The Oyugis supermarket has upgraded significantly and has been listening to our (the mzungus that live around) requests. There are now 2 liter sodas (one night we had to buy 8 individual sizes to be able to have a reasonable amount to drink), cheese!! , and sandwich beef. I requested some sandwich ham and ground beef so I can make burgers one day. Yay!
Everywhere around here is incredibly dusty nowadays. We had rain for the first time in a few months on last Wednesday. We were in a vehicle with our donors last week and every time a vehicle passed a cloud of dust covered our car and blinded us to the road for a few seconds. It’s gross to see the color of the water once I wash my hair every night. Wednesday it was really nice to get some rain; it wasn’t enough to collect, but it helped with the dust. It also cooled down (enough to shock my body) so I was wearing sweatpants, a fleece sweatshirt, and socks to bed. It was the coldest I’ve felt in awhile and I’m pretty sure it was only around 60 degrees. The rainy season starts in March and I’m sure I’ll be complaining about the mud then. Since it hasn’t been raining, I have to buy my water from a tap in town and have it transported to me. At least it isn’t that expensive for me, it’s 5KSH (or about 6 cents) per 20 liter container.
A few weeks ago, my boss from Peace Corps came to visit my project so we took him to Pendo Letu, the group that does all the beaded jewelry. We showed him how they make the beads out of magazine papers and he even attempted to make one.
After that, some of our donors from the UK came so we spent a few days taking them around to the nursery schools, groups, and some people’s homes. I’ve been to the groups and schools many times before, but the donors also wanted to see some homes of vulnerable people in the community. They are from a church and they wanted to pray for people, which made me feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. However, most people in the communities were asking to be prayed for, so I didn’t feel so bad or feel like the donors were trying to push religion on anyone. In one day we visited 9 homes. One man was living in a tiny house, where the mud walls were falling down, it was only big enough for a bed, and he didn’t have a door. He’s a widower who has 3 young children to take care of, luckily they can stay with their grandmother. Then, we went to a small house for 2 orphans, that also doubles as a kitchen for the grandmother (kitchens here are usually separated from houses because they get filled with smoke when cooking with charcoal or firewood) and the roof had blown off in a sandstorm/mini tornado the day before.
Then we went to visit an elderly blind lady. What really got to me was how happy she was to have someone visit her. She spends a lot of time alone and has gotten sick recently so she had to move in with her sister. After, we went to a child-headed home, meaning the children are orphans and live on their own. This particular house had three sisters (ages 17, 16, and 14) and a 7th grade brother. They can’t always pay for their school, but luckily they have a sympathetic headmaster that doesn’t enforce it sometimes, they can’t even get food sometimes. When we asked the girls how they get pads for when they get their periods, they said embarrassedly that they just use clothes. By then end of the day I was just so emotionally exhausted. I know about how bad the poverty is around here, I’ve certainly been here long enough, but it’s still hard every time I see it. I just worry about those girls especially, because they are so vulnerable. When girls don’t have much money, it’s common for an older man with money to offer to buy food or whatever in exchange for sex. This is a reason why I’m doing a life skills camp for orphans and vulnerable children/teens in April, to try and give them some skills they need to survive and so they can avoid risky behavior. I’m also planning to go to another volunteer’s site next week to teach decision-making, saying no to sex, and about rape to a girls school in their life skills classes.
We also visited a primary school that does a penpal program with a school in the UK. The school is pretty familiar with me since I go to talk to them about what kinds of they should write about in their letters and whatnot. After we showed the donors around the school the kids performed some poems and songs for us. Towards the end, a group of the older girls did a traditional dance and sang in Luo. Everyone in my organization started laughing, they told me they were singing about me. I didn’t know if they meant me, personally, or all of us white people. They said they were singing just about me. I tried to listen for words to that would point this out. Then, the second song they sang actually had “Lizzie” in the lyrics. Apparently they were singing about how beautiful I am, that I make other women jealous, that I am a better dancer than them, but that they have better footwork. I guess when that happens, the person they sing about is supposed to dance with them. It was really embarrassed and didn’t want to, but eventually one of the small girls came right up to me and danced in front of me so I went up with them. I was extremely embarrassed but was really flattered they wrote a song about me.
I went with one of my coworkers to Marie Stopes, an organization in Kisii that provides family planning to women at low costs. I’m trying to collaborate with them for a women’s health day on International Women’s Day (March 8). I also have been checking on the progress of improvements on our nursery school that have been generously donated by a friend of my family’s, Lauren. Mang’ang’a nursery got new doors, better floors, the latrines have been fixed, and it will be painted while Lady Edna nursery got playground equipment. The kids are having so much fun on the slide, swings, see-saw, and merry-go-round. See the pics.
This week I also took a day trip with a coworker and a member of Mang’ang’a youth group to another volunteer’s site. This volunteer, Michael, is a small business volunteer and is doing work with beekeeping. Since Mang’ang’a has been very involved in beekeeping, we wanted to see how a larger organization does it. We especially needed some training in how to process the honey using the centrifuge. Michael’s operation is a bigger scale because they have about 80 hives whereas we have 6 but our group members are planning to get more. My organization has a great opportunity: an Italian NGO that specializes in beekeeping has offered to build us a honey processing unit. To process honey in a legit way, you need a building outside of town that’s airtight (because the bees follow their honey there), with tile floors (to keep it clean), and with all the equipment needed (like a centrifuge and storage tanks). This NGO will be leaving Kenya in a year so they want a local CBO to take over processing for all the farmers in our area that keep bees. They said the total estimate to build this fully-equipped unit will be 350,000KSH (about $4,375) and that they will pay 300,000KSH of it. It’s a great opportunity for our organization and youth group because with a processing unit, we would be able to buy the unprocessed honey (in the combs) from farmers who don’t know how to process it or don’t have a market for their honey, then we would process the honey for them and sell the honey for a profit under our label. This way, our trained group members would be able to make beekeeping into a fulltime job. We just need to find a way to raise the 50,000KSH (about $625) the NGO needs for the unit. So, we’ll see I guess…
This past weekend was the superbowl. A lot of volunteers went to Kisumu to watch it live (it started around 3AM) but I didn’t care enough to want to do that. However, the guys at the house down the street from me had a few people over to watch in as a re-run at 7:30PM on Monday night. We all vowed to not check our emails or facebook so we wouldn’t know who won. They made chili and chicken wings and I made some awesome nachos (with tortilla chips I had bought in Nairobi a while ago) and an onion dip (plain yogurt with a brown onion soup packet, it almost tasted like French onion dip). I ended up eating too many nachos and feeling too full that I fell asleep on their cement floor at the end of the 1st quarter. However, I woke up in time for the half-time, which I was not so impressed with. The game was fun to watch, I was rooting for the packers just because I love cheese so much. Unfortunately we don’t get to see any of the commercials here. So, if anyone has any suggestions for which ones I should youtube, lemme know.
Me dancing with the students
The little girl trying to get me dance with her
more dancing
me and the kids at the nursery school with the new slide
It sounds like your doing great, it's good to be busy! This photo of the kids with the new slide just gave me chills, it's really powerful & adorable!
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