Crazy Day: Part I

Personal Banker

Warning: Normally kind and easy going, I was slightly stressed on this crazy day and actually disparage two human beings in the passage below. Just want you to be prepared...

No longer able to bear not hearing my children's voices, I go to town during lunch to buy a mobile phone, the first in my life. Don't even know how to turn one on. Of course, once I've chosen a phone I don't have enough money on me, so I go to the bank to exchange US dollars to Kenyan Shillings. Seems they've closed my account. Why?!!! Opening the account meant showing a letter of introduction from VSO, as well as having my supervisor, Reverend Obondi, standing next to me, vouching for me. In addition, they needed to see my passport, my Kenyan ID and a passport photo. A month ago, when opening the account, I try to deposit money, but Robert Matete the “personal banker” says I'll receive a letter letting me know when my debit card is ready for pick-up. I can simply put money in the account then. What he doesn't tell me is the account will be closed if monies are not deposited in five days. Today he tells me the account is now closed and we must go through the entire application process again. “But you made copies of all the paperwork,” I say.

“Those paper have been sent to the Nairobi branch,” Walter replies.

“Didn't you keep a copy of the papers here?”

No answer.

So I'm mad and I stare out the window and say, “I'm mad.” Robert agrees and says, “I'm sure you're mad at yourself.” Well, I'm not mad at myself, I'm mad at the stupid bank's restrictions and mad at Robert for not telling me about the five day deposit rule. African banks do not operate in any way like banks in the west. I mean, they don't even take customer's home mailing addresses because the postal service doesn't deliver to homes, only PO Boxes. Robert writes my address down as “Milimani Road behind the Classic Guest House.” They'll send a letter to TICH's P.O. Box when the debit card is ready. Barclay's doesn't send out monthly statements. You have to go to the bank and stand in line to get a copy of your bank statement. I'm determined to get this account settled today because it's needed for payroll deposits. So I peddle home and get money and my debit card for my US bank account, plus all the paperwork (except for the passport photo, which I forget is a requirement).

I peddle back to the phone store where it takes an hour to buy the phone. Then I go to the bank and wait for one of the “personal bankers.” The first one free is a sour looking woman and she calls me over, saying, “You want something?” rather snottily. Gee, no, lady I just like sitting in banks. She looks at my documents for about an hour with her face all screwed up tight and then says, “This is a copy of the introduction letter.” I tell her the original was sent to the Nairobi branch by Robert and I point to Robert who sits at the next desk. He's with a customer. She tells me to wait for Robert because he saw the original. Of course.

Robert opens the new account and sends me downstairs to get a counter deposit slip, which he and I must sign. We both want money deposited into this account so the same thing doesn't happen again. It's now 2:25pm. He hands me the slip and tells me to go to the cashier and bring a copy of the receipt to him. I'm fearful he means for me to stand in the line in the lobby. “You mean the cashier downstairs with the long line?”

“Is the line long?,” he asks.

It's always a long line. It's long inside and it's long outside as folks wait for the ATM. So I stand in line and there's this horrible American movie on TV, but I can't stop watching it. At 3pm, the security guard closes the front doors. I step up to the cashier's window at 3:25, then take the receipt to Robert, then head downstairs to leave. But the security guard is not around and the door is locked from the inside and everyone is just sitting and standing, complacently, waiting for someone to let them out. Ten minutes later, the guard arrives, all smiles, and sets us free.

I travel to campus on a flat back tire and arrive at 3:50pm, only to be told by Liz that the director just called a meeting of the Scientific Conference committee. I attend the weekly meetings, usually held on Fridays, because I head up the communications team for the conference. But I'm hot, hot and thirsty, so I ask Apollo to get me a Coke before going in the meeting. We walk to the break room so Apollo can remove the padlock and chain (no kidding) from around the cooler to extract a Coke. 20 shillings and worth every one! Elizabeth the librarian follows me in and says there's someone she wants me to meet. Apollo un-caps the bottle and I follow Elizabeth to the library and find an elderly white woman, Dutch or German, waiting. But there's no time to find out if she's Dutch or German. She's worked with Elizabeth in the past, has been in Kenya for years as an academic librarian, but is now retired. Very nice to meet you but I've been called to a meeting.

Luckily the meeting is not long. Several of us confer afterwards to fulfil some tasks, then I go to my office to write a piece for the website about a new East African cooperative that's starting up. Once it's written, I take it to Tony, who'll load it to TICH's website. He says there is something he meant to tell me, but can't remember. Then he yells out, “Oh, yes, Walter wants us to meet him at 5:30 downtown.” It's my internet cafe night, but I figure we can meet Walter for a few minutes. Tony and I will leave campus together on our bikes, but he's held up a little. With my back tire flat, I go to Fred at the guard stand and ask if he can show me how to use my pump. He does instantly. Mobile once again, I'm ready for the end of the work day, waiting in the cool shade of a tree for Tony and our trip to town, my third one for the day. It's 6:15pm.

Great Actors!

"Selling" Corn to Mama Ogai

Round Two

On our second tour of the slums of Nyalenda, Walter wants to show me the interior. Tony is in town uploading the latest version of the TICH website, so he's not able to join us. In the area we visit, garbage dumps sit on paths between the houses. These dumps contain human waster as well as household waste. Chickens and goats climb on the mounds and dig/peck. The stench is overwhelming sometimes. Garbage pits are okay if they're dug below ground and filled in with earth. But these are simply piles of trash and waste sitting outside someone's front door. With the camera, we document the dumps, the defunct latrines left standing near the water, the minnows from Lake Victoria spread to dry in the mid-day sun as hundreds of flies turn the fish from white to black, two boys drawing water from the stream, women at their fruit stands, widows with their children and children at play.

The children love to be photographed and pose like professionals. But the first group of women Walter speaks to about being photographed want something in return. He holds a conversation with the woman who runs the fruit stand, explaining what his organization is doing in the community. He tells her she'll see long-term benefits, not just a few shillings for the photo. But the talk turns somewhat heated and while I can't understand what's being said, I understand what's going on. When Walter says we should just move on, I listen and move. An older woman walks up, however, speaking very good English. She shakes my hand and welcomes me and says to stop by any time. She is Mama Ogai, the village elder's wife, and she tells us to photograph her with another woman selling corn. As we set up the shot, one of the women from the first group, who wanted to be paid, tries to sneak into the frame. Our corn seller uses her entire body and three “no” sounds to push the woman out of the picture. I grin from behind the camera.

The corn is in a wheelbarrow. The seller digs her container deep into the corn, dramatically, while Mama Ogai flourishes her basket out for filling. The basket is almost flat and made of woven straw covered in dried cow dung. Corn floats kernel by kernel into the cow-dung basket as the women make exaggerated gestures, even though it's a still photograph. They appear rather triumphant after the photo is complete.

It's understandable why the people of Nyalenda expect payment. They see so many groups come through, so many people with cameras who promise more this and better that. Then they never see the visitors again. Hard to believe, but some people will use the slums and its inhabitants to raise funds from donors, and then skip out with the monies. Hard to believe, but then again with such poverty, any amount of money is tempting to people. It's another symptom of the extensive corruption in Kenya, beginning at the top-top and trickling down. The government is trying to tackle corruption through transparency, but it's slow going.

We visit the old Mama again where the common well will be built. She's sitting just outside her door in the same exact chair she occupied on our last visit. She's been ill, perhaps tuberculosis, and doesn't move around a lot. It seems every other person Walter introduces me to has been ill, close to death. They're not always ill with AIDS, it could be cancer, diarrhea, TB or typhoid, which is common in the slums...and deadly for small children. Several toddlers, between 18 and 24 months, sit naked in brightly colored plastic pans, an older child soaping them up and rinsing them off under the bright sun. The last time we visit, the children become terrified by my white skin and scream and run into the house. This time one child begins to cry and another runs away. But the others simply look with curiosity. Maybe after one more visit they won't cry or run. One little girl, about four, sitting under a fruit stand is scared of me and begins to cry. As usual, the ladies laugh, and I backed away saying "pole" (sorry), but the mother yells at this child and throws a flip-flop at her legs. The child screams louder. I back away faster, distressed.

We stop to visit Mama Eric, but she's not home. In East Africa, a mother and father are named for their children. So Eric's mother, while she has her own first name, will be known by the name of her first born. That makes me Mama Jaime and my father Baba Cathy. Walter opens the door to Eric's house and leans in, but only slightly, only enough to determine Mama Eric is out. He spent quite a bit of time with Eric bedridden in this room. Eric has only been gone from the room two days. A framed picture of Jesus hangs on the wall, above two wood-carved chairs with red velvet cushions. We stood in this spot last week and heard the singing prayers and clapping hands. Today we hear nothing.

Call Me!!

I have a cell phone!! To call or text me from anywhere in the world, simply dial +254 723 686 455. 254 is Kenya's country code. If you're calling from a landline, you might not need to dial the +. This mobile phone stuff is all new to me, but fun so far. Texting is relatively inexpensive compared with calling. So, let's talk or text!

Nyalenda Children with Walter Odede in the Back

Regrets, I have a Few...

