Establishing a routine has never been so exciting

This week has begun the start of some amount of normalcy.  I am following a routine, and while each day brings new challenges (or, should I say, opportunities), there is a structure behind the madness.  Here’s the basic breakdown:

I wake up every morning at 6:45, take a bucket shower and get myself ready, and go to the sitting room, where there is tea and bread already waiting for me.  I take the food by myself before Momma Mary or I call my bodaboda driver, Steve.  Steve works as a cook at Mahiakalo and on the side as a boda driver, so he takes me everywhere.  The ride to work is a quick 3 minutes straight down the road.  Definitely walking distance, but I’m still slowly building up the confidence my host mom has in my independence.  I walked out the front gate all by myself yesterday.   Maybe I’ll be walking to work next week. 

Once I get to work, there is no sort of routine.  We deal with issues as they arise, whether kids are sick and in the hospital or monthly monetary gifts from sponsors need to be sorted and spent.  We take tea any time between 10 and 1 and lunch between 1 and 5. (Yes, one time I had my lunch break at 5 pm and went straight home afterwards.)  We eat lunch when lunch is ready. A few things are consistent, though: gospel music blaring out of Mark’s office, 19 to 21 year-olds out of high school hanging around and helping out, rain in the late afternoon that requires us to stay until whenever it happens to clear up, the tiniest mouse I’ve ever seen always scurrying between and around the offices.  I think Mahiakalo CDC needs a cat.

I usually get home around 5:30, when my host mom, host dad and I take coffee.  The TV is on playing awful foreign soap operas with English dubbed over, and my host dad offers me Nation, the national Kenyan newspaper, to read.  After coffee I have some time to relax, and I’ll stay in the living room and chat with my host dad, read from my Kindle, or entertain the 2-year old.  Then I will help my host mom prepare dinner, which ALWAYS involves a few fresh tomatoes, an onion, and some garlic.  (I’m starting to get good at cutting vegetables and spices! As for making chapati or ugali, that will take some more practice…) We eat dinner around 8:30, just in time to catch Soy Tu Duena- a soap favorite of all the interns.  After dinner I have some time to myself, where I do my “work”: emails or blogging or facebook.  By 10 I start getting myself ready for bed, and all the lights in the house are out by 10:45, leaving plenty of time for sleep  The noises at night (and in the morning) don’t bother me anymore, so I sleep soundly.  And then starts another day.

Having some sort of template for the day, having reasonable expectations, has been quite a relief.  I feel like I’m settled in.  And while I’m still the mzungu who is so often viewed as an outsider, I’m feeling less and less like a guest and starting to become a coworker/family member.  I still have a lot to learn, and I’m still almost constantly pushed beyond my comfort zone, but it’s a process that’s making progress.

Here’s to a few things that have made this week unique:

I spent a good part of three days with the 19-21 year old kids getting certified in first aid.

I visited a public hospital (to check up on and pay the hospital bills for one of the children who had fallen sick) and was surprised to see beds lined up two feet apart from each other, two patients to a bed.  The girl we came to see was terribly sick with malaria, sharing a bed with a non-responsive young girl, and six visitors crowded close to the bed with nowhere to sit.

I danced to African gospel music with Truphosa and Annette, two 19-year-old girls at Mahiakalo, for about 45 minutes before first aid lessons started.  The rest of the kids sat around the classroom laughing and taking videos.  I perhaps made a fool of myself.

In first aid lessons we have short breaks they like to call “energizers.”  We played this game where you sing a short song called “Fishers of Men” and the Females sit down and the Males stand up when you say a word starting with F, and vice versa with a word with M.  I had played this game the Saturday before without it being explained to me- now I understand why the primary school kids thought it was so hilarious when I was standing and sitting opposite of the two female teachers next to me.  Oops.

The most common word I hear around home is “chapa.” What does it mean? “I’ll beat you.”  Yes, as in beat you up.  It’s always directed at the “naughty” two-year-old.

The 5 month old cat likes to follow me into my room (or meow outside of my window until it gets bored or I let it in) and cuddle.  I was so close to saying it didn’t bother my allergies, as just being in the same room hasn’t given me any issues.  But judging by the current redness of my eyes, I am very much still allergic.  (Although that is my own fault for being ambitious and actually petting the cat.  Then rubbing my eyes.)

The power has gone out almost every night since Monday for 20 minutes or so, except for tonight when it was out for 2 hours.  Just makes me all the more glad that I have electricity most of the time!

