legal in kenya

a lot has happened since i last wrote. i'm not very good at collecting and writing my thoughts sometimes, so this might be really long and jumbled. hopefully, it will be long in a good sense, like harry potter book 5, and not in the bad sense, like christmas letters where people discuss their medical ailments of the past year.

i left off last thursday, as i was preparing to officially start my environmental education program. it actually started this past monday, so last week i was doing a lot of prep work for that. it wasn't too stressful, even though i had absolutely no idea what to expect, as far as how well the program would actually go. so on friday, i did some last-minute preparations and decided to just enjoy the weekend. my boss is always telling me that i should "go out" on friday nights, but i always decide against that because A. that would totally cramp my usual friday night routine of dinner with the family followed by an early bedtime and B. my least favorite thing about kenya by far is the drunk young male population, so i'm never too eager to go spend an evening surrounded by them.

so, the next day, we (the interns) met up with the 3 new interns who just arrived in kakamega. they had just spent the week doing orientation stuff, and were about to go meet their host families. it's really interesting and weird to have new people here, but they're all great and it's been fun to get to know them so far. i like them a lot, but i am still so thankful to have come with my group. we've formed such great friendships and i truly love spending time with them.

after that, we decided to hang out in town all day, and then we went to our program coordinator's house to spend the night. we just hung out, talked, shot the breeze... and watched anchorman. every person in my group can quote "the best of will ferrell" (volumes 1 AND 2) pretty much verbatim, so the movie selection was enjoyed by all.

so..... monday. i officially started my environmental education program in 16 local primary schools. (don't worry, i didn't go to all 16 schools on monday...) basically, the idea behind this whole project is to talk about envirnonmental issues in kenya, especially deforestation - which is a huge problem, and then plant trees with a group of students. i am not a teacher and i don't know anything about afforestation. before i came here, if you would've told me that this would end up being my project, i would've laughed in your face. but, this is what i'm doing. and although i have meager skills, i absolutely LOVE doing this. my workplace is sort of a wasteland (but that's a story for another time) so it has been really awesome to go out to schools and really get a sense of the local community. there are a few reasons i chose to do this project. First, because it falls in line with the goals of CARD - this is something they've been wanting to do for a long time. Secondly, because any form of tree planting is a good thing, and it's even better to teach kids about the importance of doing this, since their generation are the ones who'll have to deal with all the negative effects that deforestation will have had on the environment and economy. Lastly, because I wanted to do something that would really connect CARD with the community - a project that would introduce schools and CARD to one another, in hopes of working together in the future. So, even though this project has been extremely frustrating at times, it has been so worth it because of these three things.

This week we went out to 8 different schools. I am definitely not a person who absolutely loves kids. In fact, I normally dislike walking across a primary school compound amidst millions of screaming children. However, it is so cool to sit in a classroom with a small group of students and see how excited they are about learning new stuff. And they all know way more than I do about soil conservation, which I've seen demonstrated multiple times this week, by the fact that they already seem to know most of the stuff in my lesson plan. for what it's worth, it was all new to me when i wrote the plan. this is probably the same epiphany that the person who started "are you smarter than a 5th grader had." ahh i could've invented that! anyway, it's a weird thing... the kids are so well-behaved, and they know so much. i wonder how much of it is because of a fear of punishment. in any case, these kids are cool because they're still at the age where learning is fun and you want to be a good student. it's sad that, i'm sure many of these kids won't have the money to go to secondary school (basically like high school). primary education is mostly free, but after that, who knows. it just depends on how good of a student you are and how much money your family has. and it sucks that at 14 years old you might just be done with school for reasons you have no control over. but right now, meeting these kids, watching them plant trees, seeing them be excited to just be kids... it's really cool. it's what's keeping me so passionate about what i'm doing here. and i'm not even doing anything. i'm sort of facilitating and doing leg-work, but it's the teachers who are doing all the work, and it's been really inspiring to be around people who love the kids and their jobs so much.