Last Thursday, as we walk through the slums of Nyalenda, meeting the people and discussing their daily struggles, Walter and Tony ask if I mind visiting Eric, a friend of theirs. Of course, I don't mind. We cross the creek and pass a mud house with a thatched roof, then a second mud house and finally, in the back, is Eric's mud house. They show me the thatching, made from the stems of Papyrus. We hear singing and hand clapping, rather mournful. “Eric has AIDS,” Walter tells me. Eric is 26 and has been showing signs of the illness for several months, has been bed-ridden for a few weeks, but his family is in denial. They believe demons are visiting Eric. Their spiritual leader is here, exorcising the demons with his songs and prayers and hand-clapping.

Walter and Tony visit Eric often. They work diligently to convince him to go to the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Center to be tested for AIDS. But the stigma of AIDS is still too strong. Eric can see no benefit in telling everyone he is infected and actually thinks it will cause people to shun him and talk about him. Walter and Tony accept Eric, though, and they know just how greatly ARV drugs can impact Eric's quality of life. The drugs are now being given free by the Kenyan government (at least that's what the government says) and they can restore health, cause weight gain and prolong life.

While we stand outside the mud house, in a compound in the heart of Nyalenda, Walter and Tony decide we should come back another day. We settle on Wednesday of next week and complete our tour of the slum's water ways.

Today Walter pops his head into my office, a lovely surprise in the middle of a busy day. He's looking for Tony but cannot find him. Walter shakes my hand and gives me a hug and takes a seat. He's preoccupied, but we talk about our holiday weekends.

“Remember Eric?” Walter says. “Yes,” I say, “we're still going to visit him tomorrow, aren't we?” Walter rocks in the chair and makes a tisking noise with his tongue and says he's just been to the hospital and Eric is dead. Walter tisks and rocks and says, “Dead. Dead.”

“I'm so, so sorry, Walter,” I say and watch as his mind throws idea on top of painful thought. Eric was part of Walter's organization, one of the guys dedicated to improving their neighborhood and the lives of their neighbors. He talks about Eric's intelligence, his widowed mother who is left with one son. They'll probably take Eric back to their home place, about 20 km from Kisumu, to bury him. The body will be at the morgue soon, he tisks. “Dead.”

I suggest Walter name the shelter he plans to build in Eric's honor. He nods agreement. “This is a lesson to me,” he says, leaning forward. “I won't wait with my other friends, I will insist they go for testing and medicine.”

“Do you have many other friends with AIDS?” I ask.

“Several. Too many.”

I'm called into a meeting so Walter and I walk to the front. I tell him I'll let Tony know the news as soon as our meeting is over. “Please find out about the funeral arrangements,” I say.

“What about the camera?” Walter asks in a panic. “Will you bring it tomorrow?” The three of us had already discussed documenting the slums' water source and latrines, the children and widows, so I reassure Walter I'll bring the camera.

Walter is tall, about 6' 1”, and slim. He leans in with earnestness and says, “We missed an opportunity.” I instantly know he is talking about Eric. One more day, just one more day, and we would have a photo of Eric.

Walter needn't worry. I'll bring the camera tomorrow and we'll photograph the neighborhood and its people, his friends with AIDS. We'll photograph all of them, too many of them.

Waterbuck & Hippo

Lake Naivasha Lodge

Hell's Gate Gorge

Hell's Gate

The most amazing thing about being in East Africa is the thought of this area being the birthplace of human kind. The Great Rift Valley runs like an inverse scar from Africa's coast, near the Saudi peninsula's attachment to the continent, down through Kenya and Tanzania, dotted with ancient volcanoes like Mt. Kenya and Kilimanjaro, plus dozens of other equally beautiful volcanic mountains rising from the plain floors. The first time I see Mt. Longonot on the road from Nairobi to Kisumu, I want to climb it. The Masai name “oloonong'ot” means “mountain of many spurs,” and those jutting spurs along the crater rim, crown-like, create its royal beauty. We can see Longonot while in a boat on Lake Naivasha, but I don't climb it... (this trip!). You see, Longonot is not an extinct volcanoe, for puffs of steam still rise from its crater's interior, giving it the classification of “senile.”

Geothermal “pools” run underground throughout this area and are harnessed in Hell's Gate National Park, next to the Lake. At the park's lower gorge, a power station has been constructed with minimal impact to the area, boasting pipes of all sizes zig-zagging in earnest. Experts predict the station will eventually supply half of Kenya's electricity. The super-heated underground water can reach 304 degrees Centigrade, one of the hottest sources in the world. On our hike through the gorge, our Masai guide, Jackson, shows us the hot water running down the walls and over rocks, steam rising. Shells lay on the ground where someone has taken the challenge to boil an egg. The water is so hot it appears to bubble in a small, bowl-like rock.

Hell's Gate is one of only two parks in Kenya where people can walk and see animals. Everywhere else, you must be in a vehicle, but here we rent bikes just outside the park's entrance and cycle through, rolling past zebra, warthogs, baboons and wildebeest, cape buffalo and gazelle's. Well, at one point we actually stopped when cycling past buffalo, for fear they might attack us. Stopping is precisely what you don't want to do because these young (huge!) buffalo are just as curious about us as we are about them. So when they start staring and turning toward us, taking an occasional step out of curiosity, we turn back. Quickly. A British couple comes along in their red 4X4 and drive ahead, to scope out the herd, returning to tell us we can safely cycle by if we just keep on cycling. So we do, with a bit of trepidation, and as we pass the massive animals they run away from us!

Once in the park, it is 7 km to the gorge. Several cars pass us, kicking up dust, but we keep moving on the dirt road, spying a Zebra carcass and Speke's weavers. John Speke is the English explorer credited with discovering Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile. Speke and Captain Sir Richard Burton traveled into Africa's interior in the mid-1800s, searching for the source. Richard Burton is my hero, so it's thrilling for me to live on Lake Victoria and to travel through areas he explored nearly 150 years ago. I suspect not much in the way of customs and housing for many tribes has changed since Burton came through. But for the gripping story of their explorations, watch the movie “Mountains of the Moon.” It's an adventure, a love story and an action film!! Burton was something of an ethnographer before anthropology became a discipline. He traveled throughout Asia, Africa and even the U.S., learning more than 30 languages and documenting the customs of societies he visited. He even sketched the people and their abodes. Burton was quite a remarkable person and deserves his own post on this blog, which I will happily provide in the near future!

Patrick, who lives in Durban, South Africa and is in Kenya working with the Mamias Sugar company, gives us a ride to the park, about 10 kms from Lake Naivasha Lodge. As we cruise along the lake's rim in Patrick's company car, he says in his British accent, “You are about to see some of the worst roads in Africa.” And he's right. Soon the road becomes a checkerboard of pocks, large and small and deep, so that many vehicles leave the road entirely and ride along the side (if there is a shoulder to ride on). We bounce and jar, ever cognizant of other cars, who are also bouncing and jarring and often in our path. This goes on for 4 or 5 kms and is all the more remarkable because along the road are nurseries, where flowers are raised and exported to Europe. Homegrown, one of the largest growers, exports more than 50 million flower stems to the UK each year.

This area hosts multi-million dollar horticultural industries. Why do they not repair the roads to transport their goods more easily? Someone said a flower can be cut in the morning and will arrive in Holland that afternoon. Hard to believe with these roads. Because of the number of horticultural farms and their contamination of the lake with pesticides, environmentalists managed to get the lake listed as a Ramsar Site, a wetland of internationally recognized ecological importance. Just within the last few years, the growers have shown an awareness of the dangers of the pesticides for the lake as well as their workers. Measures are being taken, such as not cultivating within one km of the lake (to prevent runoff) and health checks for workers. But the danger of chemical use is the pervasive way it settles in soil and water and living tissue. In her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson describes the impact of pesticides in the United States after two decades of use:

“Synthetic pesticides have been so thoroughly distributed throughout the animate and inanimate world that they occur virtually everywhere. They have been recovered from most of the major river systems and even from streams of groundwater flowing unseen through the earth. Residues of these chemicals linger in soil to which they may have been applied a dozen years before. They have entered and lodged in the bodies of fish, birds, reptiles, and domestic and wild animals. They have been found in fish in remote mountain lakes, in earthworms burrowing in soil, in the eggs of bird; and in man himself. For these chemicals are now stored in the bodies of the vast majority of human beings, regardless of age. They occur in the mother's milk, and probably in the tissues of the unborn child.” (p. 15-16)

Carson's book alerted the government to the dangers of pesticides, which led to environmental legislation and some reform, and her title reflects the silence that follows the death of birds, insects and other animals. Even with awareness concerning pesticides, the future of Lake Naivasha is uncertain. The Rough Guide to Kenya says, “Some of the areas 350 types of bird, hippopotamus and other wildlife are still threatened with extinction, and already the lily-trotter, the great crested grebe and the create helmet shrike have all but disappeared.” (p. 237)

As we skim the lake in a fiberglass boat, I peer at the hippos and flamingos through binoculars, knowing the nearby horticultural houses go on for miles and miles. But in my view, the landscape rolls away in layers, with wall of hill followed by wall of mountain ringing the valley. Looking at the shoreline and beyond through the binoculars is like watching a National Geographic special. So much beauty in the grass at the water's edge, in the furred and un-furred animals, in the feathered creatures only yards away. I feel my heart expand into my throat as the Waterbucks graze and the Pelicans preen. The beauty fills me.