3 of the past 4 nights my lunch menu has been identical to my dinner menu.  Purely coincidental but I found it amusing.  (Today I ate ugali and sukumawiki, a green leafy vegetable.  Then I had more ugali and sukumawiki.  Yesterday it was rice and beans. And rice and beans.  You get the picture.)

Now that it’s just past 11 and way past my bed time, I will get some sleep.  And happily get on with my routine tomorrow. J

Mahiakalo CDC

Last week was my introduction to working in Kakamega- my first week of work at Mahiakalo Child Development Center.  First for some background on Mahiakalo:  The center currently sponsors 258 vulnerable or needy children living in Kakamega by providing spiritual guidance, access to medical care, support to the parents, and skills and leadership training.  They partner with Compassion International (check this out: http://www.compassion.com/about/aboutus.htm ) for sponsors and funding.  When school is in session, the children come in only on Saturdays for devotionals, lessons, skills training, games, and a meal.  Unfortunately that means I won’t have much time to spend with the kids as weekends are for FSD intern meetings or time for traveling around Kenya.

On the first day of work I was introduced to my supervisor, Elizabeth, and the two other employees, Mark and Ephel.  It’s a small staff and they are all in their upper 20’s, which makes very easy for me to take part in (or at least ask questions about) daily activities.  We had our weekly staff meeting first thing Monday morning, where I was debriefed on the basic mission of the program, last week’s progress, and this week’s agenda.  Ephel and I then went to the Children’s Department, a government organization, which if anything was a great indicator for the amount of patience I’ll need while working in Kenya.  We went simply to ask about any activities they had planned for the Day of the African Child (had to travel to the office  by boda since we didn’t have their contact information).  After waiting for over an hour, they told us to come back later since they hadn’t finalized their plans yet.  And then it was already lunchtime.  (I guess I’ve gotten used to finding our any information- and answers- in minutes, whether it’s a phone call, email, or Google-search away).  After lunch, I spent the rest of the afternoon asking questions and going through records of the children to track the last time they had been visited at home or school.  Each child is supposed to be visited twice a year at home and once at school, but the records hadn’t been sorted through in a while, and there were multiple kids who hadn’t been visited since 2008 or 2009.  For good reason; I don’t know how the three staff members begin to manage the issues and concerns of 258 vulnerable children and families, let alone make time for 516 routine visits home a year!

Tuesday was a similar day to my first; taking records, asking questions, sitting through a monthly meeting with the Church Partnership Committee.  Wednesday was a national holiday, Madaraka Day, so everyone had the day off work. (The interns got together in the afternoon- it was a lot of fun to reconnect with everyone and share stories of our crazy host families.)  On Thursday it was back to work, and I went on my first trip into the rural villages for home visits.  Ephel and I visited three homes of children they were particularly concerned about because they were malnourished.  The homes were humble at best: two-room “semi-permanent” structures made of mud with tin roofs.  When asked what the family had to eat the night before, the mothers would respond, “nothing.” And for breakfast? Nothing. We spent about 20 minutes in each house evaluating, asking questions, and always opening and closing in prayer.  And each time we left without answers to their problems, without knowing when the next time this family would eat.

On Friday I went on 10 more home visits, this time routine visits (instead of to children with particular concerns.)  It was a much happier experience; almost all of the kids were doing well and in school, with minor complaints like a toothache or in need of paraffin for a lantern in order to do homework at night.  It was reassuring to see smiling mothers at home and babies with round, nourished faces.

 

On Saturday it was evident that many of the kids in the program were thriving.  I got to stop by Mahiakalo CDC for an hour in the morning before my FSD intern meeting, and I was introduced to all the kids and took part in the younger children’s morning devotional.  There was so much energy, with lots of giggling and calling “mzungu!”

 

I learned a lot during my first week of work at Mahiakalo, getting used to the office dynamics and daily routines.  But now it’s time to start brainstorming a work plan for the next 7 weeks…

Until next time!

Lainey

Sensory Overload

I keep thinking that soon, very soon, I will start getting used to the Kenyan way of life.  Things will start to become normal, routine. That couldn’t be further from the truth (so far, at least).  With each new day I’m finding myself enthralled with new experiences, thoughts, emotions…  The only way I know how to do justice to the thoughts buzzing in and out of my mind is a simple (but scattered) laundry list.  So here it goes:

