Annual General Meeting

Yesterday I attended my co-op’s Annual General Meeting. It was great timing that I could sit in on the meeting, as it presented some useful in formation and helped me to understand more about the structure of the co-op. It was also a great way to learn some more about Kenyan culture, as it was so very typical of the culture. Let me give you a rundown on meetings in Kenya:

• They are always scheduled to start at 10am. Any earlier is unreasonable as people have farms to tend, animals to care for, and children to get off to school first and then need time for transport. If they’re not walking the several kilometers, they’re taking matatus (see previous entry).

• They generally start around noon. Since people usually take chai around 10 and lunch between 1 and 2, this cuts directly through lunch hour. Translation: be prepared to be hungry. It is no problem for the Kenyans, however, because they assure me they’re used to it.

• They are always opened and closed with prayer.

• They usually begin with just about everyone present making an “introduction.” Greetings are very important in this culture, so these are not brief and there are usually a good number of people present.

• This is generally followed by reading the minutes of the previous meeting. All of them. Word for word, though they’re printed in English and read in whatever language the group is most familiar with.

• Representatives from various government ministries, NGOs, and financial institutions come—with presentations—to any meeting with which they may be remotely connected. Once the meeting’s business is done, each of these people get the floor.

• The mzungu (translation: me) always sits up front, at the head table, so that my boredom is in full view of all present. Also, if the need arises to use the facilities, all present can watch me excuse myself and speculate as to where I’m going, so I generally don’t.

• They take place in a mixture of predominantly Kikuyu (or whatever the local tribal language happens to be), with some Kiswahili and random English words sprinkled in. This ensures that I have no chance of following what is being said.

• The attendees are generally patient and good-natured. They listen to an entire presentation before asking questions or making comments. Things can start to get out of hand, as evidenced by an old man shouting, waving his cane around, and advancing to the head table to make his point, but they are fairly easily called back to order with no hard feelings.

• By 5 pm people have things to do (basically everything they did in the morning, in reverse), so the meeting is usually wrapped up by then, out of necessity only because people start leaving whether you’re still speaking or not.

After this particular meeting, I practically ran to the choo (“toilet”). Six hours of holding it can’t be good for me, but sometimes it can’t be helped. After getting back to the office, I decided I was too hungry to go through the process of preparing my own dinner, so I went to a café in town. I asked for stew and chips (translation: chunks of beef in broth and a side of fries) and decided to splurge and have a Fanta (a cold one, which is really a splurge). They were out of stew, so I just had the fries with the gelatinous tomato-based substance that passes for ketchup and chili sauce. That was dinner; lunch had been a protein bar (they have been my lifesavers—thanks so much for sending them!), and breakfast was Wheatabix (like a wheat-based oatmeal) mixed with milk and some bananas. I had chai (tea made with half milk and half water) when I got home and another protein bar before bed. I’ve been making more of an effort at eating a balanced diet, and breakfast was a good start, but the meeting threw a kink into the rest of the day, so I’ll try harder next time.

To sum up: I’m glad to have gone to the meeting, but I’m also glad it’s done and doesn’t occur regularly. I have lost enough weight from my less than ideal diet that a skirt that used to fit on my waist now sits on my hips. I am glad to have experienced this bit of culture, if for nothing more than to entertain you with it. I’ll try to get a better recap of the week along with some pictures up by Sunday night. Miss you all.

Love me

Three Hour Tour

Despite my mom's best efforts, her love of photography did not seem to make it into my genetics. However, sometimes when I'm looking at things I do think about how to capture the image in a photo in a creative way. Here, I think about it a lot, both because I have a lot of free time on my hands and because I want to show you all what it looks like here. So Sunday afternoon I decided to walk down to the bridge that is the boundary between my town and the next town over with my camera. Some tips for taking good pictures have managed to penetrate, so I knew that it was probably too bright, but I couldn't wait for better light because I needed enough time to get home by dark; it was about an hour and a half to the bridge and another hour and a half back. So I set out (in capri pants, which are not the most appropriate for a woman here, but it's a lot of effort to be appropriate all the time and I get stared at no matter what I wear, so I decided to be comfortable for once). The pictures aren't great, and the majesty of the landscape doesn't translate very well, but they will give you an idea. I live in a valley nestled between Mt. Kenya to my east and the Aberdare Ranges to my west. Since all of the mountains are volcanos, the soil is bright red (and gets into everything). That's mostly what makes the coffee here so good, if I can put a plug in for my business partner! Ok, the pictures are just scenics as I walked along the road, so here's what I see every day...