The delicate, delicate beauty fills me.

Preparing to Set Sail, ur, Oar on Lake Naivasha

Beauty and the Beholder

Hilary, Heidi and I are taking a break while biking in Hell's Gate National Park. The sun is severely hot, so close overhead, and the roads are dusty. Sometimes, the sand is so deep in the road's grooves that our wide, knobby tires scoot out from under us. “I don't find Kenya beautiful,” Hilary says cautiously, peering as though she is waiting for a backlash from me or Heidi. I glance at the walls of the gorge rising straight up for hundreds of feet, showing off their stratifications, their lovely, geometric fissures, their strength in standing for eons and eons.

“I think I'm spoiled,” Heidi remarks, “because I've traveled to so many other beautiful countries in Europe and Latin America.” I want to say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but that seems trite and not nearly powerful enough to express what I see when I look at Kenya and Kenyans. For I see beauty and ugliness and sometimes beauty in the ugliness. Beauty in ugliness, just because it exists. For it's perfectly okay that Hilary does not find Kenya's landscape beautiful. As she searches for an explanation, it becomes clear she not only sees the rolling hills and their foliage, but she sees the unkempt environment, neglect, wasted raw resources. I see it, too.

But I see more than the dustiness, more than the landscapes made hazy by the sun's glare. Sometimes I'm not exactly sure what I see. And other times I see beauty so exacting my breath catches at the bottom of my lungs, trapped, until my brain furiously registers the sights and smells of a million grass leaves and pine needles and a gazillion feathers floating, past and present, landing on lion tracks pressed into soft sand, landing on zebra carcasses with fading stripes, muted stripes of decomposing flesh stretching against dried bone. Arresting beauty, heartbreaking beauty, especially in its ugliness. So I know what Hilary is saying.

I found beauty in the strangest place; Nyalenda, a slum in Kisumu. Just as promised when I met Walter on the darkened road one evening, I email him and we arrange to meet at TICH at 8am Wednesday. My initial concern about meeting this man on the street soon subsides. As it turns out, Walter grew up in Nyalenda with Tony, a co-worker and friend of mine. Seems everyone knows Walter and thinks of him as a fine man. So Wednesday morning, Tony, Walter and I walk 10 minutes along Ring Road to Nyalenda, turning into the neighborhood along their water source; a stream of water running faintly down to the river, about a half mile away from Ring Road. The river at the back of the slum flows into Lake Victoria. Tony still lives in Nyalenda, though he has a university degree and works in IT at TICH.

Tony and Walter have such huge hearts, for they know the people we are passing; they speak to them with warmth and coded handshakes and smiles. Their plans are huge. Get the government to change the plastic pipes to metal pipes running from the stream to the houses; build a well at the back of the slum, creating a single, treated water source for everyone so they aren't bathing and washing their dishes or putting their toilet-contaminated feet into the stream; building pit latrines for those who now use a plastic bag, which gets tossed along with hundreds of other feces-filled plastic bags into piles near the stream; constructing a tin-roof structure under which they'll gather the neighborhood children, to teach them ABC's and 123's and about children's rights, because so many of them are orphans living with guardians who do not care if the children are educated, if they loved. Huge plans coming from two very huge hearts.

And that's just for the children. Walter and Tony also plan to create income-generating activities for the widows who are raising their own children and the children of relatives and friends. There will be activities such as weaving mats from Papyrus, which grows along the river. And teaching them to fish. One widow, who looks like she's a teenager, has six children. She makes the local alcoholic beverage, illegally, and sells it to feed her children. Tony worries because she drinks much of the “illicit brew” herself. As we walk through and they introduce me to their neighbors, and as they talk to the old Mama at the back of the slum, who has land rights to where the water will be collected into a single, treated well for everyone, I marvel at the children, who may be naked, who may have runny noses and crusty eyes, but who have a light shining out of those eyes.

There's a light from most Kenyan eyes and this beauty captures my attention in the slums of Nyalenda. A will, an energy. It comes from adults as well, just not all adults. But it's still found in the children and this beautiful hope makes the entire slum radiate for me. Amongst the mud, and the hogs wallowing in the mud, the dogs chasing goats from between mud houses, was this happy energy and excited shouts and frenzied hand waving from the children. And a bright intelligence shooting from their eyes. I see it in children of all ages in Kenya, this potential. They are all pregnant with potential.

As I travel home from Lake Naivasha on Easter Sunday, John, my matatu seat mate points out the rice project in Ahero, how it failed, yet many of the people still, of their own initiative, farm their plot of flood plain to raise rice. I tell John about the potential I see in all the Kenyans, especially the street boys, but in Kenyans of every age and John agrees. He's headed to his home village, about 20 minutes north of Kisumu. John lives in Nairobi and is doing well for himself, but he can see the need of his fellow Kenyans. If only they had the resources, if only the government made sure everyone had clean, piped water, and electricity. If only every child could go to school.

If only.

I see potential and I see intelligent energy and I see beauty, even in the slums of Nyalenda. For Tony and Walter are proof that people can progress on a personal level. Proof that people who have made it up the ladder can turn back and reach a hand to those following. Tony and Walter have their hands stretched out, prepared to pull with great strength, probably greater than they realize. I will reach with them, and pull with them, the young widows and the children and the old Mamas. It will be an honor to be part of such beauty. For beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and delicate beauty is a nourishment unlike any other, a fragile nourishment to be protected and pulled up. I'll follow Tony and Walter into their tragically beautiful neighborhood, to meet their friends with AIDS and to prepare the little ones for school and to promote activities to keep teenage boys from turning to drugs. Those boys who are on drugs look out of dulled eyes, making it difficult to see their beauty. But it's there. The beauty and the potential. It's there, I can see it through the haze. If only we can get them to see it, too.

If only.

Let Sleeping Hippos Lie

Hippos in Lake Naivasha

Everyone knows Hippos are mean and not be messed with. As we circle the family in the above photo, the guy on the left lets out a deep growl that very clearly says, "Get away." And we do. Promptly. The driver of our boat says he had eight people in his boat once and obviously missed seeing the bubbles of a submerged hippo. They can go under and hang out for about 30 minutes and the wise lake-goer will be on the lookout for the tell-tale air bubbles reaching the surface. So when he drove over this hippo, it went for the boat, biting the bottom and removing a section about 10 inches in diameter. The driver found himself with eight lives, nine including his own, depending on his ability to bail out water with a plastic container, keep the hippo from upsetting his boat, and holding on to the outboard motor so he could rev the engine and steer toward the shore. Somehow, they made it safely to the dock.

There are approximately 2,800 hippos in Lake Naivasha. They spend their nights on the shore and their days in the water. A sign at the gate leading from Lake Naivasha Lodge to the boat dock reminds guests not to go out between 9pm and 7am. Otherwise, a hippo might just clasp them in his/her great jaw. Hilary and I venture through the gate one morning at 7:10, confident the hippos are already in the water, but looking sharply in case we have to run like hell.

Lake Victoria Seen from Saradidi Community

Training under the Trees

The Saradidi (pronounced Saradeedee) community is about an hour and a half drive from Kisumu, heading north and then west, skirting the lake. Lake Victoria lies silent just a mile away at the bottom of the rise. Our mission today is to meet with about 70 community health workers (CHWs) for their sixth weekly session of counseling training. These women, who come from near and far, are amazing. They're simply wives and mothers who elect to volunteer their time to their community, learning about health and mid-wifery and counseling, dispensing medicines and advise and care to their neighbors. I shouldn't say they are "simply wives and mothers" because being a woman in Kenya is not simple. Plus, two of the "students" are men. What these women (and two men) are doing for their neighbors is quite extraordinary. Several of them have babies, from 3 to 5 months old, and they bring them along to the training, nursing them when necessary and passing them to a friend when it's their turn to role play.

One child is exceptionally cute at three months and I can't resist putting my finger in his firm grip. "What's his name?" I ask. "Dan Keseje," she says. At first I think I've heard wrong and I ask again. Again she says, "Dan Keseje." Dan is the director of TICH and this woman hasn't just named her child "Dan," she's named him "Dan Kesege." This child's name is testament to Dan's dedication to rural communities and their acknowledgement of his hard work.

In groups of four, the women (and two men) prepare for their role play by selecting a problem one of their neighbors might have. Sitting under the trees in the churchyard, they prepare and gossip and laugh easily. Then they practice their counseling skills in front of the trainers, who are my co-workers from TICH. The ladies speak English and Kiswahili and Luo, and even though I can't always tell what they're saying, I always want to stand and applaud their magnificent acting skills. I want to yell "Bravo!!" These ladies can act!! And I think it's a shame they're in a place a Hollywood director would never look for talent.

And what common problems are found in these remote Luo villages? Well, a mother-in-law dislikes her new daughter-in-law, who has been dumped at the family home by the son/husband, who works in Kisumu. The new daughter-in-law eats too much food and doesn't share any of the monies her husband sends home. There's also the woman who has been married for five years but has not become pregnant. Her husband beats her regularly and threatens to take a second wife, who will surely produce a son for him. They are commended by their trainers for picking such real issues.

