Kwaherini Matayos

These last few weeks have been such a hectic and stressful time for me. In fact, I’ve probably been the worst off I’ve been since I arrived in Kenya. Let me recap:

I went to Kisumu for Halloween and had an amazing time. I was a zebra, my friend was a giraffe and my other friend was an elephant. I was walking around bucking my foot like a horse and making people hand feed me carrots. It was a great time! I had candy, pizza and amazing food. Kisumu is always a great escape from the village.

Anyway, so after a high weekend, I began a VERY low week. I arrived back to a strange man hanging around my site. For security reasons I cannot tell the entire story, but basically he ended up telling people I had “fallen in love with him” was “begging him” to marry me and it was causing problems with him and his wife. For one, this guy wasn’t even from my village and two, I knew him for a day before he was saying this. So because of this and some other security threats, I had to leave site and go stay with my friend Hannah.

I’ve been at Hannah’s now for about a week and half and I’ve finally received news on what my future holds. Peace Corps has informed me that I have to leave my site…I have to leave everything I have started, all my health clubs, students, friends, organization and completely start over in a new village hours away from my original home. It has been devastating information to receive. I was finally beginning to feel apart of my community and making some real connections. I was finally getting real work done, but now I have to pick up everything I know and move to a village that is not even in the same providence let alone speaks the same language.

I’ve been trying to take this in stride, it’s been extremely difficult to accept, but I’m trying to remain positive. On Monday I will be moving to Bomet, Kenya which is in the Lower Rift Valley. They speak Kallengin and are located in the highlands so life will be colder than I’m use to. One positive about this is that it is located near the Maasi Mara which is a tourist hot spot here in Kenya. Also, I’m thinking about it as another chance to explore more of Kenya. It is not going to be easy, and I’m defiantly nervous to start over, but if I could do it before, I can do it again.

I do not know the new address just yet, but I will post it as soon as I do. I travel back to Matayos on Monday to collect my things and then Peace Corps will be helping me move into my new home in Bomet. I’m asking for all your prayers in this difficult transition. Thank you again for all the support. I truly am blessed.