Well I'm in Kenya. Have been for about five weeks. I'm not sure exactly what to tell you, so maybe I'll run through a (sort of) typical day here in training.
The sun rises at 6 am year round since we're right on the equator. I get up soon after. I'm staying with a family of a mom, dad, and four boys ages 6, 13, 15, and 16. They're on break from school this month, so they're usually around outside somewhere. I spend some time writing in my journal or getting my language notes together while my bathwater heats on our kitchen fire (outside across from the house). I visit the pit latrine (translation: outhouse with a hole in the floor to serve as my "toilet") as our farmhand milks our three cows. When the water is hot, I take a bucket bath. Think camping without a shower house. My "mama" usually has breakfast waiting by the time I'm dressed, so I sit with my "dad" and eat bread with margerine and a banana and drink tea and fresh boiled milk. We usually have the tv on (yes, we have electricity, so we have lights, a tv, and an outlet to charge our cell phones, but we cook all our meals over a wood fire. Welcome to Kenya!) and I listen to the news in Kiswahili. I am starting to be able to pick out random words and phrases, but by no means can I follow what they're talking about.
By 8 I leave for language class. There are 40 volunteers in this training session, and we are broken up into four or five person groups for language classes. Our primary method of transportation is by foot, so I walk down our path and along the road to another volunteer's "house" for class. I used to feel like I'd accomplished something when I walked the two miles to and from my gym in Hawaii. Here, two miles is my short walk to class. Funny how your perspective changes! We study language for the rest of the morning, then head into town for lunch. We eat at one of the restaurants, usually beans and rice or an omelette with veggies mixed in. The food is not bad (except for the meat, which is tough and or fatty or full of cartilage and gristle), but it's pretty bland. There are a few places that serve fries, and that's a luxury to have once in a while.
After lunch we meet again at 2 for technical training. The 20 of us business volunteers meet with our trainer and talk about the projects we've been assigned. We each got partenered with a local business, so we have to meet with them to get a feel for what we may be doing at site. My group is an HIV/AIDS support group that sells beadwork for extra money (like about 20 other groups in town). I'm finding the work a little frustrating, but I think it's a good preview of what I may experience at site. When we're done meeting, we usually go back to a restaurant for more chai and to relax or to someone's house to play cards. We all need to be home by dark, which here means 6:45, so we have a limit to how much hanging out we get to do. When I get home I spend some time reading or studying until dinner, which here is served anywhere between 8 and 9:30 and then straight to bed.
This has become routine for training, but things will be turned upside down when we get sent out to our real assignments. I'm looking forward to settin up on my own and managing to take care of myself. I'm also looking forward to finding out what my assignment will be, but that won't happen until the first week of January. I miss the U.S. and everyone all the time, and am sad to be missing the holidays at home. Mom has my address if you want to send cards, letters, or surprises! I probably won't try to blog again until I'm at site (so after Jan 9), so don't expect to hear from me before then. I do check my email about once a week, so feel free to write!
love me.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
And We're Off
Just a quick note as I leave Philly...we're on our way (by bus) to JFK to get on a plane to go (by way of Amsterdam, Holland) to Kenya. We're scheduled to arrive Thursday night and then who knows when I'll be back online. Thanks to everyone for calls and notes!
love me.
love me.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
2 Weeks and Counting
Welcome to my new blog!
There are exactly 2 weeks until I leave for staging with the Peace Corps and get started on my move to Kenya. As I write this I can look out the kitchen window and watch the snow piling up on the deck. In about 15 days I'll be on the other side of the globe in the bright summer sunshine of Embu, Kenya, watching anything but snow.
I am a Small Enterprise Development volunteer, which means my purpose is to "enable rural Kenyan communities to increase their capacity to purchase goods and services they require for their livelihood by deriving better returns from their income generation activities." Some of the things required of me will be to analyze the local business environment, train entrepreneurs in a range of business skills, provide guidance and support to entrepreneurs, and teach computer literacy.
I will be meeting a group of fellow volunteers in Philadelphia where we will get some training information and then fly as a group to Embu, Kenya. Once there, we'll spend 8 weeks living with local families and training in language (Kiswahili), culture, and our jobs. Sometime during that training I'll be assigned a specific project in a specific place, but until then I have no idea where in the country I'll wind up.
For the next two weeks I'll be busy taking care of my bills and legal stuff, buying what I think I'll need with me in Kenya, and attempting to pack those things into two suitcases weighing less than 80 pounds total. I figure if I can do that and wind up with a halfway adequate household in Kenya I've already accomplished a lot!
It's been super surprising how many people I've run into in the past few months that either has been to/lived in Kenya or knows someone who has. It's a small world and appears that Kenya is a pretty friendly country. I have not heard a single negative thing from anyone and have heard more good things about Kenya than I could list, so I think this is going to be an even better experience than I imagined so far. I will try my hardest to keep this blog updated more frequently than the last one. I have a feeling I'll have a lot more to report, so it won't be difficult to come up with things to say...
love leah
There are exactly 2 weeks until I leave for staging with the Peace Corps and get started on my move to Kenya. As I write this I can look out the kitchen window and watch the snow piling up on the deck. In about 15 days I'll be on the other side of the globe in the bright summer sunshine of Embu, Kenya, watching anything but snow.
I am a Small Enterprise Development volunteer, which means my purpose is to "enable rural Kenyan communities to increase their capacity to purchase goods and services they require for their livelihood by deriving better returns from their income generation activities." Some of the things required of me will be to analyze the local business environment, train entrepreneurs in a range of business skills, provide guidance and support to entrepreneurs, and teach computer literacy.
I will be meeting a group of fellow volunteers in Philadelphia where we will get some training information and then fly as a group to Embu, Kenya. Once there, we'll spend 8 weeks living with local families and training in language (Kiswahili), culture, and our jobs. Sometime during that training I'll be assigned a specific project in a specific place, but until then I have no idea where in the country I'll wind up.
For the next two weeks I'll be busy taking care of my bills and legal stuff, buying what I think I'll need with me in Kenya, and attempting to pack those things into two suitcases weighing less than 80 pounds total. I figure if I can do that and wind up with a halfway adequate household in Kenya I've already accomplished a lot!
It's been super surprising how many people I've run into in the past few months that either has been to/lived in Kenya or knows someone who has. It's a small world and appears that Kenya is a pretty friendly country. I have not heard a single negative thing from anyone and have heard more good things about Kenya than I could list, so I think this is going to be an even better experience than I imagined so far. I will try my hardest to keep this blog updated more frequently than the last one. I have a feeling I'll have a lot more to report, so it won't be difficult to come up with things to say...
love leah
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