Next Week, the ladies will again congregate at the Saradidi Church. They'll bring their packed lunches and one or two live chickens whose feet are tied together. They'll throw the chickens into a corner of the sanctuary and will then spread their colorful pieces of cloth under a shade tree, where they'll sit and gossip and laugh easily. They'll take the written exam, the culmination of their training. And if they pass, they'll receive a certificate proclaiming them to be professional counselors. I suspect these women, and two men, are already excellent counselors. And I know they are gifted actors, every one!

Mighty Moses

Saturday morning I'm up, putting on make-up then cycling to the Kenya National Library across town. Getting through the two roundabouts next to the matato station is hell, what with the mini-buses scraping my fender and people distracting me by calling, “Hey Mama, I see you ride your bicycle a lot," and “Hey, Mama, are you riding a bicycle?” Scary indeed to dodge the mad drivers and smile at each greeter, but worth navigating the labyrinth to get to the books! I drop the application off, expecting to get my card and the books I've been eyeing. But Grace, the librarian, says Moses is not in today and his office with the library cards is locked up. Tight. I'm quiet for a full 10 seconds, then say, “Waahhh” and put my head on the counter, pseudo crying. I mean, I feel like crying for real because I've looked forward to this trek since Wednesday. Grace is obviously moved by my pitifulness. She says I can leave the application with her and the card will be ready for me on Monday. I'm heartened.

Ed and Ian will meet me at Mon Ami's at 10am, so I grab “Surrender the Pink” from the shelf and read for about 30 minutes. Carrie Fisher is so intelligent and acerbic, and I'm constantly thinking how superficial her heroin's life is, concerned about losing her virginity (three times) and finding a man who appreciates her for her mind and body and dreams and heart. Wait, I remember what that felt like. What it felt like to be a woman in love, or wanting to be in love. Seems I boxed up my cravings/yearnings for true, true love and stuffed them in the storage unit in Atlanta, just behind the dining room table, next to the guitar case.

So Monday arrives and I leave TICH early to hazard the matato maze in the busiest part of town, arriving at the library before it closes. And there, as I ask for Grace and am told she's out sick, sits my application on the counter, where Grace left it last Saturday. Waahhhh. But I'm directed to a side office, Moses' station, and he stands, his head reaching nearly to the ceiling, to shake my hand. “So we meet again,” I say to him since he gave me the application last week. Moses is a lovely man, and suddenly interested in me because my job title on the application says 'marketing advisor.' “Ah, you'll have to help us market this library,” he says. I smile, thinking, “When?”

He takes two card pockets and writes my personal information on each. Then he writes my info onto an ID card. There's a two book limit. This raises my eyebrows, and not in a good way. But I run and grab “Surrender the Pink” (might as well finish it) and Rachel Carson's “Silent Spring,” and go to the big, beautiful marble counter paid for by the Carnegie foundation. The woman takes my books and writes on a stack of stapled papers the name of the book, the title, the ISBN number, my ID number and name. I must sign by each entry. She takes my card pockets and deposits the slip of paper from the back of each book. Then she stamps April 4 into the back of the books and I return to Moses to collect my backpack.

He asks me how we check out books in the states. “Well,” I begin thinking it sounds like a fantasy, like a tall tale, like a trip to the moon, “the library card has a coded number on the back and they scan the card, which pulls up your account on the computer. And there's a 30 book limit, so the librarian will scan the book's code, documenting each loan on the computer. And that's that.” “Well, we're not that advanced,” Moses begins, and I instantly regret having told him about the computer and the hand-held scanner with the ultra sensitive electronic eye. He doesn't seem as tall as before and I regret having told him about the 30 book limit. But the Kenya National Library in Kisumu has an electronic gate everyone must pass through to make sure they're not smuggling books. A security guard sits just outside the gate and asks to see the books, checking, well, I really don't know what he's checking as he thumbs each book.

Packing my treasures into the backpack, I'm suddenly tired. It feels as though I've jumped hurdle after hurdle to get these books. I resolve right now that each book I check out will be fantastic. Each book will be well worth the hassle of cycling across town, facing down matato drivers and sneaking around Mighty Moses so he can't ask me to market his library. A girl has to read a raunchy novel in peace every now and again. It's a reminder that she should unpack her yearnings/cravings, so she can remember things like true, true love and feeling like a woman.

And the Hits Just Keep on Comin'!

Casmos sits next to me at the cyber cafe, waiting for a computer. He asks me where in the states I am from, just like that. I say, “How did you know I'm from the states, don't I look the least bit European?” and he says, “I could tell by your face.” Turns out Casmos' brother lives in Houston and he wants to go there. He must 40 or so and is very animated when he talks, sounding much like a Westerner with his slight Kenyan accent. We each get a computer and work away, so when Casmos is leaving, he stops by to give me his business card. He asks if I'd like to get a coffee when I'm done.”I'll be here at least two hours,” I tell him and give him my email address.

Sunday morning, I'm back at the cyber cafe, just beginning to update the blog when Casmos stops by. “I sent you an email asking you to meet me here last night for dinner.” This is the first time I've checked emails and haven't even seen his note yet. He asks if I'd like to get a coffee and I, again, say, “I'll be here at least 2 or 3 hours.” (Turns out I'm here FOUR hours!) He says he'll check back around 1pm. Casmos dresses very nicely, he has a relaxed manner and his business card says he sells medical equipment. He wears his sun glasses pushed up on his head and nice athletic shoes. He's not in any real need, but he thinks I can get him to the states. He may have checked in on me at 1pm, but I am intent on the internet until 2:30, so he may have simply moved on. I'm sure to see him here again, or will get another email from him. I'm not sure I can help Casmos, as I told him the first day we met. Being his friend would be fun, but he thinks I'm his ticket to America.

Albert, the security guard at Kisumu Hotel, stops me as I walk by one evening. He says he'd like to discuss something with me, when will I be by again? I tell him I may be by the next evening since I have to pick something up in town before 6pm. Albert wants me to stop by then. I wonder what he wants to discuss. And then there's Victor, who caught up with me just after I leave Albert to head home. Victor is 18 and tells me his father passed away Friday at 1pm and they need money for a coffin. I'm shocked at this news, at the recency of his father's passing, and I stop walking and grab his sleeve. “Your father passed away this past Friday?!” I say, letting it sink in. My heart goes out to him.

But Victor asks for the 1,500 khsh for the coffin so quickly, without allowing me to digest this news. He asks so quickly that I doubt him. He appears earnest, but I tell him, at great pain, that I cannot help. He then tells me how thieves broke into his home and, when he woke up to discover them, they threw fire on him. He pulls up his left sleeve and shows me a horrendous scar on his forearm, at least one-half inch raised and massive. It is difficult not to be moved by such suffering, but the wound has obviously been healed for years. I recognize he is using his full arsenal to pull at my heart strings, and when I commiserate about his troubles, he says, “I do want your sympathize.” Which amuses me slightly because getting my “sympathize” is the exact persuasive tool he is using to get my help.

“If you can help me with the means to get back to my village where my father's body is.” Sorry, no. “I've never slept outside and I'm scared to be out tonight.” That's tough stuff for anyone to hear, but enough of me doubts his situation that I simply say no. He has walked with me about one-half mile and I worry he might follow me home or become angry and hit me. The thought passes quickly, however, and I walk confidently on, saying goodbye, turning left when he turns right. He says goodbye and moves away.

The trick, the trickiest part of this Kenyan life, is to keep a balance of openness and caution. For there are truly people in need and I want to meet them, hear their stories and help if possible. It's a fine line, this balance between self and others. I reserve the right to help and I reserve the right to refuse, depending on my own assessment and ability. It ain't easy, but my heart is learning to feel, just not to jump out of my chest at every cause. Discernment through (hopefully) good judgement. It ain't easy, especially when the hits just keep on comin'.

Like a Deer in Headlights

Well, it's a rainy night in Kisumu. Around 7:45, thinking the evening's storm has passed, Ian and I walk to the Police Officer's Mess, hoping to catch a movie and drink a beer. I want to order a whole chicken just for myself, I'm so hungry. We use a flashlight to navigate mud puddles and dirt paths. It's a bit more tricky than I imagined and I regret being out here, afraid of the speeding cars on roads with no street lights. Only the thought of chicken and ugali keep me moving toward the officer's mess. A car flies up behind us, going way too fast, and suddenly brakes and slides, his horn blaring. There, frozen in the middle of the road, is a boda boda. The car stops just short of hitting the guy, then steers around him. “What the hell is that guy doing?” Ian asks. The man and his bike do not move.

As we approach, the boda boda attempts to pedal away, but hits the edge of the road where his tires slide out from under him. Afraid he'll be hit if left lying half in the road, I cross and lean over him. He's in his 20s and very, very drunk, his legs entangled in the bike and his seat now twisted sideways. “Are you alright?” I ask, gripping his arm and feeling the mud. “Yes, Mama, I'm alright. I'm alright.” He tries to right himself but is pinned by his bike and his blurred senses. I ask Ian to pull the bike away from him so he can stand, and I assist him in getting out of the mud puddle. His back is wet and his breath is loaded. I fear for him trying to make it home in the dark on his bike.

“Do not ride your bike,” I tell him sternly. “Walk your bike. Stay off the road. Go straight home.” If he didn't sober up when almost hit by the car, he'll need to sleep this one off. I repeat myself as though I'm his mother, emphasizing every word, realizing my heart is pleading with him while my voice reveals nothing but a command. “Yes, Mama, thank you very much. Have a nice evening, Mama.” He shakes my hand, then Ian's, and pushes his bike in the opposite direction, shakily.