so, that's been my week at work! on tuesday, i turned 21! yes, i know that's not very exciting for anyone else, since i'm always the young one, but i feel like it was a milestone of sorts. i actually do feel older. and the drinking age here is 18 (or whatever) so turning 21 in kenya means nothing, legally, but it was still a fun day. i'm sure it'll sound really cool to tell people that i had my 21st birthday in kenya, but in my head, i'll always know that it was just a normal day - wake up, go to work, had some drinks after work with the interns - but nothing crazy. i had to be home before dark - had some lentils and rice for my bday dinner and went to bed at 8! that's probably the earliest i've gone to bed on my birthday since i was 6, but i am really embracing this new lifestyle. i kind of like it.

then wednesday. or halloween. we didn't celebrate that, though, so i'll just call it wednesday. it was a pretty intense day. one of the other interns, abbey, is working at a medical clinic in a village about 30 minutes away. one of her main projects was to do a VCT day. VCT is voluntary counseling and testing for HIV. The clinic got about 5 counselors to come that day, and the whole day was spent by them testing individuals. The routine is that people o into a private room with a counselor, who talks to to them about HIV/AIDS, and then about their sexual history, and then they take a blood test. This whole process takes about 10-15 minutes. That day, there were 138 people tested and only 5 counselors, so although it was great to have a big turnout, it was a very busy day. So, when we arrived (the 5 of us), we got tested first. The people working at the clinic really wanted us to do this - they told us that a lot of the people in this rural village are so reluctant to get tested. Some of them don't really know how HIV is transmitted, so they don't know if they're even at risk. Or, some of them think they might have it, but are afraid of going to get tested - either they just don't know what it's like, or they're scared that their friends and family may find out. There is still such a huge stigma around getting tested. I think that most Americans might say the same thing - that it's awkward or embarrassing to get tested - but it's different here. Villages are small, everyone knows everyone, and if you have HIV/AIDS or even just get tested for it, people know right away. So, it's sad but understandable why people shy away from it so much. So, the people at the clinic had us get tested first, which was a crazy experience. I had done this before - before going to Equatorial Guinea last summer, the missions organization had us get tested first. But that was in the US, and nobody asked questions. Here, the counselor talked to me the way she had been trained to. At first, it was kind of... comical (I know, that make me sound like a horrible, horrible person) - but that's really how I felt. It had been a busy, fun morning, and my mind wasn't really comprehending what that day was going to be about. For me, I knew I didn't have HIV, so I wasn't worried at all. And when she talked to me about the methods of transmission and how to prevent infection, I knew all the answers. Duh, who doesn't know this stuff? But then I realized, there's a reason why she's saying these things. For some of the people getting tested here today, this is a reality. They walk into a room, totally aware that their lives might be completely and totally different in 10 minutes. How do you prepare yourself for that? How do you get up the courage to face that? And it's not because these people are promiscuous - although maybe that's true in some cases. For some of the women, they were there because their husbands are unfaithful (a common situation), and when they come home and want to have sex, they're going to have sex. the culture is becoming more and more progressive, but especially in rural areas, the gender roles are still fairly unequal. if a woman knows that her husband is cheating and therefore is at risk for HIV, she can't just say "no" to sex when he comes home from "business trips." it doesn't work that way, in many cases. we americans like to think that people are autonomous and have complete control over their own bodies and decisions, but sadly, that's not the way it is everywhere. and saying "be abstinent" or "use a condom" isn't always relevant or realistic. and that sucks, but what's the alternative? leave your husband? not when your husband is providing financially (however little it may be), or when you might shame your family to leave a marriage.

so... i don't know. i don't have any sort of conclusion for this. it was just a crazy day... "AIDS in Africa" actually had faces and names and voices and laughter and tears. and it was real and i'm not sure how to process it or what to think, but i do know that it was one of the most intense days i've had here and i wanted to share it with you all.