a cough and it turned to bronchitis pretty fast so I spent my first full day in America in the Emergency Room. The antibiotics combined with me getting used to the new food made my stomach not too happy. I sadly vomited my turkey sandwich up on the beach one of the days. I went to Boston for a few days of shopping and visiting people and had a blast. After that and MV, I went to NYC for my friend Caitlin’s wedding and had an amazing reunion with all my friends from Skidmore.

Home was very fun. It was a nice break because I had been really busy and stressed about the manual up until then. I saw a bunch of people and ate sooo much food. My parents were awesome and stocked the fridge with all the yummy things I was missing like turkey and Sam Adams summer ale. I also stocked up on my favorite things like twizzlers, chocolate covered pretzels, chips ahoy cookies, packets of tuna fish, kettlecorn, and taco seasoning…. I even brought back some bagels from New York. So, you would think after being in Kenya for a year and being very conscious of how I get water and conserving it, that I would be super conservative when back in the States. I won’t lie though, I took advantage and took very long showers as often as possible.

I got back to Kenya and we had a “Christmas in July” party because all of the people from my training group were together in Nairobi for mid-service medical exams. We did a secret santa swap, except it was like a Chinese swap so we were able to steal from each other. I put an everything bagel into the pile and it caused quite a stir. People were trying to bribe each other for the bagel and people were yelling at each other, it was pretty hilarious. I ended up with an American flag air freshener that one of the volunteers had gotten out a matatu window during traffic in Nairobi.

Last week Kenya had a referendum to vote for a new constitution. Peace Corps was worried that it might cause an outbreak of violence. After the last elections there was a lot of violence and volunteers were evacuated, so they were very prepared this time. I was with a bunch of other volunteers in Nairobi because we were helping out with some work for the Peace Corps. Luckily the vote happened with no problems and Kenya now has a new constitution! Now I’m finally home in Oyugis after over a month away. I had lots of cobwebs to clean and unpacking to do. I am also excited to get my kitties back tomorrow! Last night I was so happy to hear the rain pouring on my metal roof and to sleep under my mosquito net, which protects me from all the bugs that might want to bite me. It's good to be home.