There's no movie on at 8pm, just a Mexican soap opera dubbed in English by people from the UK. It twists my brain to hear British accents coming from beautiful Mexicans. It's a rather disappointing evening because they don't serve food inside, just outside in the banda's, and only if you've ordered ahead. So I get a bag of crisps (potato chips) for 10 shillings and devour them while watching the very masculine men and ultra feminine women working at a Mexican coffee plantation. The guy who owns/run the farm looks like Fabio. While his long, wavy hair hangs across his face and flows over his shoulders, he broods about being impotent. What could be weighing on him to cause this problem? Then we see the very spirited, very shapely, almost angelic-looking female laborer, who fights tooth and nail to ward off unwanted sexual advances from her fellow laborers, causing Fabio to intervene and quiet her fiestiness. The way he looks at her says he wouldn't experience his “problem” with her. Oh, it's all gloriously stereotypical, but not enough so to keep me from walking to the door occasionally to see if it's still raining. I feel caged by the night.

We finally leave around 9:40, to avoid watching “The Nutty Professor.” It's drizzling. We turn down a side street and from the dark a voice says, “Why are you walking at night?” We turn to see a security guard approaching us, an automatic weapon hanging from his shoulder, pointing toward the ground. “The bad boys of Kisumu are about,” he tells us. I just want to be home, out of the drizzle, to wash the mud from between my toes and to read “Emma.” He reconfirms it is not safe for us and Ian asks what we should do and he says from now on, this late, take a taxi. So we walk home and I say the bad boys may not want to be out in the rain, which is our natural defense. I've never been so happy to see our locked gate. Though the night is moist, it's cool. I wash my feet and climb under the mosquito net, opening the book to read about Emma's family and circle of friends, safely tucked away in their English village, threatened by nothing more than someone's inconsiderate remark. And I hope the drunk man is home now, sleeping, perhaps dreaming of daylight and dry roads.

Post-Colonial Confusion

Game Day at Central Primary

Central Primary is just beyond the wall outside my bedroom window. Their school uniforms are dark grey pants and skirts and grey and white tops. I don't particularly like the colors. But the kids don't seem to mind. They have a Game Day today and play soccer, volleyball and basketball. They make lots and lots of glorious noise; singing, cheering and screaming for their favorite players to score. The games go on until dark, when the shouts and chatter subsides and makes it way slowly down the street we live on, filtering in through the front window as well as the back. School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. But those skirts have to go. Little girls should be able to climb and jump and play soccer without fear of showing their unmentionables. They need a level playing field. And I won't even go into the fact that children must have school uniforms to attend school. Many, many children can't afford them, nor the 400 shillings due the first year to buy their desk and chair. the desk and chair will follow them through all eight years of primary, but that 400 shillings keeps many from entering even the first level. Although primary school is "free," many children, particularly orphans, do not attend. Why the uniforms, I ask. It seems they're a holdover from Britain's rule of the country. Crazy to me that a child is denied free education because they can't afford the clothes. And crazy how little girls don't play volleyball or soccer or basketball because that's what boys do and because the girls are wearing skirts. It's enough to make you cry if you think about it too long.

Culture Clash

Chris Degnan, our VSO program officer for Western Kenya, consults with organizations like TICH to build partnerships and place qualified volunteers with those partners. He works in the VSO office in Nairobi but travels to Kisumu and surrounding districts regularly, visiting VSO's partners and volunteers. Chris is from the UK, though he's been in Kenya six years, beginning with a volunteer stint in Samburu, in Northern Kenya. Chris' wife, Christine, is Luo, a member of the tribe that has populated the environs of Lake Victoria for many generations. Well, Chris and Christine aren't married, yet. They'll be married in the church sometime this fall. But Kenyans have a habit of saying they're married when they're in a committed relationship. Ugutu, our colleague, also plans to marry this fall. His “wife” is studying in Oklahoma. They've been together 12 years and have an 11-year-old daughter.

Last Friday night, Chris, Ugutu, Ian and me are sitting in a banda behind the Police Officer's Mess. A banda is a hut-like structure, sometimes enclosed with walls, sometimes open with half-walls like the one we're in. We're sitting around a low center table, bending in to pick at the chicken and ugali with our fingers. Two banda's away, the Reverend Obondi is dining with Bishop James Ochiel, a woman and a guy named Albert. Chris mentions he's traveling back to the UK next month with his wife and mother-in-law, to introduce her to his family. Ugutu is delighted to hear Chris has a Luo wife and immediately calls him brother.

"I don't need another Luo brother," Chris exclaims. It seems Christine's uncles and other male family members have been after him to pay a brideprice. “I told them I will not pay for my wife, it's against my culture.” It is a Luo custom for the groom to sit with the bride's male representatives and negotiate the brideprice; how many cows to the father, to the mother, to the brothers? How much money to sisters, parents, etc.? If a woman is educated, the number of required cows increases.

Chris tells them, “I am not a rich man.” He plans to contribute to the building of his mother-in-law's house, but refuses to give money or cows to other family members. To drive his point home, he asks the uncles how important culture is to them. They agree it's very important. Chris says, “Well, in my culture, you would pay for everything and I would simply show up at the wedding.” At first they think he is joking. Talk about culture clash. Kenyans are polite and ambiguous, working hard to save face and keep the peace. Chris does not mince words. He's straightforward and unequivocal, something his new Luo family will get used to in about 30 years (if ever)!

Happenstance and Haircuts

We're sitting under a tin roof, supported by beams of tree branches, sides open. Paul is in a chair with a worn sheet wrapped around his shoulders. I sit on a stack of loose rocks and Joyce sits opposite on stones. The 'barber' clips and clips, shearing away the ¼ inch of growth on Paul's head. Occasionally, I see Paul squeeze his eyes, as if in pain. And some cord, attached from his flinch center to my viscera, causes me to feel it, too. “Does that hurt him?,” I ask the barber, who is young and considerate. “I'm sorry,” he says, “I do not understand you.” “Is that painful to him?” I clarify. “No,” he says reassuringly, “it is not painful.”

Next door, about 40 feet away, an old man works under a tree, making furniture. Next to his shack, on the corner, is a grove of trees under which boda bodas congregate to lub their bikes and fill their tires. Foot traffic passes on the road more than cars. From the house next door, a guy pushes his wooden handcart loaded with 12 black water containers. On top sit two boys, grinning. When they stop in front of the furniture maker, the boys jump off and run back to their yard. The man rebalances his load and turns toward town, using his upper body weight as leverage to steer.

The barber asks Paul where he's from; “unatoka wapi?” They speak Kiswahili and Luo so I capture only bits and pieces. It's hard to hold my tongue, not to interject and answer for Paul. The guy asks again in English. Paul is shy and responds, speaking low. When Paul doesn't respond to a question, the barber asks Joyce. She replies, but also in a low voice. At 15, Joyce is shy, too, but not as shy as Paul.

We've just come from town, me, Paul and Joyce, where we visit Black Berry Enterprises, a school uniform shop. After telling the sales girl the name of the school, Central Primary, she assesses Paul's size and heads to the back. As we wait, an attractive woman walks up to me and says, “Hi!” as though she knows me. It's not uncommon to run into friends and colleagues all over town, so I look closer to see if I've met her before. No. I greet her warmly, though, and shake her hand as she says, with much heart, “thank you so much for helping him. It's so wonderful and we're very appreciative.” At the time, it embarrasses me and I assure her no thanks are necessary, that the thanks are all mine because Paul is such a fantastic kid. Thinking now of her shining, intelligent eyes and how both her hands embraced mine, I truly appreciate her thoughtfulness in speaking to me.

The sales girl brings back a shirt and pant. Gently, she guides Paul into the dressing room, where he tries on his new cloths. Joyce points to the wall behind the counter and says, “bika.” I look to see some very lovely lingerie bikas hanging overhead. They're made of lycra and nylon, shaped like shorts with lace trim on the legs and local women wear them under their pants and skirts. We ask to see their bika selection and Joyce picks out a lovely ecru set. The sales girl escorts Paul to us. I check the fit around his waist and find the suit fits nicely, with a little room for growth. Paul is quite thin.

“He's missing one other thing,” she whispers. I'm puzzled until she says, “he was missing something when he tried on his clothes.” So I ask how much boy's underwear are and we settle on a pair, which she takes into the dressing room with Paul. We also buy a pair of socks, part of the uniform. “Can we try on a pair of these shoes?,” I ask her. “I didn't bring enough money today, but if we know what size he wears, I can run by next week and get them.” We pull one of Paul's shoes off, a black pair so worn the sides and back droop. The soles, smooth from wear, no longer display the size. We check the size by holding the shoe up against new ones. She hands Paul a plastic bag to put over his foot while he tries on the shoe. I tell her we're buying the socks, let him wear the socks while trying on the shoes. She refuses for some reason I cannot fathom. Size three is a bit snug, so we decide on 4. They're lovely black leather shoes, very well made, but I feel he needs some tennis shoes, too. Perhaps next month. His only other shoes are red plastic flip flops that sell for 59 shillings, or about 75 cents.