love me

Today I Took a Trip

Today I took a trip to a town called Embu. It’s about 50 km (30ish miles) from my town. Another volunteer, Daniel, lives on the way, so we made plans that I would come to his town and then we’d go the rest of the way together. The primary method of public transportation here (and in a lot of East Africa) is called a matatu. The Rough Guide to Kenya describes them as “death traps on wheels” or you can Google them to get an idea. It is a 15-passenger van/minibus that is kind of like a bus and a taxi and a plane in one. It’s like a bus in that you go to the matatu stage (like a bus depot) and find one that’s going either to the town you want or in the general direction you want to go. In Nairobi they are numbered and drive set routes just like a bus, but the more rural you go, the more flexible they are. It’s like a taxi in that you have a little leeway with where you want to get off, and in that the fare depends on where you’re going, though it’s set ahead of time and not metered. It’s like a plane in the seating arrangements, as you have seats with a set amount of space and leg room and passengers with varying amounts of bulk and baggage, so it’s not exactly comfortable most of the time. And then the comparison to familiar modes of transport ends and the rest is purely African. Mainly this applies to space and timing issues. Our language/culture manual makes the statement that “a matatu is never full.” Until there is absolutely no way to squeeze one more child onto someone’s lap, the matatu will accept more passengers. Also, a matatu has no set schedule. There is a driver and there is a person called a tout who manages the customers and takes the money. You tell the tout where you’re going, he tells you the fare and collects it (sometimes ahead of time and sometimes after you’re on your way). Once the driver starts going, the tout lets him know when to stop to let people off by rapping on the ceiling. Once people start getting off, the tout will also start picking up people that are waiting on the side of the road to fill the empty space. But initially, an empty matatu will be at a stage. It will have a sign saying where it is going. You show up, talk with the tout, and then get in. And then you wait until enough other people are going with you that the tout decides it’s filled enough (never full, remember) to go. Some matatus are fitted with a tv screen from which blare either reggae or Christian music videos to keep the passengers entertained. I go back and forth between thinking matatus are an innovative solution to moving people in this society or the hugest mismanagement of time and resources I could imagine.

Let me describe my trip to Embu to give you a better idea. Around 9 am I walked to my office (because everyone works a half day on Saturdays) to get one of my coworkers to help me on my way. Since I needed to go to meet Daniel in his town, I knew I would need make a couple transfers: Mukurweini (my town) to Karatina, Karatina to Kutus, and Kutus to Kugio (Daniel’s town). We walked to the matatu stage in my town and found a car going to Karatina. I got in the backseat to wait for the car to fill up. It only took about 20 minutes to find five other adults and two children also going to Karatina, so the eight of us plus the driver squeezed in and were off. About 25 minutes later we were in Karatina and one of the women passengers of my car walked me to the matatu stage for Kutus. I got in to wait again. This time I only waited about 15 minutes. We set off and drove for about an hour. In Kutus I got out and was directed to the other end of the stage to go to Kugio. I managed to jump in a matatu that was just leaving, so I didn’t have to wait at all in this transfer. Another 20 minutes and I was in Kugio and saying hello to Daniel, the first white person I’ve seen in two weeks. We found a matatu heading for Embu and got in. We left after about 20 minutes and drove for about 40 minutes. At that point, our matatu pulled over on the side of the road where another matatu was idling and they had me and Daniel switch into that one. I think that the matatu we were in didn’t want to stop in Embu just for us because everyone else was going elsewhere, so they transferred us to the other matatu. Strange, but I’m over asking questions most of the time. So then about another 30 minutes of driving got us to Embu.

Travel time: 3 hours 50 minutes

Total matatus: 5

Total cost: 280 Kenya shillings (about $3.60)

Once we got to Embu, we walked around town for a little bit to see what was there, then had a moderately overpriced lunch (beef stew and fries). We explored the two department stores in town and then wandered around a little more. It was hot and crowded and almost four o’clock, so I was ready to head home. We’re supposed to avoid traveling after dark as much as possible, and since dark falls around seven, I wanted to make sure I had time to get home by then.

