Thanksgiving in Kisumu

The Thanksgiving celebration in Kisumu was great! It was a short trip, but it was well worth it! We really had a feast!-fruit salad, vegetable salad, green beans, green bean casserole, corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dinner roles, pasta salad, jello salad, banana bread, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and of course turkey. The day before our dinner, one of the guys in my program killed the turkey and then one of the host moms plucked the feathers for us. We had a total of about 30 people at the dinner, 15 of them being MSID students. All of the students got together and worked as a team to prepare everything. It was a lot of work! We were a bit concerned about how everything was going to turn out having to be creative at times, for example making pie tins out of tin foil, but the meal was delicious! Before we ate, we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for. I think it is one of the most meaningful Thanksgivings I've ever had. Yesterday morning, I made the 12 hour journey back to Meru by myself. I was nervous about how it was going to be, but it went well. Everyone is so willing to help people out here! I rode a bus to Nairobi and then had to find my way to the place where matatus going to the Mount Kenya region congregate. I asked a lady if she knew where it was and not only did she tell me the location, but she also walked me there and found me a matatu to take. When I arrived in Meru at 9;00 in the evening, one of the ladies on my matatu waited for me to be picked up and so did one of the taxi drivers who happens to be a friend of the founder of Ripples International.

The internship phase for this semester is ending on Friday, so I will be headed back to Nairobi this weekend to take 2 finals and hand in assignments next week. Then I get a 3 week break before the start of the 2nd semester. I'm really excited for that! I need a vacation! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Yesterday, I went to the place where court cases are heard. One of the girls was supposed to have her case heard, but one of the lawyers couldn't make it, so it was postponed all the way to March! My supervisor said that this happens a lot. Some of the cases of the girls at the Tumaini Center are 3 or 4 years old, and they still aren't completed yet! The court compound was much different from the courthouses in America. There were many small brick buildings scattered about the compound for various offices and the court building. When we arrived, court was in session and there were many people smooshed in the room with a cluster of people outside of the door along with a police officer with a large rifle in one hand. Near the building were wooden benches under some trees where others were seated waiting for the next case to be heard. We waited for 2 hours to talk to the prosecutor, but there were so many people waiting to see him, that we just ended up leaving instead of waiting for who knows how long. My supervisor seemed really frustrated, but luckily we didn't go all that way for just the court case, we also did a home visit. From there, we went to the home of one of the girls to ensure that she would be safe when she leaves the center in December. The girl lives with her grandmother on a farm. It was quite a hike, literally, to the house! We followed a dirt path along a very steep hill that was surrounded by trees and various crops. There was also a stream along the way with a waterfall! It's a very beautiful area and it seems so peaceful! I got to meet the girls grandmother and other relatives, and they all seemed very nurturing. It made me feel a lot better about her going home knowing that she has so many people to care for her. 4 cups of tea later, were on our way back to Meru. The grandmother just kept pouring me another glass full, so I just went along with it. I didn't want to seem rude. Last night for dinner I had mashed potatoes and steamed cabbage. It was good, but not exactly the Thanksgiving feast I missed back home! I'm not going to miss out on Thanksgiving festivities though! This weekend I am celebrating it in Kisumu with some of my friends in the program. We're even going to cook a turkey!

Coincidence?...I think not ;)

I heard a Del joke at church on Sunday, I thought it was a pretty good one! Upon seeing a small baby, a young boy asked his mother when the baby would start talking. The mother replied that babies usually start talking around 2. Puzzled, the boy asked, "But why could Job talk when he was born?" The mother asked her son to explain. He answered, "I learned in sunday school that Job cursed the day he was born!" :)

