Ya Fattah! Thanksgiving 2012

 Cassidy and I woke up at 8:00am this morning and started right off cooking and preparing for our thanksgiving meal that we plan to share with my Kenyan family. Part of our job as Peace Corps Volunteers is to share American culture with Kenyans so here we are slaving over a fire, slaughtering chicken and shucking peas from the garden. 100% organic veggies and free-range chicken, this is the way to do it! So together we came up with some things we are greatful this Thanksgiving. Of course we miss our family and friends back home, but we feel so blessed to be alive in Kenya celebrating this special day with our Kenyan friends and family. 

Things that I’m thankful for 2012 Kenyan Thanksgiving

-Water: Rain is a Good Thang! Having clean safe drinking water in Kenya is a luxary. I am lucky to live in a place with consistent rain for our crops and livelihood. I miss turning on a shower!

-Health: In Kenya it’s easy to get sick! With diseases that are eradicated in America like Malaria, Measles and Typhoid, we are lucky to be healthy and living active lifestyles.

-Family: Kenyan and American. We couldn’t survive without our Kenyan families, keeping us safe, showing us the way of life. But our American families are who we are. Their support keeps us going.

-Opportunities like Peace Corps: It gives us the chance to live within communities other than our own and learn a totally different way of life. If anything, this makes you appreciate everything you have back in America.

-Friendships: Also Kenyan and American. My Kenyan friends keep me integrated. Even though we cannot communicate as closely as my American friends, we continue to find we are more the same than different. My American friends though are my rocks. They keep me grounded, keep me updated on what’s happening back home. Without the support from my friends, the emails, the packages, the letters, I seriously could not do this. And my Peace Corps friends are like family. No one else can ever truly understand what we are going through.

-Education: Without education we would not even be in the Peace Corps. Many girls in Kenya never finish their education and instead get pregnant at 16, married and commit their whole lives to that. We are lucky to have so many opportunities and only through educating ourselves have we been able to do that.

-Food: Not only Thanksgiving food, but food in general. We are living in a country with famine! People in my own village go to sleep hungry! To be able to share this day with Kenyans means more than I could ever explain through words.

-Our Puppies!: Sangala gives me purpose here. I know he’s just a dog, but he seriously is my best friend. He keeps me company and gives me someone to talk to that doesn’t judge me for the color of my skin. Yes, I talk to my dog. No judgment!

-Electricity: Walking 2 hours to charge my phone was a pain! It’s so nice to be able to charge at my house now!

-Being Americans!: Never had I been proud to be American until I lived here. I never thought we had a culture, but we do! We are unique and bright people. Also, we are lucky that we do not have to face the same kind of hardships as here.

-Air conditioning: Damn that feels good. Which is why I love Sankara! (Adams)

-Fast Food: We miss you Taco Bell.

-Options: There’s not many here. Food, career, the list goes on.

-Cheese: When we get our hands on you cheese, there’s no turning back.

-Keeping Time: It’s so nice when someone doesn’t show up on “African time”.

-Traveling: I love travel, especially within Africa and this has given me the chance to see the world!

-Love: I’ve learned how to love here more than I ever knew I could. 

So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home! God Bless you all! 

One Year At Site

I’m up late tonight because as I was drifting off to sleep, I realized, I’ve been at my new site for about a year now! One year ago, I never would have thought I would be as happy as I am here. Leaving my old site of Matayos was painful. Saying goodbye to all that I had already established and I only lived there for 3 months. I had no time to say goodbye, they simply told me pack your bags and they made me leave. I remember when the Peace Corps vehicle was driving me here to Singorwet. We turned off the paved road and the dirt road and villages seemed to go on forever. Where the heck are they taking me, I thought. When they dropped me off in the rural village of Singorwet, I contemplated not even unpacking. How would I survive without electricity, without water, without transport (I had had these luxuries at my old site)! It was 2 hours on foot to the nearest public transportation. I didn’t think I would make it.

Now here I am, only a year later, and I finally realized that this was all just a part of Gods plan for me. Singorwet is the most beautiful place I’ve been in Kenya. I get to walk through fields and fields of tea leafs to get to work everyday. The sound of rain on my roof brings me peace. And the people have taken me in like one of them, especially my mama and the family I live with. This is exactly what I had hoped for in my Peace Corps experience. The true “African” experience. I love the rural now! San Francisco girl turned African farm girl, I never would have thought it possible. Yes, I’m still afraid of bugs, but at least now I can kill them all on my own!

And when I look back over the last year, I’ve accomplished so much here with the help of the community. From the HIV Hotline, to the Tree Nursery, to my health clubs, to the world map I painted at the dispensary, to teaching at the Mother Child Clinics. The events I’ve put on such as International Women’s Day, Earth Day and now Men’s Health Awareness Day have all been a success. I got trash cans put in my community so we can keep it clean and beautiful and when my dad visited he brought solar electricity to the clinic. I taught women how to make paper beads and how to cook banana bread. And soon we will have a working maternity ward at the clinic! There’s no way I could have done any of this without my people in Singorwet. I thank God for them everyday.

Integration is an ongoing process that I work on daily. Going to church, lunches with local friends and walking throughout the villages help me establish myself. The kids finally call me by my name instead of white lady which feels spectacular! The other day I went to my friend Agnes’s “Pre-Wedding Ceremony”. It’s a ceremony where the families give each other gifts and basically say goodbye to the bride. It was so fun and they really made me feel like a part of them as I sang and danced the whole time. Sometimes I forget that I’m white until I look at the pictures taken and realize “damn! I’m the only white person!” I’ve gotten use to it and I like to think people are starting to look past it. At least the people I know. At times I feel that race plays a major role in my life here, but other times I get so caught up in the moment, I forget entirely that I’m foreign. Those moments are the ones I love most. Dancing with my friends, singing in church…it’s like we are all one in the same.

This week we’ve been conducting a training for Men As Partners. I’m so proud of my community because I have nothing to do with this. They came up with it on their own, organized it and turned out. Monday through Friday 30 men are learning everything from male and female anatomy to family planning to gender violence. It’s so cool to see old men in my community learning how to talk openly about sex. In this culture, it’s a very taboo subject. Saturday is my Men’s Health Awareness Day and we will be having graduation ceremony for the men who participated. I’m really hoping my event goes well and that lots of men show up. I have about 6 volunteers coming to help me.

Anyway, even though times can get me down, I miss home and a year and a half has felt like a century, looking back over this last year makes me feel like I’ve really done something. When I talk to people back home they are always like “wow what you’re doing…etc etc”, but ask any PCV and we don’t feel like our job is as big of a deal as people make of it. Some days we might not even leave the house once, or other days we literally watch paint dry. But at least when I look back now, I feel like I’ll have something to leave behind here, something to be remembered by. Hopefully these next 7 months bring as much success as this last year has.