Since there appeared to be a more direct route home than how I had come, Daniel and I split up. I needed to go from Embu to Karatina and Karatina to Mukurweini. I found a matatu for Karatina and got in to wait. Twenty minutes later we left. We drove for about 50 minutes back to the Kutus stage and dropped some people off, then kept going for about another 20 minutes. We got to a town called Kerugoya and everyone got out. I asked the tout what was going on and he said they weren’t going to Karatina after all, but then brought me to another matatu that was. I got in and waited. And waited. And waited. An hour later, we finally took off with 22 people loaded into this 15-passenger vehicle. In 30 minutes we were in Karatina where I was directed to a matatu to Mukurweini. I waited in that matatu for about 15 minutes. We got on the road and drove for 25 minutes. My house is directly on the main road about a mile before the matatu stage, so I happened to be sitting next to the driver and asked that they drop me off there so I didn’t have to walk in the dark (because by then it was after 7). So after the driver invited me home for dinner (which I declined as I knew a marriage proposal wasn’t far behind) he let me out a few hundred yards from my gate.

Travel time: 3 hours 40 minutes

Total matatus: 3

Total cost: 180 shillings (about $2.30)

So, to sum up, I spent seven and a half hours traveling, rode in eight different vehicles, spent about a day's pay in travel costs (my PC salary averages out to about 500 shillings per day), all to travel the equivalent of a trip to Target (before the one in Amsterdam opened). Karibu Kenya!

Things That Make You Miss a Swiffer

I was reading another volunteer's blog yesterday and laughed when she described mopping her house. Her bedroom flooded, so she used your every-day basic American mop she had bought to clean up the water. Her Kenyan mama neighbors couldn't figure out what she was doing with that funny thing and why she wasn't just using an old towel. See, the Kenyan way to mop a floor is to put some soapy (cold) water in a basin, grab an old t-shirt or clothing item, and proceed to bend at the waist and hand-wash the floor. It's one advantage to having such small houses, I guess, that it doesn't take as long to mop, but it's still a super labor-intensive activity. Just like 99% of the other things Kenyan women do every day. So today I was mopping my floor Kenyan style (because there's no way I would find a real mop in my town) and I flashed back to cleaning apartments in Hawaii. There I used a Swiffer I carried around in my bag. Some of the apartments had such small areas of floor to mop that I used to just do it by hand with a Swiffer cloth rather than use the whole mop thing. Here, I would appreciate the whole thing, but I do feel like I'm assimilating as I drag a rag across my floors in full view of my neighbors.

While at homestay during training I witnessed someone in my family (either mama or one of the boys) wash our floors every day. Here since I live alone and don't make a lot of mess (and it's not the muddy, rainy season) I think that would be overkill. It seems that once a week will suffice (I can do it on Saturdays and use the rinse water from my laundry). However, yesterday some men delivered a few pieces of furniture and tracked up my floor, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to wash it today. Yes, I have a little bit more furniture. I'm including some pictures to show it off. The first picture is my bedroom. Other than the bed I have no place to put things, so stuff is stacked in piles or still in my suitcases for now. I sleep with my mosquito net down every night like the dutiful volunteer that I am (the net plus malaria meds is a requirement for all PC volunteers). My area has very few mosquitos and is not a malaria-prone area, but the net has other benefits. Just about the only kind of bug I do have in my house is spiders and lots of them, of all sizes and shapes. I sleep a lot more peacefully with the net down knowing that none of them will be crawling on me in my sleep!
Next is the bathroom. You can kind of get an idea of the "toilet." It does flush, quite violently, so I generally only flush when I really need to. I keep a bucket next to it and the rest of the time I just dump some water from the bucket in and that flushes it adequately enough. The room also serves as my bathing area. There is a shower (that pipe on the right goes up to the shower head) but it's only cold water. I prefer bucket bathing with warm. I can splash around all I want while I bathe and when I'm finished the water goes down the toilet. It's a pretty decent system.
The kitchen is small but functions. I was thrilled when I saw the sink. Running water anywhere near the house is a luxury, so to have a tap and a sink is extravagance! I'm keeping everything on the shelves until a cabinet/counter is made, so for now things are kind of just piled. I can't reach the top shelf, however, so I'm trying to only put things up there I think I won't need.Last is my mostly empty living room. The table is new and a luxury so I don't have to sit on the floor anymore. We've commissioned a couch and I have a coffee table, but it's in the kitchen being used as a makeshift counter for now. As you can see, the floor is bright red, the walls blue, and the doors and trim aqua. It's a very lively house. I didn't take a picture of the empty second bedroom and it's too dark to get a shot of the outside. It's funny that these are the first photos I've managed to get up, especially considering I'm probably moving next month and this won't be my house for long. But I like to see other people's environments so I have a mental image, so here's your glimpse into mine. The power just went out, so I'm going to cut this short before the laptop dies. Miss you!