Usually about once a week, I have one of those days when I am more irritable than usual and I just want to go home. I make up my mind that I'm leaving in December! It doesn't last long and then I'm back to my normal self. A few days ago, I was having a day like this. After work, I thought maybe a nice walk would cheer me up. As I was walking down the road, I asked myself if I should leave in December and then I was thinking about how nice and relaxing the walk would be...just then, a guy came up to me, huge machete in hand, and started talking to me. I was terrified for my life, or at least for the loss of my bag! The guy pushing a wheelbarrow in front of me, who was the only other person on that path kind of seemed a bit concerned too and then he turned a corner leaving me alone with the machete guy. He was really nice and just wanted to ask me out on a date! After politely turning him down, I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on to my favorite spot that overlooks the city. You can see mountains in the background and it was a beautiful sunny day, so it was extra nice. I thought, "well at least I have this spot to find some peace." The very next second, a guy said to me, "you shouldn't stand there, murderers hide in the bushes around here, its not safe!" I don't know if those two run ins were supposed to be a sign, but actually I thought it was pretty comical and I felt much better!

Country Roads, Take Me Home...

Yes, John Denver is even in Africa. Yesterday as I walked home, I heard this song blaring from one of the shops. Little things like that always make me feel more at home. Today, I even saw two people wearing Minnesota Twins t-shirts!

Let’s see, it has been a while since I last updated! Last Friday, I went to the class 8 graduation (like finishing 8th grade in America) for one of the four Tumaini girls that go to boarding school here in Meru. It was quite a celebration! There were many speeches encouraging the children to keep working hard as they go on to secondary school (high school) and success stories of past students. Then, all of the parents and guests were treated to cake and heaping plates of food to celebrate the achievement that the kids have made. The cake seems to be kind of a big deal in celebrations here. There is usually a cake cutting ceremony where a group of important individuals, in this case it was the principal, a teacher, and a few of the students, cuts the cake together and pictures are taken.

On Saturday, my host mom took me to a harambe. This is an event where the community pools its resources for a certain cause. The harambe was for the reconstruction of housing and administrative offices for nuns that are affiliated with the church that my host family attends. It was a long process! There was first a catholic service featuring a lively choir with dancers dressed in vibrant blue robes. I really enjoyed the African touch in the service; it wasn’t as boring as I had anticipated! Following the service, a group of women entertained us with dance performances and then there was a series of speeches, which were mostly in Swahili, so I really don’t know what they were talking about, but some of them were pretty long winded! When the speeches concluded, there was a performance by a girls marching band featuring drums, piccolos, and recorders, and then 2 more dance performances. Finally, the main event began! For 2 hours people lined up one by one to put their donations and the donations of various organizations, community groups, and congregations into a basket as a man read out loud into a microphone how much each person was giving. The event started at 9:00 and didn’t finish until 4:00 in the afternoon!

Today for work, I spent the day celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. We started off the day by joining with other organizations in the area that support children and marched with banners to the venue where the celebration was to be held. It was great to see all of the kids there marching for their rights as they are the ones who have been personally affected by the neglect children’s rights abuses. The ceremony featured many speeches, but this time most were in English. The speeches were very inspirational, especially the address by Mr. Chidi, the founder and CEO of Ripples International. He emphasized that children are largely ignored and left to suffer in silence as people turn a blind eye to them. This is a really big problem in Kenya as even the police for the most part don’t care about protecting children. The police system is so corrupt that without money, officers will do very little to help you out. He said that there are so many people living their lives for the sole purpose of making money to have nice things instead of taking the responsibility to protect those that are unable to protect themselves. I definitely agree with him. Even in America, there are so many kids that are abused and then betrayed by the government as they are lost in the shuffle of all of the children that need care and support. If America is such a rich nation, why is this still continuing to be a problem? I wish you all could see how amazing the girls are at the Tumaini Center! Each one of their lives is so much more valuable than anything that money can buy. Along with the speeches, the kids also provided the entertainment. There were songs, poems, dances, and skits. The Tumaini girls did 2 dances and a poem. They did a great job! This morning as they practiced before we left, they taught me the dances as well so now I am an expert at Kenyan dancing! I’ll give lessons when I get home ;)

I forgot to mention this in previous posts, but many of the girls are going to be going back home soon- by the end of December for sure so that they can start up the new school year in January. It is going to be so hard to say goodbye to all of them! The three babies are going to be relocated to the New Start Center (the Ripples International baby orphanage and rescue center) for three years so that their mothers can attend school. I hate thinking about them being separated from their mothers and not having the attention that they are used to, but it is for the best and their mothers can and are encouraged to visit them as often as they can.

