Yellow House

March 8, 2007

Community outreach day. I am mentally drained. I can be so impatient at times and today.. yep.. it was in short supply.

Held a baby which was lovely. Sadly she had leprosy and it had caused the loss of a foot and toes and fingers (not thumbs though- hurrah! they are just so useful). She also had this pink bubbly scar (?) on her face.. a growth? birth marks? i don't know but it also appeared to be blocking her ear canals. I hope something can be done about that so that she has a chance of hearing. She was so smiley and gurgley and happy just like a 5 month old should be. Why aren't i something useful like a physio or a doctor?

oh and something I think I was wrong about. when i talk of poverty in Kenya.. to clarify.. rural poverty appears much better than in other countries I have visited. Urban poverty. Same stinking hovel.

March 7, 2007

I haven’t written lately. It was intentional. I was questioning the whole blog thing. I was considering what my detractors have said in the past and wondering if it wasn’t perhaps true. And more broadly wondering does anyone really need to hear another affluent white chicks perspective on anything let alone Kenya? But then.. I recalled why I started doing this in the first place.. so mum knew what I was doing and that I was still alive and I realized it was all silliness and I would just shut the hell up, stop thinking so much and write about what I am doing when I feel like it and not when I don’t. End of story.

But in tandem with the above concerns was an issue related to my written ‘voice.’ It actually occurred to me that I never write about serious issues or things too very close to my heart and so that perhaps it was all a pile of nonsense. But Elizabeth Evans (thank you honey) set me straight with a very sensible email. I have really been getting some sound advice from people here, there and everywhere lately. Lovely. What great friends I have. I am such a lucky girl.

Having said all that about the actual process of writing something, anything.. apart from literally driving myself crazy I haven’t done much this week. Met with some VSO person who was in town for a horse and pony show (is that the expression?), stopped by the hospital for the cranio-facial clinic and scheduled some days to see patients there, and today was a typically busy assessment day at the EARC. Other than that I have been working on my 5 day workshop which is progressing very slowly indeed. I have scrapped most of Katherine Storey’s (Past speechie) material and am writing it afresh. The best thing about the participatory approach to presenting is.. the audience provides most of the content. You set the stage for them to process and expand upon their current knowledge and practice new information that comes from inside their lovely souls. It’s fantastic. The handout is a bunch of space for them to write their ideas, and they spend their time getting into groups and generating definitions and role playing. Ha. I’m also getting them to create activities so that we can think beyond this rote learning call and response business.

So what else.. Sunday night I read a book cover to cover. It might have been a crappy novel I stole from the guest house in Ireland last year, but nonetheless it was a treat. I camped out on my sofa and read til I will done.

Yesterday Brian came over for Scrabble and I made a red lentil curry. We discussed issues in education and whose problem is it anyway? So.. that’s it. Nothing exciting on the horizon either. I had anticipated a spectacular dinner and shopped at the market so that I would have vegetables for a really really good fried rice. By the time I got home I had decided I was content with buttered noodles, then the electricity went out (after I had spent an hour boiling water for the filter and making mint tea mind you) right when the pasta was meant to go in, so muesli it is.

Alright back to my training.. Soon. Maybe. B xx

Oh.. and because everyone keeps asking.. on boys..

Brian is my neighbor. We have a standing Scrabble date. No romantic inclinations but a very good person to have as a buddy. All the Kenyans think he’s Somalian.. No Sudanese.. and they stare at him (I suspect the experience of black American volunteer is its own unique experience). We share transportation to and from the city at night.. which is good because apparently Kondele is not immune to the odd car jackings after midnight and neither of us can avoid the area to get home. This is also why I am never out late. So never meet any other boys.

Kenyans.. now.. I bitched an awful lot about the lack of domestic abilities in many American boys. I’d consider a local relationship if I could find one who would even conceptualize a romantic arrangement that included cooking and cleaning. As an aside my coworkers brokering for me inform people that my bride price is a rhinoceros (rather than a cow J). “Because it’s impossible” they say. Right. At a bar one night, a man was trying to pick up my German companion and told us this story (I like a good story) which I’ll abbreviate: “In Kenya when a father doesn’t like her daughter’s suitor he tells them the bride price is a live crocodile. Can you guess why? Because they are worth a lot of money and the man will either succeed and the father will be rich or the man will get eaten and the marital problem will be taken care of. Win-win for the father”. The guys’s line was..obviously.. I would capture a live crocodile for you... The girl was unimpressed. But then she didn’t prefer testosterone. I gave him points for the set up and amusement value.

Jason (of Swaziland fame) is around and is threatening to visit Kisumu. He is in Nairobi these days working at some organization and embroiled in a Kenyan romance of tumultuous proportions. We are intermittently in touch.. though I should pay attention.. if I ever write a book perhaps I would use his current relationship as the event.. the thing all things build to.

So that’s it. Of course if there was anything good and juicy I wouldn’t say.. but I would avoid the topic of men altogether. I leave lying in public forums for politicians. Evasiveness however is fair game.