Eat your vitamins kids!

I’m sitting here after taking my practice LPI. That is the test I have to pass in order to be sworn in as a PCV. I’m actually feeling pretty confident about it. So confident in fact that I went to lunch today and ordered in Kiswahili! I can even go to the post office and mail a letter in the local language too! I can’t believe I’ve only been learning for 4 weeks. It feels really good to feel like I can at least somewhat communicate with the people here. I mean, they wall want to speak English with me anyway, but I think I gain a little more respect when I show I can speak their language. Plus, they don’t rip me off as much haha!

Friday we went to a “mobile clinic”. It is an event in a town where community health volunteers come together to do massive nutrition clinics. There were the cutest kids there. We weighed the babies, took their arm circumference and provided them with deworming pills and vitamin A supplements. It was really great to do something so hands on.

Another awesome thing that has happened is that we found a really fun hike in Loitokitok. Well it’s nothing too strenuous, but at the end there is a waterfall! There are all these vines that climb up the wall so we’ve been doing a little climbing ourselves. There is a cave half way up that you can climb up to and sit in. Makes me think of my Uncle Steve and our Schneider Family Climb Nights back in Berkeley.

Other than that, not much is new. I’ll be leaving Loitokitok tomorrow for 9 days. For three days we are on a retreat with all of the volunteers to learn about HIV/AIDs and then the rest of the time we all split off into groups and go visit current PCVs in the field. I am not traveling too far from Loitokitok, but it will feel good to get out and do something different either way.

That’s all for now! Thanks for the emails! Keep em coming! Oh and special thanks to Sean for the package! It made my day! Now I can play with a real soccer ball and not a crumbled up piece of paper! Haha!