Being sick abroad = :(

I am happy to report that I made it to work on Monday and felt 100% better! It was only a 24 hour thing, but nonetheless, it was not very fun to go through. Being sick so far away from home was really hard for me. On Sunday afternoon, I was laying in bed in tears wishing my parents were there to take care of me. I had a fever and felt absolutely miserable! If there was a plane outside of my house flying to America, I would have jumped on it without even a second thought! I prayed that God would strengthen and comfort me; I felt really alone in my suffering. Almost immediately, I fell asleep and when I woke up an hour later, I still felt really sick, but I felt well rested and completely at peace. The house was quiet (which rarely ever is true of my household!) except for the faint sound of of dishes being washed in the kitchen and saxophone music playing from the radio-like what my mom listens to sometimes! I closed my eyes and it seemed like I was at home! The rest of the night was fine, I woke up around 3 am and realized that I wasn't sick anymore! :) God is truly faithful, never leaving us, even when we are suffering!

My internship is going very well! I am spending a lot of time with the girls as my supervisor has been really busy with meetings and training this week. I have been doing a lot of reading, singing, and playing hide and seek! Yesterday, they taught me how to make dolls from just scraps of fabric. They really like singing and learning songs from me-everyday they show me that they remember parts of them even with the small amount of English that some of them know. I've been teaching them 'This Little Light of Mine', the "Don't let Satan 'whoowh' it out!" part is their favorite! I love all of the girls, but I am especially fond of Mercy who is around 9 or 10 years old. She is so eager to show me what she knows, especially in reading and math-yesterday she and I read together for 2 hours! I was really impressed by her reading ability! I could tell that she loved having one on one time with me. Today I found out that she has been at the center for a year and she is an orphan-when she got to the center, she had never gone to school and didn't even know how to hold a pencil! I was amazed! She has made great progress in just a year!

Miscellaneous/trip to the countryside

-Occasionally, I see things that make me think, "Yep, I'm definitely not in America anymore!" Last Sunday on my way to church, I saw a goat on top of a car! How it got there is a mystery to me. One of its goat buddies was near the car, so maybe he had something to do with it... On my way to work one morning, I spotted a donkey laying upside down in a really steep ditch furiously kicking its legs trying to flip over. I felt bad for the poor thing, but it was pretty comical!

-The three most played artists that I have heard here are Michael Jackson, Shania Twain, and Dolly Parton; quite an interesting combination!

-I am now hooked to 'Storm over Paradise.' It's a Spanish soap opera with voice overs in English, which don't exactly match up with the characters. My family watches it every night. At first I didn't know how I was going to endure 16 weeks of it, but now around 8:00, I am eagerly anticipating what Maura will do next and wondering if Nicolas will find out that Aymar is pregnant with his child! It's sad, I know, but I just can't help myself!

-There has been an addition to our household. The 4 year old daughter of our temporary house help, Lydia has been staying with us for the last week. Christine is kind of wild, but she keeps Zahura entertained so that I can do my homework. The two of them are so cute! Last night they were 'fixing' my hair. It felt like they were just pulling it, but they were having too much fun for me to stop them.

-The process of buying meat here is interesting. A huge chunk of meat hangs from a hook in a small non-refrigerated Plexiglas room. When you tell the seller how much you want, he saws a piece off with an actual handsaw! Last night as I was cutting up the meat, I disgustedly thought about how it was a miracle that I haven't gotten sick yet...and then around midnight, the miracle ended! I'm still feeling pretty bad, but hopefully with getting a lot of rest today, I will be able to go to work tomorrow.