love me

Raining on Sunday

Just checking in as I begin week #2 at site. It's been sort of a rough couple of days as I continue to try to settle in here. Just like starting any job, this transition has been a little awkward as I try to understand how things work and find a place for myself in the co-op. I priced some basic furniture for the house with my boss and found that I probably can't afford a whole lot. My boss offered to meet with the board to see if the co-op could provide me furniture, which would be awesome. It also means I have to do without a little longer while they work it out. So I'm still sitting on the floor! Not a big deal, but the sooner this house feels like home, the better I will feel about being here.

I went shopping in the open market yesterday. It's less chaotic than the market in the town where we trained, but still quite a bit different than just going to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Most of the people in town assume I'm just visiting or passing through, so it's been tricky to make them understand I'll be around for a while. Yesterday was a housework day. I did laundry, washed my floors, and made an inventory of all my possessions here in Kenya (fits on one spreadsheet!). It's been cool (60s) and rainy for the past few days, which was a nice break from the intense sunshine, but now is starting to be a little gloomy. I know, I know, you people in New York are rolling your eyes about cold and gloomy, so I won't say any more.

I've been doing a lot of thinking and contemplating and analyzing in this past week. I think that I've made peace with my choices and my work for the next few months and I've made a plan for how I'm going to get through this challenging time. I would appreciate your continued prayers and encouragement because this is definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. I knew coming into it that it would be, but knowing it will be hard and living through it are two completely different things! Miss you all.

love me

More Day in the Life of...

Here is what I did at work today: reviewed the PC emergency action plan, read the job descriptions of the five employees at our headquarters, went to lunch with a coworker, read the newspaper, and failed miserably at a soduku puzzle. It is only the first week, however, and thinking back on it, that’s pretty much how I started at Oakwood too. An office that was being used for storage got cleaned out this afternoon (while I read the paper) so I’m hoping that soon I’ll be in there and that will make things feel a little more official.

After work I went for a short walk down my road away from town, just to see what I could see. Well, actually we’re supposed to draw a map of our house for PC to keep on file in case they need to find us, so I was also looking for landmarks for that. It is absolutely beautiful here. I think I said that the town where we trained reminded me in some ways of home because there were rolling green hills and cornfields everywhere. This town is more of the green fields, though the hills are a lot more volcanic looking since I’m at the base of Mt Kenya. I can see the mountain if I look behind me on the walk to work and it’s great. Not quite as majestic looking as Kilimanjaro, but still pretty incredible. Like Kilimanjaro it is usually only visible in the early morning (6-7:30ish) and in the evening (5:30-7ish). The rest of the day it’s blocked by clouds. The rest of the landscape is just sharp hills and valleys and everything is green despite the lack of rain this year. It’s sort of bizarre because I look one way and I see a clump of banana trees and I flash back to Hawaii and then I look the other way and see rows of corn and flash back to New York. The climate is absolutely ideal as well, at least for now. It’s pretty hot at midday; the sun is strong because we’re on the equator and it feels like the sun in Hawaii with none of the humidity. The mornings are pleasantly cool and the evenings keep the warmth of the day so I’ve been sleeping just with a sheet. January and February are the hot months, and then I don’t know about March but April and May are the rainy season, then June and July are the cold months, not sure about August, then another rainy season in November and December.

According to the paper, last year and this year have had much less rain than normal and it is being attributed to La Nina. I know where we trained the farmers were very concerned about the lack of rain and much fewer crops they were able to produce. Two dry seasons in a row plus the election violence last year (tons of maize in storage was burned and farmers’ planting schedules were disrupted) plus high costs for things like fertilizer has really hurt the food supply here and the government is expected to declare a national emergency due to the food shortage. That plus corruption in the government are two huge issues at the moment and all over the newspapers that I’ve been reading this week and since I got here in November. I have the security of knowing that the PC will give me what I need to survive or send me home if it feels it can’t, so the issues aren’t anything I need to worry about, but it’s heartbreaking for the people who live here and have no other options. It’s even tougher because there don’t seem to be any immediate viable solutions.