• Weather.  Right at this moment as I’m sitting on my bed in my room, raindrops are clunking against the tin roof.  It rains just about every day; usually hard, heavy rain for an hour or two (leaving some nice and muddy roads).  The climate ranges from up to 90 degrees in the sun down to the upper 60’s at night (which is considered “chilly” and therefore Momma Mary insists I put on my jacket and have a warm cup of coffee or tea).
•  Public transportation.  I’ve gotten a nice sampling of all types of public transportation, which is for the most part widely available and easy to use.  Matatus are vans that squish 17 (plus ALWAYS room for one more) people like sardines across your long-distance journeys.  Tuktuks are basically covered motorcycles with three wheels, but slower and bumpier.  Pikipikis are actual motorcycles (hold on tight!) and bodabodas, like I’ve said before, are bicycles.  I use the bodabodas a lot to get to and from town as they’re the cheapest and most readily available.  But pikipikis are the most fun!
• Orientation week.  On the last day of orientation week we traveled to Kisumu, took a boat on Lake Victoria, and saw some hippos. Or their noses and eyes, anyways.  When we got back we went to the disco and danced (or made fools of ourselves?) with the locals- so fun!
• Kumbikumbi is the Swahili word for fried termite.  I ate one, and it tasted kind of like a burnt sunflower seed.  I see how it’s a common snack food in Kenya, but I don’t need another one anytime soon…
• It gets really really REALLY dark at night. You can’t see your own feet, or even your hand for that matter. But the stars are that much brighter.
• Having a house with “running water” means there is one tap in the corner that we use to refill the large basins.  When you need water, you take from the basin, not the tap.
• Zungu’s (the 2 year old) toys consist of parts of a broken doll I’ve seen lying around the compound and a ball made from a rolled up and tattered article of clothing.
• Speaking of tattered clothing, an old torn shirt is used as a mop to clean the concrete floors.  Other than for cleaning and towels (and sometimes toys), clothes are carefully washed, dried, and ironed every day; a clean, put-together appearance is high priority.
• The house iron is a metal box with a wooden handle.  Simply fill the box with charcoal, start a fire, and you’re ready to iron!
• Momma Mary is very protective of me.  If its dark outside she escorts me the 20 steps out to the pit latrine. She walks me to work in the morning (despite the fact it’s just straight down the road), and she is sure to arrange a bodaboda ride home or wherever I may need to go.
• There are separate rooms in my house, but no ceilings- just one all-encompassing roof.  I can hear every sound in the other rooms (especially the snoring in the middle of the night).
• Mornings are noisy too.  The chickens sleep inside (so they don’t get stolen) and make quite a scene when it starts getting light out.
• Every morning I take a bucket shower.  I mix boiled water with cold water to get a nice temperature, keep the water in a basin, and use a pitcher help rinse off.
• When I brush my teeth, I take my toothbrush and a glass of water to a ledge outside of the house.  When I'm done brushing I rinse and spit onto the ground just outside of the house.
• There are no garbage cans here, and I still haven't exactly figured what to do with my trash.  One time I asked, and Grace had me throw it on the ground in the house. It was swept outside to the grounds of the compound later that day.

There’s always more to write, but I’m calling it a night for now.  Look out for the next post, I’ll be summing up my first week at work!

Guests Will Have Chicken

“In Kenya, when you have a guest and you love them, you show that love by slaughtering for them.”  This is what my host mom, Momma Mary, explained to me within just an hour of meeting me.  I had arrived on Saturday in the late morning, and from the very start I was treated as a guest in the house.  After showing me around the house and giving me a key and lock to my room, Momma Mary insisted that I sit in the dining/living room and relax while she and her daughter Grace (14) prepared lunch.  She also explained, as stated, that it was Kenyan culture to slaughter a chicken for a guest, and that she would slaughter one of her own hens that night for dinner.

The dining/living room I waited in was very comfortable.  It is one of five rooms in the house: my bedroom, the parents’ bedroom, a kitchen, and “bathroom” are the others.  The living room has several couches around the perimeter of the room, a short table in the center, and a television in the corner.  I sat with the host dad as we talked for a while (and although he has good English, I understood only some of what he was saying).  Meanwhile I kept thinking about how our FSD program leaders repeatedly told us we needed to be part of the family, not guests, and how we- or rather the girls- should be helping out around the house. (Gender roles are more traditional in Kenya.)  But since, after multiple requests, my host mom insisted that I relax and that I could help cook dinner, I stayed seated in the living room.

Cooking meals is a rather long ordeal, and when my host dad ran out of things to talk about we both watched the TV that is almost always turned on.  After lunch was served, we ate mostly in silence or the others spoke Swahili, with only a few English conversations. (All the more reason to learn the language!) I don’t really see it as a language barrier, since almost everyone I’ve encountered is fluent in English.  But out of cultural respect and as a personal challenge, I will try to practice Swahili whenever possible. 