On Friday night, I went with my host mom to the small medical facility that she runs in the countryside when she is not working at the nearby hospital or at their 6 acre farm. It looks really sketch, especially with the lack of any sign outside of the building labeling what it is and there are no licenses for operation to be found, but my host mom seems to know what she is doing. There is a bench constituting the waiting room next to a small office for seeing patients. There is a table and two chairs in there, and that's all there is room for! There is also a back room separated by a curtain where numerous medications and medical supplies are kept. This facility is part of a larger building where there is a salon and grain store. My mom introduced me to all of her friends who were either working or just hanging out. Of course, there was a guy there that wanted to marry me, I'm used to this now. While my mom was finishing up her work, she told me to go with him to see the river. I wasn't too happy about this, but I grudgingly went. It turned out to be an adventure! The path there was pure mud, and I was wearing flip flops...pretty much the worst choice of footwear! I thought I was going to be covered from head to toe with mud, but I came out of it relatively clean, at least from the knee up! The river looked like a river...dark water rushing over rocks, and the greenery around it was bright green and flourishing, it was a beautiful sight!

Orphanage visit

I really enjoyed spending the day at the orphanage yesterday! There are 31 babies there between the ages of newborn and 3 years old. They were all so cute! I think I am going to be working there on Saturdays now. There are only about 5 staff people caring for the babies at a time, so its kind of crazy there as they all want attention! After work, I was kind of sad because I was thinking about all of the love and attention those babies are missing out on with not having parents. In the 5 years that the center has been running, 88 babies have been rescued, but only 7 of them have been adopted. At the age of 3, the children are moved to a different orphanage with a partnering NGO. I had a minor melt down when I got home, luckily noone was really around! Although it is hard sometimes thinking about the hardships the children face, I am so glad that I was placed with Ripples!

Yesterday, I went to a boys boarding school for high school students with my host sister. Susan's friend is the principal there, and he invited us to come to the school and watch the drama performances that the boys had prepared as a competition between the dormitories. He picked us up in town and then we drove to the countryside. The dirt road had turned into a muddy mess from all of the rain. It looked like it was only suitable for a tank or a 4 wheel drive pickup at the very least! I thought we were going to have to get out and push the car, but we made it. The categories of the performances were narrative, play, solo and group chorals, and dance. I was really impressed with their work! It was the first time that they had ever performed on stage, but many of them seemed like they really knew what they were doing. The subject matter was also impressive. They covered issues such as public health, the challenges girls face in education, and government corruption. The Meru dances were my favorite. Some of the girls at the Tumaini Center have been teaching me some Meru dance moves, so it was interesting to see a whole dance. Today, Susan and I went to church together where many of the people that work for Ripples International attend. The founder gave the sermon today. The girls are also taken there as well so it was good to see them! They seemed pretty bored though because most of the 3 hour service was in English and many of them don't really know all that much English. I have really been motivated to learn Swahili better so I can communicate with the girls better and also the community when the organization does community outreach projects. This week, I am going to lead one of the morning devotions in Swahili. I think it is going to take a long time to prepare for it because first I have to write down everything that I want to say in English and then translate it into Swahili. Hopefully my family will help me out with it! I'm sure they will, they are so good to me. My mom wakes up early every morning to make me lunch to have at work. She also makes sure that I always have socks on and wear a jacket out because she doesn't want me to get sick because of the 'cold' Everyone here is so concerned that I am cold, but the temperature is perfect here. It feels like its around 75-80 degrees.
More about my internship...
I am working 40 hours/week mon-fri, so I am at the center from 7:45 to 5:00. The staff actually works on Saturday as well, but that is just too much for me especially since we are only required to work 25 hours/wk for the MSID program. This week, I spent time getting to know the girls. In the morning, they have class, so I watched the 3 babies. One of the days I helped out in the class where some of the girls are learning to sew clothes. They taught me how to measure and cut out a dress, and they tried to teach me how to use a manual sewing machine, but for some reason, I just couldn't figure it out! They make it look so easy! Before this experience, I didn't even know manual sewing machines existed, I never really thought about it I guess. On Friday, I came up with a list of all of the things that I would be interested in helping out with, so now I am going to start working on that, but I am hoping to have more time to spend time with the girls too as the girls that stay at the home are done with class at 2:00 and then they just have free time. Tomorrow, I am going to the baby orphanage for the day to see what they do there. I'm really excited for that! :)