Oh, back to my walk, I desperately want to take pictures of everything, but flashing my camera around is not something I want to do this early on. In such a communal culture, everything that I have I am expected to share with anyone who asks, so a camera is fair game for anyone going to a wedding or event or who just wants “snaps” of their family. I am going to try to sneak out at first light on Sunday morning when I think most people will be still in the house to try to get the mountain and some of the immediate scenery. Where we were training I had a much more isolated walk to town and I managed to get a few pictures, intending to get more just before we finished training. However, my camera batteries picked the day before we left to die and the rechargeable ones I had ready to replace them had lost their charge as well, so no batteries and no pictures. A lot of the other trainees took pictures, so I will try to canvass their collections for some to grab. I can take a couple pics of the inside of my house, but (1) I still have no furniture other than my bed and (2) my supervisor told me I’ll probably be moving at the end of February. So we’ll see.

I cooked a real dinner for the first time since I’ve been here. I enjoy cooking and the added challenge of a kitchen with no workspace, no stovetop, and such different staple foods makes it even more fun. I bought a gas burner to cook on (and heat water for baths and dishes and things) and a charcoal stove specifically to use as a makeshift oven so I can bake. The banana bread I made the other day was delicious, as was the chocolate cake we made during training. I’m even going to try making my own bread when I can figure out where to buy yeast.

I’ve been meaning to cook for a few days, but then I got sick and I haven’t actually had much of an appetite since I got here. It’s one of the really cool ways my body responds to stress, which I guess is better than overeating, but no fun. Those protein bars that I received have been a lifesaver because I can manage to get one down and know I’m getting some sort of nutrition. For the past three days I’ve lived on banana bread, protein bars, and fries (at lunch…the smallest thing on the menu). Even tonight I wasn’t actually hungry, but I didn’t want the produce I bought at the beginning of the week to go bad, so I lit my gas burner and made spaghetti. Since there is no tomato sauce in town, I improvised by sautéing garlic, onions, and fresh tomatoes with a little Blue Band (margarine, but the major brand, like how we call tissues Kleenex). There’s a supermarket in the next town that sells both Prego tomato sauce ($$) and tomato paste, so I will stock up when I can get there. Once that was done, I realized that I don’t actually have any forks yet. The only utensils I have are two spoons my homestay mama gave me as a going-away present (along with two bowls and two cups, which was super sweet). So I cut everything up into tiny pieces and ate it with a spoon. Which is, oddly enough, exactly how Kenyans eat spaghetti. They serve the pasta plain as a side dish and they cut it up into pieces because they’re not very adept at twirling it around their forks. Actually, Kenyans rarely use forks. Anything eaten with ugali is eaten with your hands because the ugali makes an excellent scoop. For stews and things they use spoons. I’m pretty sure the restaurants in town only keep forks around for the occasional wazungus (white people) passing through. So I ate my spaghetti with a spoon on the floor of my living room (see above about still no furniture) wearing a skirt/wrap called a leso (lay-so) that all the Kenyan mamas wear and felt that I was really adapting. Lesos are amazing. I can wear shorts underneath and then wrap this piece of fabric around me and be decent to go outside. They’re probably even greater at the coast where it’s so hot and humid, but even here they’re like the Kenyan equivalent of sweatpants. You don’t really wear them out and about, but you can definitely get away with a quick trip to the market in one. However, once it gets cold, I think I will probably trade it for a real pair of sweatpants, which I also love.

Well, this was going to be a short, just-checking-in post, but it has turned out to be pretty extensive. More to follow, but not sure when. Miss you all!

love me

Sick Day

It will appear that I am posting twice on the same day, which technically I am but the next post is one I wrote about five days ago and couldn't post until today. Today I am home sick. I have fluish symptoms and a slight fever, so I told my boss I wasn't coming in today. I have called in sick, including today, exactly twice in my entire working life. I hate doing it and I rarely get sick. However, here in Kenya it could be the flu or something that I ate, but it could also be malaria or typhoid, so I didn't want to risk making it worse or infecting anyone else in my first week here. So I stayed in bed all day and read a book and slept and checked my email, which after our super busy training schedule and hectic traveling, was a good change.