As we exit the store, I ask the kids if they'd like a Coke baridi (cold). Paul grins and shakes his head 'no.' “No?!” I say, teasing him, “what do you like then?” And he says, “Fanta.” I should have known. So we go to the Somi Snacks restaurant in Nyanda Center, a vegetarian shop operated by Indians, and sit at a table. The waiter brings the menus and we each order a cold Fanta orange along with three samosas. The TV behind me is playing an Indian movie. It's a musical scene, where two very attractive stars are singing to each other, standing close together in beautiful landscapes, the woman's colorful sari blowing sensuously in the wind, its loose floating juxtaposing the couple's sexual tension. Paul is mesmerized. He sips Fanta from the straw in his bottle, nibbles on the samosa and never removes his eyes from the tv screen. I'm a little embarrassed at the intimacy portrayed between the adults on screen, but cannot help but grin at Paul's face, turned toward the tv, eyes wider than usual, and fixed! We linger so he can take it all in.

I suggest we run into the Nakumatt, quickly, so I can buy mazewa (milk). Paul shakes his head no again. I laugh, because I'm not suggesting he has to drink the milk. We grab the milk and head to the checkout, where I encourage them to pick out a candy bar. They both select a Cadbury with nuts. I get a Twix. We head home, munching our candy bars (I'm thrilled to find the Twix tastes just like a Twix from home!). We pass through town and head toward our neighborhood when Paul sees the barber under the tin roof under the trees. He tells Joyce he wants a haircut and she tells me. Let's see how much it is, I say, and she says “10 bob.” That's nothing really, but when I ask the barber his price, he says 30 bob. Wow, I was expecting 10 and I look at Joyce, who also indicates the price is too high. “Okay,” the barber says, “I'll take five shillings.” And then I exclaim, “Five!” I don't understand why he went from 30 to 5, a price much lower than I am willing to pay. So often, things happen that I don't understand, but I accept, hoping with time to learn the cultural nuances.

The barber sits Paul down and begins working diligently. Once he's clipped Paul's hair, he unwraps a brand new razor blades and very, very carefully shaves a tiny path around Paul's head, making a straight hair line, even over Paul's ears and neck. Paul looks very sharp. I'm impressed by the amount of work required, and by the barber's compassionate treatment of Paul, so I give him 20 bob. We're both pleased, though Paul indicates to Joyce it's not a good haircut! He looks quite nice, we both tell him and she assures him it's a good cut. As we walk home under shade trees, Paul plays with a 10 bob, occasionally dropping it, where it rolls down the street away from him. I'm truly pleased he still has his 10 bob, because he obviously grabbed it to take to town to buy something. Now he can save it for a very special treat.

Paul and Joyce cannot know how much pleasure they have given me today, allowing me to take them to town, to buy them needed clothing. It's something I did weekly when my children were young and I miss that part of parenting. There's nothing quite like making sure children have what they need. Not necessarily what they want, but what they need. And when they need, say, a haircut, I'll be there to pass on 20 bob and to feel their flinches, direct from their flinch center to my viscera, via that invisible cord connecting us all through happenstance.

Special Note: When I was leaving home to come to Africa, Kourtney Bryant, a co-worker and friend, gave me a going away gift; a $25 check. At first, I thought about not cashing the check because Kourtney is young with a house payment and other adult responsibilities. But not cashing it would seem ungrateful, and I'm ever, ever grateful to Kourtney for all the selfless things she does for others. So I determined to use the monies to assist someone in a tangible way, so Kourtney can know exactly what her contributions have done to change the world. And now we know, from Paul and Joyce's trip to Black Berry Enterprises. Kourtney's $25 has bought Paul a school uniform, socks, underwear, a pair of black, leather shoes, very well made, and has paid a 400 shilling tuition fee giving Paul tutoring for a year in the afternoons. With the death of his father from AIDS, Paul fell behind in school. This tutoring will allow him to improve his English and Kiswahili, which will improve his progress in other subjects. And we can't forget the bika for Joyce, so essential an article of clothing for a young woman! Kourtney's giving continues to ripple out, unabated, along those complex connections that tie us all as one. She is an angel unlike any other on Earth!

Daytime/Seasonal Names

The Luo have a tradition of naming their children for the time of day or year they're born. For instance, the head of TICH's Health Sciences Department, Stephen Okeyo, was born during harvest time, as indicated by “Okeyo.” The men's names start with “O” and the women's with “A.” Most Luo have a first name followed by their time-of-birth name, followed by their family name. Here's the breakdown as provided by Paul Odhiambo Ramogi (Paul was born during sunset. If he had been a girl, his middle name would have been Adhiambo):
· Mid-day or sunny season – Ochieng or Achieng
· Morning hours – Okinyi/Akinyi
· Night-time – Otieno/Atieno
· Harvest time – Okeyo/Akeyo
· Weeding time – Odoyo/Adoyo
· Rainy season – Okoth/Akoth

Big Day Out

Elizabeth, TICH's librarian, asks if I'd like to visit the Kenya National Library in Kisumu. You bet! So we requisition a TICH vehicle to take us to the library across town and to the new Nakumatt on Nairobi Road, which had its grand opening yesterday. This Nakumatt has a built-in mall with an optician, a car parts store, mobile phone centers and a furniture store. Upstairs, they're completing construction on a cinema and food court. To reach the Nakumatt, we pass wooden street stalls where ladies sell their backyard fruit and second-hand clothes. Small, barefoot children walk in the dirt yards of cement stores sitting close to the road.

We pull up to the gate at the Nakumatt, leaving behind the shoeless and the jobless, and are allowed into the parking lot by the security guards. Before going into the Nakumatt, we walk the mall looking at the other stores. Many are still being outfitted. Barclay's has a branch in progress. The Nakumatt is two levels and vast, selling everything from meat and produce to chandeliers and clothes washers. They have a “bakery” area and a wine section with fashionable walls made of honey-colored, polished wood. There's even cold cheese!! I am so carried away by the abundance I must buy some Victoria Queen Cakes and an avocado (only 10 bob).

Elizabeth and I linger in the garden section, contemplating the best planters for growing African violets. It feels as though I am back in the U.S.A., at a Super Wal-Mart, especially with Eddie Vedder's voice coming over the sound system, followed by Madonna's “Papa Don't Preach.” I look longingly at a 17 inch JVC color TV for 6,995 Kshs., or about $88 USD. But didn't I come to Africa to escape materialism and to, instead, dive into endeavours that really matter? Well....yes. But a TV means international news and educational programming (I promise not to watch the Mexican soap opera with English sub-titles shown every Saturday and Sunday night).

We pull ourselves away from the air-conditioned super store and enter the library. Elizabeth ran this library years ago, so several people know her as we enter. She discusses membership cards and their new anti-theft system while I walk the stacks, dreaming of my own library card. John, our TICH driver, and Elisa, our IT guy, look about as well. Elisa needed a ride into town to buy an adaptor. Immediately, I see books to check out; a collection of E.M. Forster novels (“Where Angels Fear to Tread,” “A Room with a View,” and “Howard's End”), actress Carrie Fisher's novel, “Surrender the Pink,” and Rachel Carson's “Silent Spring,” the African edition with a prologue about Africa's environmental issues. There's a whole shelf on Hemingway, which might be tempting once I've read everything else. Most of the books are old, just like TICH's. Their spines are tattered beyond reading, their covers cracked and dingy. But I love them, every one! German, Canadian and Italian books are well-represented.

Hoping there's time, I rush to the front desk and ask to get a library card. Once it's determined I'm a resident, the woman escorts me to a small room where a very tall man asks me to sit. I tell him I'd like a library card and show him my Kenya Identification card, which affords me all the rights of a resident (including admission to national parks for a ridiculously low rate compared to what tourists have to pay). He reads and reads and reads my ID card, then tells me I'll have to leave it behind when I check out books. “But I've been told to carry that card at all times, in case the police stop me on the street.” Elizabeth walks up and explains to him that I live here and am a staff member at TICH. “Then you can leave your passport when you check out books,” he says. This scares me. But Elizabeth is aware he thinks all white people are tourist, and, yes, tourists are required by Kenya to leave behind their passports when they check out books. He gives me the card registration form, asking me to have TICH complete the back side. Once I've completed the front, I can get the card. And the library is open on Saturday!! All day Saturday!!! (Except for lunch.)

Elizabeth and I climb into the back of the vehicle and we head out on dirt roads, holding on to the overhead bar so we won't land in the floor. But I hardly notice the bumps. There's a library with a well-stocked philosophy section. I'm going to get a card. And they're open all day Saturday!

Meeting Walter and Priscah

White skin means “money.” And though I'm not wealthy, not financially independent, not making much as a volunteer, I'm still way, way better off than the average Kenyan. Which is why they can't be blamed for seeing money when they see white skin, and why I'm getting used to Kenyans of all ilk approaching me for things. From the small school boy who doesn't hide his intent (he holds his hand out as I cycle by and says, “give me money”) to the grown men and women who have started non-profits to benefit their fellow countrymen. But there are also those who simply want to sell me something, anything.

