working girl

hello everyone! well it is friday afternoon here - i am almost done w/ my first full week of work!

on saturday, our orientation was over, so the 4 of us went to our separate homes, where we'll spend the next 3 months. we are on the outskirts of the town of kakamega, but all in different places. so on saturday, i met my host family and spent the weekend w/ them. i have a host mom, who is about 50 and has 6 grown children, one of whom lives w/ her. she is awesome - sort of intimidating, but very nice!! a lot of the women here are very submissive b/c of gender roles and such, but she is definitely very strong - so that is awesome! her son lives there, too, along w/ his 2 wives (who are about my age!) and 4 children - a 12-year-old girl, a 5-year-old boy, and two babies. it is definitely awkward to be living w/ a completely new family, in a totally different cultural context - but it's been fairly smooth so far! my swahili is not very good, and they are all very patient w/ me! luckily, they speak a little bit of english, so the communication barrier hasn't been too bad.

last weekend i spent most of my time w/ the family on their compound. on saturday, the day consisted of a lot of sitting around and awkward conversation in broken swahili and english, so that was kind of a long day. on sunday morning, we went to church (where my host mom is sort of like an elder) and after 4 hours of singing and preaching in swahili, it was over. definitely a change. they are in no rush to stop the services! after that, we spent most of the day walking around, making dinner, and cleaning. being here has already made me very thankful for granola bars, starbucks, microwaves, subway, etc... b/c so much of the womens' time here is spent preparing food, cooking, and cleaning up afterward. i've already determined i would be an awful african housewife. however, it has been good to spend a lot of time in the kitchen w/ the women, b/c it's helped me get to know them better. i offer to help every night, but i think they're all still a little skeptical of my cooking skills, which they should be. most people here are surprised that i'm not married w/ children and that i don't really know how to cook - since most girls my age are and do. overall, i love my host family - they've been really good to me. it's difficult during the week, b/c i am normally at work most of the day, then when i get home, it's time to cook dinner and then go to bed - so i don't get to spend much time w/ them.

i also started my job this week - working at a non-profit here called Community Action for Rural Development. I've spent most of the week just talking w/ the other people who work there, walking around the area, reading materials, etc... to prepare to really start working. i work w/ 4 other national guys, so it will be an interesting dynamic i think! these past couple days we traveled to a nearby city to do a training program/conference on HIV/AIDS prevention in the work place. it was an interesting experience! it left me w/ a lot of questions about culture and society here. hopefully this semester i will find some answers to my questions, although these issues are so complex that i'm not sure how best to get answers! at the conference, my boss had me do two presentations - and i was not totally sure what the heck i was doing, but it was a good/humbling learning experience for me. i am realizing how hard it is to make sustainable changes, b/c so much of peoples' behavior is so rooted in culture and society - it's hard to know how to change, and what you should try to work toward. luckily, i have a really good support system here of FSD staff and other interns, so it'll be good to have people to walk through everything w/ me.

well i am currently on a random 1-hour break from work - my boss just told me to go take a break, so i'm at an internet cafe. the concept of work is a lot different than what i'm used to. most people take long lunches, or come in late, or take random breaks during the day - the pace of life is just a lot slower, which i'm finding to be both nice and unnerving.

so i have about an hour left of work today, and then i'm meeting up w/ 2 other interns to have a after-work drink to celebrate our first week of work!

tomorrow, all of us interns have a meeting in town - and then the rest of the weekend will probably be much like last weekend!

i will try to post some pictures as soon as i can - i keep forgetting to bring my camera to the internet cafe, but i'll try to remember next time! thank you so much for your love and prayers - please email me when you can to let me know what's going on w/ your lives!!