I'll back up a little and fill in the days from my last post. Saturday I slept in a little and then started to sort through everything I brought to Kenya. Midmorning I got a call from a woman I work with named Mary inviting me to lunch. I went to town to meet her and we went to her mom's house for a few hours. Well actually from 11:30 til about 6, which is how Kenyans tend to do things. She has a 6 or 7 year old daughter named Mercy who is adorable. Mercy speaks Kikuyu primarily, but has been learning Kiswahili in school and has also just started learning English, so we could communicate fairly well between the last two languages. I got back home in time to pick up a few things from town and have dinner (hard boiled eggs and bread).

Another girl from work, Ann, had come with us for lunch and invited me to church with her in the morning. We went to the English service of a Presbyterian Church of East Africa, scheduled to start at 8:30. When we showed up a few minutes before 9, they were just sort of getting started. After only about an hour (about 1/3 of a usual Kenyan service) they announced the English service was ending and the second Kikuyu service would be starting soon. I left to come home because I had a pile of clothes to wash. I had meant to wash them on Saturday, but went to "lunch" instead. Now most of the other volunteers loathe doing laundry here. It's a very tedious process. You start with three basins of water. Dump laundry detergent (Toss, Omo, or Sunlight) into the first one and then put clothes in to soak. Take each item and rub with bar soap, then using a technique I think I've just about gotten the hang of, rub the item back onto itself over your hand/wrist vigorously until clean. The first time I did laundry I wound up with four bloody knuckles, but they have since healed as I have improved. Then the item goes into the first rinse bucket, then the second, then wring out and hang (inside out to prevent getting it dirty again) until dry. Like I said, the other volunteers hate it but I find it kind of soothing. It makes my back hurt because there's no good way to bend over the basins and it usually takes a minimum of an hour and a half, but I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I'm done.

Aftear laundry I read for a while (the Peace Corps has given us all kinds of manuals and handbooks to read) and had more eggs and bread. Then Ann invited me over to her house for lunch (ugali and sukumawiki. google them, they're definitely not my favorite). She had invited some of her friends from church and was insistent that they become my friends too. That's good, but I don't make friends instantly and couldn't quite explain that to her. Then we went back to church for a youth group meeting and then home to bed.

Monday morning was my first day at the co-op. My boss asked me to come in at 9 and attend a board meeting at 10 (I think I said it's a pretty Western company). In training it was explained to us that generally meetings scheduled for 10 will start anywhere between 11 and noon, so I expcected to wait. However, at 2 when I was starving for lunch and still waiting for the meeting to start, I wasn't waiting so patiently. Mary fed me chai (tea) and chapati and a mango, for which I was very greatful, and then finally around 3 I went into the meeting to meet the board members and introduce myself. Ten minutes later we were done. Then Mary took me around town and helped me buy some more things for the house. I'm pretty well set up now except for furniture. We were going to discuss that today, but when I got home last night I started feeling not so hot. I bought groceries to make banana bread and spaghetti, so I got the banana bread going and by then I was feeling really not good. Since I was cooking the bread on a charcoal jiko (stove) I checked it after an hour, saw it needed more time and that the coals were dying, and just left it and went to bed. It turned out really well, despite everything. Baking here is interesting. I'm happy to experiment with it for something to do, but I wouldn't want to have to do it this way forever.

That brings us back to today, which is ending peacefully. I want to spend the rest of the week finishing settling in and starting to get to know the co-op. Feel free to email or call anytime...I'd love to hear from you. Miss you all.

love me

About Time for an Update

Well after not writing for quite a while, there’s a lot to say. Here’s the beginning of an older blog entry I never finished or posted: This is the first time I’ve ever rung in the new year in a foreign country, so I didn’t have very high hopes for the holidays, but they turned out well. We were in the middle of our sixth week of training when we broke for Christmas and Boxing Day. Having spend two Christmases in Hawaii, it wasn’t completely strange to have warm weather and no snow, but the complete lack of any holiday hype leading up to Christmas was a little odd. There were no carols playing on the radio or festive decorations anywhere. There were a few commercials about holiday sales at the one big chain store in Kenya, but that was about it. My host family treated it like pretty much any other day as well. Well, actually, the tradition is to have a church service on Christmas Eve leading up to midnight and then another one Christmas morning. Since my host dad is a pastor I was prepared witness Christmas Kenyan style; however, all the power in the town went out Christmas Eve afternoon and didn’t come back on all night. So we didn’t go to church for the big midnight service. Then Christmas morning was like any other day on the farm and we didn’t go to church then either. I probably could have just asked why we didn’t go, but they didn’t bring it up, so I just let it go. I learned how to make chapati for most of the morning. Chapati is pretty similar to tortillas but a little thicker and much greasier and all together delicious. It is one of my favorite foods her and will probably be a staple at my house, although it’s pretty tedious because after making a very simple dough, you break off small pieces, spread oil on them, roll them up, let them sit, roll them flat, and then fry them one at a time on a hot cast iron chapati pan.