On the way to lunch yesterday, an older woman stood in the road and stopped each passer-by, telling them she has a stand just around that corner (she points), so please stop by and see her Masai-made goods. Will you come after work, or tomorrow morning? What time are you leaving work? They'll pin you down quicker than the fastest sales guy in the West. They're good. I admire her marketing technique of standing at the intersection of two dirt roads and taking folks to her “shop.” And wanting to be open, to be seen as a neighbor and not a foreigner, I want to support the local merchants. I tell her I'll stop by on my way to work the next morning. And then I forget.

This morning, as I'm writing a workshop proposal in my office, Eric comes in and tells me I have a visitor. Upon arriving at the front of TICH, I recognize the face but can't recall from where. It's Priscah, come to root me out!! And that's alright. I tell her I'll meet her at the guard gate tomorrow at 12:30, so we can walk over to her stand and see what Masai-made goodies she has to offer. (Plus, my two sisters have birthdays coming up very, very soon!).

After emailing at the cyber center down town last night, I stuff my backpack with cereal, milk, peanut butter, bread, potatoes, carrots, and bananas from the Nakumatt and start walking home. At the end of Odinga Oginga Street I pass a young man and we speak. Because we're walking in the same direction at the same pace, trying to avoid the same speeding cars in the dark, we begin to talk. His name is Walter Odede and he started a non-profit three years ago, Pambazuko Youth AIDS Link Project. Pambakudo means “new horizons,” which is what he's trying to offer street boys. Once a victim of drugs (those are Walter's words), God spoke to his heart and told him to help others. And that's exactly what he does from his small, expensive office in Kisumu. Of course, the boys who are being helped live in the slum, not far from TICH.

Walter pulls an introduction letter from his pack, fills in my name and signs it as chairman of PYALP. We exchange emails addresses. As he's sitting and signing he asks, “Are you single?” I laugh out loud because no one else has cared to ask that question since I've arrived in Kenya. “Yes, I am,” I tell him. “And you're the first person here to ask me that.” “Well,” he replies, “you'll continue to be single whether I ask you if you are single or not. So I ask you.”

Like most Kenyans, Walter sees my white skin and thinks I can turn his organization into a top performer. If I don't give money, then I'll know how to write a proposal or get my friends to give money. He doesn't say it, for they seldom say it, but I know what he's thinking. And I don't say it, but what I'm thinking is, YES, I want to contribute in some way while I'm here—maybe with money, maybe with my time, maybe with writing proposals. It's important to me, however, to assess each organization, to make sure they're managed efficiently and the monies go directly to those who need it most. So I ask Walter if he will take me to the slums one day, so I can meet the boys he is helping. He readily agrees. I don't' want to go to the slums, but must. Otherwise, I'll never know how I can help. We part company in the night, on a dirt road with dim light barely showing his face. I will definitely meet Priscah tomorrow to view her wares, and I will definitely email Walter so we can walk through the slums. Deep down, I don't want to. But I must. And I definitely will.

The Librarian

Elizabeth is the librarian at TICH. Just since January, she has taken huge stacks of neglected books and organized them into a beautiful symphony filling shelf after shelf. Most of the books are old. I'm reading “Emma,” by Jane Austen, a paperback edition published in 1964. It's only one year younger than me! The last two books I check out, Dennis, the library assistant, reaches for his bottle of paper glue. He smears the glue on a piece of paper and presses the form into the back of the book. He then checks the calendar next to his desk, looking ahead one week, and adjusts his date stamp.

As Dennis stamps the date onto the paper in the back cover, a smile spreads over my face. Just the thought of taking that book into my hands brings me joy. It's not a new book, but instead possesses yellowed pages and an ancient smell, but it's new to me, and that date stamp is new to me and I have only one week, so I must scurry away, fast, and devour this goodie before it expires. For there are many, many other yellowed pages on Elizabeth's shelves for me to turn, while the turning is good.

The library doesn't have a huge number of volumes, but they have the basics and many classics in literature. I love going to the library at lunch. There I become greedy. If a book speaks to me, as many do, I want to take it home that instant and read it cover to cover and keep it forever. As a staff member, I can check out three books at a time. The loan period is one week, much too short. So I arrive weekly with a book to be rotated out. The Norton Anthologies are my favorite, compact treasures containing gems of writing by great minds, and funny minds, and extra sharp minds from all eras.

While browsing at lunch, a steady line of colleagues come by and each of them speaks; it's the custom. Browsing at TICH is totally unlike visiting a library in the U.S. where I may not know another person. Here, everyone is known, even the students, making a contemplative browse nearly impossible.

There are two floors to this candy store. The second floor has several open shelves, waiting to be filled. When I leave Kisumu, all the books I brought to Kisumu will stay here with Elizabeth, catalogued and shelved, adding to the symphony of this sweet and sparse library. The American Embassy from Nairobi visited on Monday and were impressed. Our library outshines those at other area universities, they tell Elizabeth, and they want to create an American corner, at no cost to TICH. My mind goes crazy thinking of access to books and other materials from the U.S., but I contain the excitement (sort of).

Elizabeth should be proud. She has created a clean, open and treasure-filled space at TICH. When I tell Elizabeth how much I love her library, she laughs and says I have made her day, that she works hard but doesn't necessarily see the progress. We both lament not having a computer in the library, with access to the Internet. A computer connected to the net would make ours a true Resource Center.

But I love this library. Love the possibilities of it, the empty shelves, so strong, waiting patiently for their cache of gems. Even with all its limitations, I love this sweet library and am confident those gems will arrive. One day.

Congratulations Kate and Tom!

Kate emails tremendous news! She and Tom are buying a charming house on Amelia Island at the end of this month. But she has even bigger news; they've just become engaged and will hold their wedding on the beach at their new home!! Tom proposed to Kate under the dinosaur at Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, the exact spot where they met two years ago. Congratulations Kate and Tom! You deserve every happiness and are sure to have a glorious life together!

Police Officer's Mess

Last night, Ian and I walk to Nyanda Center for an ice cream, our first frozen treat since arriving in Kenya. He picks a berry flavor and I choose the butterscotch with caramel toffee. Hand dipped. Scrumptious, but not nearly big enough! As we walk home, Ian suggests we detour to the Police Officer's Mess, a bar-like place close to our home. We enter the dim interior to find two guys sitting at the “bar” (it's more like a store window) and two other guys sitting at a nearby white, plastic table watching TV and drinking beer. Overhead, two fans stir the air. Wow, moving air and TV. The beers are 60 shillings, the cheapest price in town.

We watch a sports program featuring Manchester United and an Italian team. Then they cover motorbike trials and female runners. After the sports show, “Flying through Time” comes on. This edition is about Boeing building the 747 in the late 60's, with scenes of the U.S. I feel a little homesick, even if the U.S. footage is from the 60s. I enjoy this show very much, enjoy seeing flashes of the Stealth Fighter and Harrier jets, both of which I've seen up close, at least within 20 yards, at air shows in Warner Robins, Georgia.

Both my parents worked as civilians on Robins Air Force Base, so we visited frequently and attended air shows annually. My Mom worked as scheduler for maintenance performed on F-15 Eagles. I don't think I'm revealing any national security secrets by writing those planes are pulled back to Robins every six years from wherever they may be in the world. They're then disassembled and rebuilt, which is where my Mom's scheduling comes in. She worked with the mechanics to document the rebuilding process and to have new parts manufactured if needed. What a sight, walking into a vast hangar and seeing those machines, stagnant and wingless, lining the walls.

Watching the Harrier take off vertically was one of the most thrilling moments in my life, as the vibration of the jet pulsated into the ground, running up and up through bones and veins until my heart was ricocheting off lung and rib. The power of that machine was immense. I can see why men (and women) become addicted to fantastic flying machines. Being close to such earthshaking intensity is intoxicating.

After the Boeing show, locals news came on KTN. I complete my usual one beer and Ian finishes two. We head home in the dark, walking down a divided street with neat homes tucked safe behind their high walls, noticing how close and plentiful the stars are. “KTN shows movies at 8pm every Saturday night,” I tell Ian. “We should come back next week to watch a movie.” He agrees. I miss movies and planes flying overhead. The other night, I hear a plane in the distance, the only plane I've heard since being in Kisumu. At first it sounds like thunder. I'm losing my plane sensibilities.

Growing up in Warner Robins, planes and jets were constantly streaking the sky. Sonic booms were common place, occurring almost daily, and I learned to not flinch as the shock wave landed on our house, rattling windows and doors. Didn't flinch. Until January 2005, when I am sitting across from Mama in her living room in Warner Robins, chatting. Suddenly, the French doors in her dining room seem to come into the house, forced inward by a horrendous racket. The pressure subsides but leaves me shattered. “What was that, Mama?” “That's a sonic boom,” she says and looks at me funny, as though she's thinking, 'don't you remember?'

There's quite a bit lately I'm remembering I remember.

Plastic Bag Ball

Ian sits next to the window in our living room and looks out. "Paul is playing soccer with the plastic cap from a spray can. How nice," he says sarcastically. I'm touched that Ian is moved by the sight of this active young man who seems tied to this yard, playing with toys like a plastic cap. Paul also has a tiny, green tractor, no more than three inches long. He'll crouch next to the curb in the yard and will drive his tractor along, pacing like an inch worm. Today, he's out back and Ian tells me Paul has a nerf-like ball, kicking it around. Ian is washing his clothes just outside our back door. While his clothes soak, Ian plays catch with Paul. It's not a nerf ball, but a wad of plastic bags tightly wound and knotted. From my bedroom, I hear the ball hitting their hands and bouncing on the ground. I hear their breath huffing and puffing as they jump to catch and throw. And I hear Paul's laugh, a real, kid laugh, an abandoned laugh, like kids who play and forget about the rest of the world and their troubles.