After lunch I went to town with my host mom and one of her other daughters, Diana.  My host mom and dad have 5 kids, 3 girls and two boys, and I’ve only met two, Diana and Grace.  Diana is in her 20s, married, and has a two-year-old daughter who stays with her grandparents.   The girl’s name is Sasha, but her nickname is “Zungu” (short for “mzungu” because of her light appearance as a newborn), so now there are two Zungus in the house.  Anyways, Diana, Momma Mary, and I went to town on bodabodas and they showed me around a little between stops at various supermarkets.  It was really nice to already be familiar with the transportation and the town as almost everything else throughout the day was new and unfamiliar.

When we got back it was time for me to start learning.  “And now we will slaughter the hen,” Momma Mary explained as she had Grace pick one of the seven chickens the family owns.  I considered sparing you the details, but since this my only form of record-keeping for this trip, here it goes.  My host mom took the hen into the small kitchen and pinned it to the floor using her feet, the wings under one foot and the talons beneath the other.  A small tin plate was positioned underneath the hen’s neck and one of my host mom’s hands was holding its head still as it struggled violently.  Meanwhile I was crouching nervously right next to the hen with Zungu beside me, unfazed.   My host mom plucked out some of the feathers from the hen’s neck while she explained “this is the way we do it in Africa.”  Time for the knife.  Momma Mary took the knife in her open hand and made a good cut- maybe a third of the way through.  Blood ran out onto the tin plate for about a minute, and as it slowed, the chicken stopped struggling.  “Now, it is dead.”  (Whew, hard part’s over.)  She placed the chicken in a pot of boiling water to make it easier to pluck off all the feathers and peel away the outer layer of the talons and the beak.  Once the plucking was finished, the hen was briefly roasted above a pot that held a charcoal fire.  Its skin was seared to dry it out so the family could eat half for dinner and save the other half for a day or two.  Then it was time to gut the chicken, which I chose to look at exactly like a biology dissection, minus the smell of formaldehyde plus a slightly less precise instrument (think forceps vs. 4-inch butcher knife).  Momma Mary sliced the chicken open in half and used her bare hands to take out the guts to feed to the dog (after cooking them of course, as you don’t want your guard dog to start eating raw, live chickens.)  The rest was for us, except the blood, which was lapped up by the house cat.  The chicken would be cooked later, but it was then time to take tea.  I stood up and found my legs shaking slightly and wasn’t exactly sure if it was from watching the whole process or squatting for so long.  But like I said, I was here to learn, not to be a guest, and I was certainly learning the African way of life.

The rest of the past two days have been full of plenty of new experiences (and a lot of patience on the ends of both “guest” and host).  I’ve used a pit latrine in the pitch-black darkness.  I’ve attended an almost 4 hour church service conducted in a different language.  I’ve tasted the guts of a fish.  I’ve learned to enjoy a cup of hot tea.  I’m still working on establishing myself as a responsible family member rather than guest.  And I’m ready to approach the next 8 weeks I’ll have with this family with an open mind and patience.  And an appetite for chicken.      

Out with the New, In with the Newer

It’s been just over a week since I’ve been in Africa.  I can’t believe how quickly this orientation went by!  Already I’ve made many adjustments to start to blend into the Kenyan lifestyle.  And although I still stand out as the “mzungu” (white person) walking down the street, I feel much more comfortable and confident navigating through the town.  After a lot of practice, I finally can keep straight the basic greeting, “habari yako,” and saying no thanks, “hapana asante.”  I’m comfortable wearing my long skirts, putting on mosquito repellent at 6 pm every night, riding bodabodas, and using bottled water for brushing my teeth.  All of these adjustments will be so helpful with the transition to living with a host family and really integrating into the Kenyan way of life.  But so many of changes I have gotten used to from this past week will not be with me in a matter of hours.  Going to the Nakomatt (supermarket) every day to make sure, again and again, that I have everything I need, spending each night with the 10 other interns talking and relaxing, using a flush toilet, eating fruit every night.  I’m sitting in the hotel lobby right now about to check out, with my computer battery about to die, and I’m almost ready to head into a whole new chapter of my Kakamega adventure.  And although I know I’ve been well prepared, I’m really nervous!  Wish me luck.

Some quick photots

 A view of part of Kakamega Town

 

My hotel room

 The market

Getting Oriented

Hi to all!

The time has been flying by here so far.  Over the past three days I’ve spent quite a few hours in a conference room at the hotel learning about Kenyan culture and the expectations of FSD.  We’ve gone over safety, professional standards, asset mapping, and designing a work plan.  It’s getting me excited and a little nervous to work in my host organization next week- I get to visit the center and meet my supervisor for the first time tomorrow!

