Thursday! What did I do on Thursday? I spent Thursday with a guy named Robert who runs the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) department of Zinduka. They have a bunch of different things they do…there are a bunch of kids they’re keeping track of…making sure they go to school and stay in school (getting them uniforms, paying school fees…and getting “sanitary napkins” for the girls, otherwise they often just stay home for a week every month when they’re having their periods…you can imagine how detrimental that is to their education) They donate a lot of food to the kids and try to arrange sponsorship for them, as well as some semblance of a stable environment…whether its finding families to house them or living in a sort-of-compound with a community worker as the “mom” of the place.
Robert has a degree in social work, and he does some counseling with the kids, but Thursday they were all in school so we went to visit a couple different places in a slum area of or called Kiambui, and deliver rice and flour. We took a matatu and then a bus to the edge of the slum, then one of the orphans who was about 15 came and got us and took us to the house of the community worker. She lives in a house that’s part of a circle of houses that has a yard with chicken coops, and kids running around. She does some taking care of the older kids, but they don’t live with her. So she and Robert talked in Swahili for a while, while I took pictures of the kids outside. Then he gave her a few kilos of rice and we left. The next place we stopped was the house of a woman named Josephine. We gave her this wrapped present for her daughter who wasn’t there, then sat and chatted for a while and drank coke, which I didn’t really want but you can’t refuse gestures of hospitality. Robert doesn’t like soda so he was given uji (porridge) and then they tried to give ME uji and I was like ummm no…a 500ml coke was enough. (Because you can refuse if you’ve already accepted something with much less offense…plus we had just had a conversation about being forced to eat and drink things you don’t want). So theeeeen we went to a third house where a kid had recently been in an accident, bringing a rather large amount of rice and flour, but the mom and the kid weren’t home (I guess he was feeling well enough to leave the house?) so we left the rice and such with the little sisters and headed out.
PS in the morning we were supposed to leave 2 hours earlier than we actually did because we were waiting for tea. I’m pretty sure it’s physically impossible for some Kenyans to do anything before they have tea. Every day they ask me if I’ve “taken tea” before we go and if the answer is no, there’s no hesitation in recommending we wait until I’ve done so. I tell them “no, I’m okay” and they’re incredulous. Haha. But this morning we were waiting for tea, which I usually out around 9, but the person who usually makes it was not in the office that day. So Robert had to go and cover the reception desk so the receptionist could make it. Then we had to drink it leisurely, and theeen we went. I had time to do a Sudoku, a crossword, and a “codeword” (like a crossword where ever space is numbered and they tell you 2 letters and you have to figure out the rest, which number corresponds to which letter) before we actually got up and left. :P
Friday I was with Costa again , and another Zinduka worker named Ann, for a business/marketing class for a bunch of ladies at a church that was quite a ride away. We took a matatu and a looong bus ride across town (traffic, and all) and then took pikipikis/bodabodas/motorbikes/whatever you want to call them for like 3 mintues down the garbage-y, rocky, bumpy slum roads to the church. There were about 10 ladies there waiting for us (Nobody told me what time to arrive at the church. I assumed it was 8:30 like all the other days. At 8:15 Costa called Cathy asking where I was, I was supposed to be there at 7:30. (this coming from the woman who showed up at 11:15 last time she wanted me somewhere at 7:30) I got there around 8:30 but we didn’t leave til 10. )
So they have a little handbook and they meet every week to learn about business/marketing/etc. because most of them have small businesses (and are HIV+). We did this exercise where they broke into small groups and had to make restaurants catering to tourists, and then I (the tourist, of course) had to go around and try out their restaurants and critique them. I cannot critique. So I left the critiquing to the teachers and the daughter of one of the women and told each of the groups, at the end, what good ideas they had had, so they could all learn from each others’ good ideas. :-P After all, I don’t claim to know anything about marketing.
I had an interesting conversation with the daughter, whose name is Agnus. She was home from school because they told all the students to go home until they sorted out the matter of the principal…since the students had all gone on strike because of her. Apparently she has been giving out ridiculous punishments and the girls (it’s an all-girls boarding high school) had enough so they went on strike and marched to the district…something or other’s office to demand a different principal. She made a rule that they were not allowed to use the bathroom from the beginning to the end of the day (aka 5am until 4pm) and when they did, their punishment was to stay in the bathroom all day. These are not your idea of a bathroom. This is a very hot area, and a we-dug-a-hole-and-put-a-small-room-around-it pit latrine, no flushing. ALL DAY. Or making them wash the bathrooms for like 200 girls for a week, for minor offenses, etc. She asked me if students in the US ever went on strike. HA!
Saturday we called “lazy Saturday” and it was just that. I woke up around noon and we spent the whole day, besides the short time when we cooked dinner/made chapati, doing a lot of nothing. Then we lost electricity for a while in the evening and since there’s nothing to do at night with no light and when the TV doesn’t work, we went to bed.
Today we had church – I went to the first service in the main church and then the 2nd youth (young adult) service and spent the third service in the same small group I randomly joined last week (that’s what happens when you live with people super-involved in the church…you go to 3 services) and then they had out some games and puzzles, so I joined a group of people putting together a 300-piece Taj Mahal…I’m pretty sure there were fewer than 300 pieces though. And at least one of the 4 other people doing that puzzle had no idea what they were doing, because I took apart a lot of pieces that were quite obviously NOT supposed to go together. :-P
After church went out to lunch for pizza with Cathy and Sammy’s best couple- the best man and maid of honor (matron of honor?) at their wedding. It’s encouraged in the church for engaged couples to have a “best couple”- a married couple that they’re already friends with who sort of mentors them- instead of just having each pick their best friend as their best man/maid of honor. They have 3 kids- 6 and 4-y.o. boys and a 4-week old baby girl. The kids are adooorable- they speak really good English in the cutest little accents, and the older boy is such a funny kid- “Papa! Papa! Oh no! Oh no! You need to add fuel, it’s only one dash away from the E!” It’s probably funnier to hear him say it. :-P
So we went to this pizza place, and it was really good…we got this pizza that was absurd but delicious…it had onions, chicken, corn, and a swirl of barbecue sauce on it. It was incredibly good, I was shocked. :-D
And nooow we’re back to being lazy around the house.
Tomorrow the Chicago team arrives and on Tuesday we start setup for the clinic, which goes Wed-Sun, I can’t wait!
I am going with Cathy to meet Danny at the Imara campus at 10am tomorrow…on my schedule that Zinduka gave me it tells me that Monday is the day for “Sitting in main office and reflecting on lessons learned”. When I read that to Cathy and Sam they burst out laughing. We decided I could reflect elsewhere, so I’m not going into the Zinduka office. Ha.
Today is June 12! That means exactly one month from today I will be home. J But not before I miss my Emmy’s 24th birthday, and Fathers’ day. :-/
1 comment:
Any word from your "fiance" recently?
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