Now for the big news. I am an official volunteer! We had our swearing in ceremony on January 8, one day after receiving our site assignments and meeting our new supervisors. I am in a town in Central Province called Mukurwe-ini. It is near Mt. Kenya and the city of Nyeri, which I hear is a pretty big place. I got two different population estimates for the town, so it’s somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 people. I live on my own for the first time ever in a two-bedroom apartment. By Kenyan standards it’s a palace: One large living room, a tiny front bedroom, a decent-sized back bedroom, an inside “toilet”/shower room, and a tiny kitchen area with a sink with running (cold) water! I also have electricity, although I’m paying for it so I’ll probably try to use it as little as possible (as I sit here on my laptop in the dark!). I am only about 3 hours driving distance from Nairobi, which is a big relief. Most of the other volunteers I’m close with got placed on the coast, which is great when I want to visit, but a really long trip (about 8 hours from Nairobi to Mombasa, then one or more hours to their various sites). I’m very glad to be in this province with a dry, cool night/warm day climate rather than at the hot, humid, very Muslim-influenced coast. From what I hear, I’m actually going to have to pick up some more warm clothes because when it’s cold, it’s pretty cold (even down to the 30s).
We volunteers spent the past few days in Nairobi to finish training, get our site assignments, meet our business partners, and swear in. Then this morning we all traveled with our partners to our sites. My method of transportation was a minivan type public vehicle called a matatu. My partner and I crammed into the seats with my bags and were on our way by 10am. We arrived at my apartment (after changing matatus in a town called Karatina) around 12:30. We dropped off my bags then went to the office to meet some people. I am working for a company called Rumukia Farmer’s Co-op Society. It is the second largest coffee co-op in the country. From what I saw at the office today, it runs more like an American company than anything I’ve seen in Kenya. My Peace Corps supervisor told me that they reviewed everyone’s resumes and picked mine, which is both flattering and daunting. It sounds like they have a lot for me to do, which is good because I like to stay busy, but then again “a lot” by Kenyan standards is probably slightly different.

We certainly stayed busy today. After stopping at the office, we got lunch at a hotel in town (a dish called githeri which is just beans and corn together and chapati, of course). Then we picked up the bed my partner had very thoughtfully commissioned for me from a carpenter friend. My apartment is completely unfurnished, so having him help me with the bed was a huge relief because that, to me, is the most essential piece of furniture and also the most difficult to deal with acquiring. Then we bought a mattress and most of the things I need for the kitchen. Although I have electricity, I’ll be doing most of my cooking on a Coleman type single burner and a charcoal burner (called a jiko). We picked up plenty of paraffin and charcoal, so I should be set with those for a while. I am trying to figure out how much I will actually cook, but until I know my work schedule, it’s hard to determine. Breakfast will probably not require heat except if I make tea. I am only a 15 minute walk from the office, so I may come home and make lunch, although the place we had lunch today was super cheap, so it may be cheaper to just buy it. I’m a little concerned with money right now because I really have no idea how much things will cost. Plus I’m paying my water and electric which many others don’t have to do, plus Peace Corps has cut our living allowances due to budget stuff. I’m sure I’ll figure it out; we spent some time with a few current volunteers that have been here for a while and they seemed fine with money, so we’ll see. I still need to furnish the rest of the house, which I think will just entail a couch and maybe a chair or two, a coffee table for the living room, a work table for the kitchen, a dresser, and maybe eventually a bed for the second bedroom for visitors (hint, hint).

After buying all of these items we brought them home in a taxi and I’ve spent the rest of the evening sort of unpacking and settling in. After making sure I didn’t need anything else tonight, my partner said “see you Monday” and left. I have a fairly busy weekend ahead of me just doing the settling in things, but at the same time I’m wondering how I’m going to get through two entire days on my own in a brand new town. I’m confident that I can, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a long weekend. I’m going to break now and go to sleep (it’s 7:30 but I’m exhausted and drained). Let me know if you want any specific information and I’ll try to blog it or email you. Otherwise it will be more of my rambling thoughts as they spill out! Miss you and love you.

Love me