Yellow House

May 29, 2007
I am in Mumias. I love Mumias. No idea why. Anyway.. backing up.

Yesterday I went to the doctor. She prescribed me cough medicine. I wondered if it might be allergies, she prescribed me allergy medicine (a whole 5 days worth). I said, “you know, I only called because I have had this for a month and my friends are teasing me about tuberculosis” (P: “it would be funny if I caught a third world disease from a white girl.” me: “hilarious”). So the doctor decided I should have a sputum test, an arm stick and a chest x-ray. Not in any particular order mind. All three. At my leisure. I assumed that the coughing up chunks of phlegm into small vials would be enough but no. She even gave me three empty film containers for my samples which was very kind of her. I’m not in Kisumu for 3 straight days in a row until late July so we’ll see. I think it’s just a perseverative cold. I have also thought it was lactose intolerance. And then I wondered if I just coughed when I got over excited. Ha!

Anyway, I traveled to Kakamega yesterday afternoon to meet with the EARC team there. Of course there are issues with money from the Ministry of Education so there are issues with funds for the training. Apparently the secondary district EARCs were only given 10,000 ksh (< $US150) to run a three day workshop for 20 people (100,000 shillings is a more realistic figure when you factor in travel allowance, meals, materials etc.) My understanding was they were getting 70,000 ksh. I had a very small rant. It was minute. Then I headed to Mumias.

This morning I arrived at the assessment center at 8 as directed. 30 minutes later we headed over and it occurred to me that the training was scheduled to start at 8. Nice. At the pace of a melting iceberg (though I guess these things are happening much faster these days with global warming and all..) the participants and facilitators gathered in the one room. The training began.

Now. I have to report that Mumias is one of the leading EARCs for all sorts of reasons. They are competent, knowledgeable, and my expectations were high. In all honesty though, I have no idea what they did with their training money. They didn’t copy participant manuals, all the supplies they have I gave to Martin at the conclusion of the Nairobi workshop and no one is staying at a hotel. In addition, instead of providing meals they are giving participants money for lunch. Which means, no one eats. I know they got their full amount of money because they got their cash from VSO so its something I will have to talk with them about. On top of all this, the training is being held in a school classroom which if it wasn’t noisy enough has a pitiful half drowned kitten mewling outside of it.

The training is going well though. The participants are active and they get it when I make a joke! Martin and Sellar are both prepared and able to respond appropriately to comments and questions. Half way through jeopardy (our end of day review) though it began to rain. It was unbelievable. The noise was so loud, no-one could be heard, so we quit the game and then sat there in silence while water seeped down the walls, blew through the holes where windows ought to be and tip-tapped through the ceiling. It was so noisy we couldn’t work, but so stormy we couldn’t leave. When the rain abated we all fled home or to somewhere more hospitable. Martin and I went to tea.

So. Here I am. On my hospital issue single bed at the St. Mary’s Guest House. I am tired beyond belief but attempting to slog through some of my computer work. Fortunately it’s a three day weekend so I can catch up on reports then. I am sequestering myself. I heard on the radio that there will be a dip in temperatures tonight. Kisumu will even get down to 17 degrees celcius. I love that this is considered a cold spell.

May 30, 2007
Lately I have been getting text messages from a boy that is far away. Only his English isn’t very good so the sentiments seem like poetry (a little abstract, with delightful but novel phrasing). Someone else I know, greets me with sweet endearments (“bunny” I mean really?). But I like it. I really like it. All of it. Of course I do.. it makes me feel thoroughly girlie. What’s more, as I enjoy being wooed with ridiculous lines, as a result I find myself writing excruciatingly wet texts .. let’s see “it’s rainy in Mumias (no pun intended). And in my heart to be so far away.” Good god, who am I?

So I was discussing this all with a friend of mine recently. We were mulling over the delights of males who use flowery language (Kenyan men would seem to excel at this.. combined with flattery). This friend told me that she dated a man for much longer than she should of because he wrote poems for and about her. Long and descriptive stanzas about the way the way she walked down the street, how he felt when he saw her, and why she was the light of his life (even though he was a complete jerk). She typed them all up and bound them, and resisted the temptation to dump him in continuing hopes of more love in rhyme. We thought about all this and decided that while the words might not all be sincere, they were probably true at the time, if even for only the briefest of moments and that’s what made it all so captivating. Hope and romance meet reality for a light lunch.

Given our responses (and I realize I am generalizing on an n of 2 here) I wonder why the average American male is so averse to this kind of thing? Women it would seem love it, and there is very little competition in the sweet word arena. It doesn’t even require much imagination, just the willingness to potentially embarrass yourself (and what girl would be foolish enough to shun your efforts?)!

I just finished Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood and the heroine secretly writes period romances and feels that she has the fantasy life every woman wants. But if every woman wants a romantic fantasy life, why haven’t more men realized they just need to suck it up and utter a few sweet bullshit lines every now and then? Wouldn’t it work to their advantage? Make their life easier? Psychologists say if you fake happy, your brain doesn’t realize and responds as if you are happy, so in the same vein of thinking, if you tell a girl she is beautiful like the moon reflected in the ocean, she will feel this way, act this way and in turn will be seen this way. Ha. What do you think?

Regardless, I think it wouldn’t hurt if more boys just said more nice things.