Yesterday and today we had our first two lessons in Swahili (and even got homework).  It seems a bit daunting to try to learn a whole new language in just a few days, but I’ve had a little bit of practice in the streets, and the locals seem to really appreciate the effort.

On Sunday the group went into town for lunch; the town is a surprising mix between both very basic and modernized accommodations.  There are always a lot of cars parked on the sides of the major roads (most of them are dirt roads) as well as cell phone stores, banks, and three-story buildings with concrete walls.  At the same time there are buildings across the street made from mud and sticks, and there are even some people walking around without shoes on their feet.  We ate lunch in a building right next to the FSD Kakamega office.  The restaurant didn’t have enough room to accommodate all 11 interns and 3 supervisors in the main dining area, but they just happened to have an extra room upstairs that they set up for us.  There seems to be a lot of extra, unoccupied rooms or halfway-constructed buildings everywhere we go.  For lunch we were served the typical Kenyan food, and I can say that for the most part it has been delicious!  The most common staple food here is called ugali, which is made mostly from corn with a little flour.  It doesn’t have a particularly strong taste- it basically serves the same purpose as rice.  You can mold off pieces of the doughy ugali with your hands and use it to scoop up other food, like vegetables, meat (beef or chicken), or stew.  Utensils are not widely used, except for with rice, which definitely is taking some adjusting to!  I found it strangest when I had to use my hands to eat chicken stew, picking the chicken off the bones and soaking up the sauce with ugali (kind of gross).  Good thing is that people always wash their hands before meals, and most places to eat have a sink and a bar of soap nearby.  Another staple food here is called chipati, which is also made from corn and flour and is a lot like a tortilla, but tastier.  Everyone- well, at least the westerners- is always happy to see chipati served with the main dish (rather than ugali).  The main dish at the hotel and the restaurants has always been chicken or beef with some sort of sauce and another dish of cooked, leafy vegetables.  However, eating meat at two of three meals a day is not at all the norm in Kenya and probably won’t be the case at my homestay.  My personal favorite part of the food here is the very fresh fruit.  Every night at dinner we have gotten a fruit salad with mangos, bananas, pineapple, and watermelon. YUM!  However, fruit is also a luxury here, so I likely won’t be getting it every day at my homestay.

After lunch on Sunday I had my first experience with public transportation.  We all rode bodabodas, which are bicycles with a cushion and handle attached to the back.  It was actually so much fun!  You have to negotiate the price with the driver before getting on (which our supervisor Caro did for us since it was our first time and such a large group).  Then you just hop on and enjoy the ride!  Since all of the women here wear skirts, they ride the bodabodas side straddle and hold their balance very well.  Caro told the girls to ride the bicycles straddling the seats regularly, since we “weren’t ready” for the typical side straddle way.  However, I missed this message, went for sitting to the side right away, and now understand why she had said not yet- I was gripping that tiny handlebar so tightly!  I felt like I was going to fall off with every bump in the road (and there are quite a few of those…) but I managed to hold my balance and successfully stay on the bodaboda.  Whew!  Each time I think it will get a little easierJ.

Today, after Swahili lessons, we got to meet with the local doctor, Dr. Bakunda.  His office is right in the middle of town, very easy to get to.  And I felt very reassured after talking with him; I trust being under his care if need be. (But hopefully I won’t need to be!)  He told us about some of the most common diseases here: malaria, food-borne illness, and typhoid fever.  But like I said, I was walking out of the office feeling more reassured than scared! (Except for the fact that my malaria meds are the less effective kind in the region.  If you’re coming to Kakamega, take doxycycline.) 

Other than getting oriented with FSD and learning Kenyan culture, the group has had a good amount of time to relax and get to know one another.  The past two days I have gone with a group of other students for a run early in the morning.  It’s been really great to fit in some working-out, but we have gotten some funny looks from people walking on the street; it’s not at all typical to just go for a run.  The first day running we passed by some kids, about 14 years old, walking to school.  They yelled out “mizungu” (white person, which does not have any negative connotations) and started running with us!  It ended up that they ran with us all the way to school and a few laps around the field.  All the kids were laughing good-heartedly at us and some were joining in the run.  After a few laps there was a group of about 20 kids all stretching with the 6 “mizungus” before it was time for us to go back and for them to start class.  Between morning runs, walks into town, getting drinks at a nearby restaurant, and long after-dinner conversations, the group has had a lot of time to get to know each other and form great dynamics.  It’s been great to have other students with similar backgrounds to go through this transition into life in Kakamega with me. J

Now I have to finish my Swahili homework before I head off to bed!

Lainey