Thursday, October 20, 2011

Gettin Jiggy With It

I haven’t written a blog update in awhile because I felt like not much was happening in my life, or at least nothing important enough to share. Until today when I started to reflect on my last few months here and realized how much I really have done in such a short amount of time. Although there is a lot of down time, when I do get out and about I like to think I’m really making a difference.

My health clubs are going great! I’ve got 2 going strong and another 2 in the works so by next week I should have 4 functioning health clubs. So far we’ve talked about assessing our values and how our behavior reflects on those values, we’ve learned about risky behaviors and their consequences and we’ve played a lot of fun games. One day we played “AIDS Attacker” where one person is AIDS and everyone else has a card that says either “has many sexual partners”, “uses condoms every time”, “abstains, says no to sex”, “is faithful to uninfected partner”, “has STD”, or “uses condoms occasionally”. When the “AIDS Attacker” tags someone then everyone has to decide if that person would be vulnerable for HIV depending on what their card read. It was really fun and the kids had a great time running around and tagging each other. I’ve gotten to know the teachers pretty well too and have even had dinner at one of their homes. They are really supportive and it’s nice to be making friends. One of the schools, Emprizza, is a non-profit school that completely supports the children who go there. If you’d like to consider being a donor please contact me and I will give you their information. They are a great organization and not only help vulnerable children attend school, they also have community outreach projects. Another project they are working on is creating a community library so if you would like to donate any books, please send them my way!

I attended World Food Day on October 14th in a village called Nesewa. There were all these different booths set up which were advertising different information to farmers and villagers such as food productivity, livestock keeping and energy efficient cooking methods. They had all this amazing food that I had never tried and some staple Kenyan dishes with twists to make them healthier and tastier. There was dancing from local school children, singing and even acting. The village chief gave a really inspiring speech about how lucky we are here in Matayos to have stable food resources when our neighbors up in the northeast are starving daily. It really makes me feel grateful.

I also attended another event this month for World Hand Washing Day. It was held at a local school in the village of Muyafwa. We taught the children how to properly wash their hands and the importance of using soap. We also showed people how to build affordable hand washing stations out of sticks, a jerry can and some rope. Finally, we treated people who were infected by Jiggers. No, “getting jiggy with it” is not a good thing here in Kenya! In fact, Jiggers affect 10% of the households here in Matayos and only 40% of those infected have been treated due to lack of disinfect chemicals needed to treat them. If you don’t know what Jiggers are, they are tiny bugs about the size of flees that live in dust and lay eggs in your skin. When they grow they are incredibly painful and cause people to loose their limbs. They can easily spread to the hands and other body parts as well. So we went to a few local homes to treat the worst cases and the rest of the people made their way to the school where we had a mass treatment center. I cleaned between the nastiest feet I’ve ever seen.

I went to the Chief’s Baraza about a week ago. A Baraza is a community meeting where people can get together and discuss issues with the leaders. Basically I learned that there are women doing illegal brewing of alcohol in the villages in order to support themselves and the Chief wants to get them away from that by creating some other income generating activities (IGAs). So I’ve come up with an idea to teach the women how to make bracelets with the Kenyan flag on them. I learned how to make them when I did the site shadowing with PCV Louis Vayo. Anyway, the women were really interested so with their help, I’m going to buy the beads this next time I’m in Nairobi, and then I’m going to set up a class to teach them.

Besides that I have been traveling on the weekends when I can. I’ve visited a few other volunteers’ sites and have seen how they live and what they are doing. It always feels good to hang out with Americans because I don’t have to speak slowly or in broken English. My friend Hannah literally lives in a mansion. She has a puppy too so I brought Sangala up to visit and we had a great time pretending we weren’t in Africa in her mansion. I don’t know how Peace Corps set her up with that, but all I know is she’s one lucky volunteer. She even has hot showers! I’ll be back to visit her for sure ;)

Since then, I’ve been trying to stay in site more on the weekends. This coming weekend will be my third straight weekend in site. I’m going a little stir crazy, but staying the weekend really makes a difference. I go to church with local friends and play soccer with some of my students. The weekend is a time when I can really spend quality time with community members and I’m trying to make the most of it. I’ve been running again and that feels good. Oh and I finally bought a full length mirror, which I have to say is an essential item for an only child and I have missed it so. I got a virus on my computer which really freaked me out, although I have to say it is a miracle that the same computer that I’ve had since Freshman year of college is STILL working. Luckily, another computer savvy PCV named Daniel talked me through how to fix in on the phone and it’s working again so I’m soooo relieved. I watch a lot of movies on my computer and also have work related activities, so it would have been a bummer if it could not have been fixed.

Anyway, thank you for those of you who have written or sent me a package here in Matayos! Note to everyone, if you send smaller items in padded envelopes they come quicker. Also, on the customs form where it asks how much the items you are sending cost, lie! The more they cost, the more I have to spend to pick them up. Either way though, keep them coming. Special thanks to Sharron and Sarah for the toys, candy, roach trap, magazines, etc. I practically cried when I opened it! If you are thinking of things to send me, any magazines, old or new, would be great because I want to teach the women headed households how to make paper beads and sell them for profit. Oh and since Thanksgiving is coming up, if you want to send a dried gravy mix, that would be awesome too!

Love and miss you all and hope everything is going well back in the States.

<3, Nekesa