Yesterday, before going to work, I go out back to find Paul. He is crouched next to a fire, boiling tea in a pot. Over a second fire nearby boils porridge. Paul is smiling at me as I point and ask if it's chai and porridge. Peter, the teenage boy, walks up and we greet each other. Peter is friendly and smart and his English is very good. "He doesn't speak Kiswahili, does he?" I ask Peter about Paul. "Yes, he does," Peter says, putting his hand on Paul's shoulder, something an older brother might do.

"He's quiet then?" I ask. "

"When he gets used to you," Peter says, "he'll be talking to you all the time." Of course, I need to learn more Kiswahili to talk with Paul.

I pull a pack of colored pencils from my back pocket and hand them to Paul. He is pleased. Peter laughs out loud and pats Paul's head, saying, 'Ahhh,' and telling Paul to say asante (thank you). Paul is shy and says asante while looking up at Peter. I tell Peter I'll get Paul a drawing pad over the weekend. When he shares the news, Paul laughs. There is genuine affection from Peter to Paul and I'm heartened to know he is there to look after Paul.

Paul must go to school. This has become my obsession and I'm working out how to navigate the economic and cultural implications. We'll get there, I've already decided. Ian teases me that Paul could also use a new t-shirt. But I can tell Ian is equally concerned, calling Paul a "yard slave."

"He's had his father figure time," Ian tells me after he plays catch Paul. "Now he needs his mother figure."

Not a problem.

Sights, Sounds & Smells of Kisumu

On the equator, the sun is intense. I put sunscreen on each morning and always carry my sun hat. It's silly looking (check it out in the photo below on the day we summited Kilimanjaro) but keeps my head cool and the sun off my neck... The heat is unrelenting, except for around 6 or 7 a.m. The only thing worse than trying to escape the sun during the day is finding shade but still smelling fire. People burn leaves in the city and fields in the countryside. At home, work or in town, there's always smoke from a fire finding its way into our nostrils, not unlike a tolerable kind of hell... Because we're on the equator, the sun rises and sets each day of the year at approximately the same time; 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. No daylight Savings time for us. It's always summer here with exotic trees blooming in constant full color... Primary school children (the first eight years of school) learn English and the first words they learn are 'How are you?' and 'fine.' This is usually the only words young children know. So as I walk or ride my bike, there are constant 'How are you' questions coming at me; small children practicing their English. When I respond, 'Fine, how are you?' they fall apart giggling. Sometimes I begin to speak to someone and before I utter a word, they say 'Fine,' which makes me laugh... People, both children and adults, sometimes call us 'mzungu,' which means white person. Or a boda boda driver trying to sell me a ride will simply say, 'Hey, white lady, let's go.' Children in their yards will run to the gate and yell, 'mzungu,' as if they've made a brilliant discover. It's nice to be discovered and my response is a big smile along with the expected “how are you?”... Young Masai men are in town, usually working as security guards in private homes. They wear the traditional red cloth wrapped as skirts and shawls. Ian thinks they look fierce and is always pleased when they respond warmly to 'Hi.' They try not to stare at us as much as we try not to stare at them... No matter where you are, in the city or a village, in a store or a home, there is always a rooster crowing. In the middle of a meeting at work, while I read in the living room, walking into town and now while I'm typing this, a rooster is trumpeting... Early in the morning, while it's still dark, when the city is quiet and even the roosters are sleeping, the song o fthe Muezzin will float across town, from Mosque Road, over our back wall and into my bedroom window. His ancient song is soothing, though it rouses the Muslims to prayer... The only Western food available in Kisumu is at Mon Ami, a bar/restaurant in the Nakumatt 'mall' owned by an Indian family. White people frequent Mon Ami, but so do locals, to watch rugby and soccer and to dance on weekends. Ian has been warned to watch out for the 'ladies of the night' seeking money. We eat pizza, personal size. With a beer, it's almost like being home. They have hamburgers on the menu, so we'll try those next visit... Even though Kisumu has several dry cleaners, I prefer to wash my laundry by hand in a purple wash tub, using baby shampoo as detergent. I wash shirts, skirts, jeans, bed sheets and 'delicates.' Before, I was careful to keep my bras and panties out of sight while they dried. Now, I pin them on the line with everything else. In the heat, even the thickest jeans dry in two hours; so it doesn't really matter if the clothes are wrung out completely or not... People sweep their yards every morning and evening, piling up leaves and seeds. But push brooms are uncommon. Instead, they use a bundle of sticks tied together. These are handmade and can be bought at street markets and department stores. Paul sweeps daily, bending low to pull the branches across the drive. It must take 3,455,698 swings of his small arm to clear the yard... Each morning at TICH, another Paul, a grown Paul, mops the painted cement floors of the school. He mops inside and out, although 'inside' is practically 'outside' here with windows being open and walls not reaching all the way to the ceiling and doors not having seals. The crimson cement floors shine with Paul's mopping. His swish, swishing in the bright morning sun is reassuring. We have the same floors, the same color, in our home. I mop the dusty surface with a 'pot pourri' scented disinfectant. Not only do they shine, they smell good, too... Merchants in street stalls beckon us with 'Karibu, please come closer and look for a long time.' They repeat themselves and block our way, doing everything except physically grabbing and pulling us to their stall. 'We live here,' Ian and I say. 'We'll be back.' And they always, always, always say, 'When? Tomorrow?'

What I Miss Most

Seeing Jaime in her lounging pajamas and giant orange bedroom slippers, her hair pulled back in a pony tail and a green, elastic terry cloth band, white cleanser spread across her face as she cleans her apartment; Hearing about James' successful filming of a skateboard trick and where he and his friends are headed next; Black and white movies on a Sunday afternoon; International news; The Open Road, the U.S. interstate highway system, oh, the joy of hopping into a car and driving on paved roads with no potholes to dodge, knowing you can drive and drive, making great distance in reasonable time; a good haircut; hamburgers from the Derby; Spankie Doodle Dandy (Frankie, our cat) laying on my back while I sleep, or lying at Jaime's feet while she sleeps; peanut M&Ms; tender chicken (Kenyan chickens come from the yard and, while tasty, take a bit of teeth clenching and pulling to get the meat off the bone); Drinking water from the tap; Talking to Jaime and James and ending every conversation with 'I Love You!'; Uploading photos to the blog; Falling into bed, exhausted, without having to tuck in the mosquito net; Visiting Jaime and her co-worker/friends at the movie theatre; Going on Happy Club events with Julia, Jennifer, Richard, Ed and all those wonderful volunteers and kids; Pizza with Kate; Lunch with the group of wonderful women from the 10th floor at Experian; Riverdancing with Dana!!

Betty Mutere

Betty is former TICH student and her field research studied the impact of HIV/AIDS on grandmothers who take over the care of their grandchildren. Betty has set up a foundation called Heaventrax, next door to TICH. She lives in the two story building and runs her program from there. Betty's primary research, gathered mostly through interviews, found that grandmothers are overburdened physically and emotionally when taking in their granchildren after their own children have died from AIDS. Many of the women are unskilled and have no work exerience. So Betty has a component for vocational training in her program. The orphans as well receive education and training, something their grandmother's cannot provide. The most stressed are women living on less than $1USD/day. Stress causes weakened immune systems, which causes suspectibility to illnesses such as diarrhea and malaria.

'Last week,' Betty says, 'a grandmother in my program lost her last son. He had eight children who will now live with their grandmother. She is already caring for her other 30 grandchildren.' There is no way one woman/person can provide food, education, medical care, shoe and clothes for 38 children. Perhaps enough love, but not enough of the basics. So Betty is stepping in to provide food and, if necessary, clean water until the situation improves.

Dorene, another graudate of TICH, stopped by my office this morning asking about our upcoming scientific conference. She'd like to present her study on the psycho-social needs of orphans. There are 500,000 orphans in Kenya. Dorene said every child she interviewed cried at some point during their discussion. Even orphans who are cared for by relatives are suffering from lack of love and emotional support. They may have food and a bed, but are often treated as unequal to other children in the family. Perhaps they clean and do chores while the other children just sit. Dorene told me about two sisters, 9 and 11 years old, who are living in their father's house, being cared for by their aunt and uncle. But the girls sleep on the floor while their uncle takes their father's bed; the house and bed they have inherited from their dead parents. Meanwhile, their cousins bathe with soap while the orphans do not. Dorene is now an advocate of counseling for these girls and other orphans growing up without the love of parents.

Yesterday, as I watched the street boys at the matato station, they fought playfully over an empty plastic bottle. A dirty, empty plastic bottle, yet it was highly valued by these boys. Once their tussle was over, the boys walked away and I noticed one had a malformed hip, so that his a gait was uneven, pushing his spine out of alignment. He walked on black, hot asphalt in 98 degree weather without shoes. These images rip my heart out and I must do something. Don't cry, I think, just act. I'm looking to Betty and Dorene, with their research results and recommendations, for guidance on how to directly contribute to these amazing children. Even in their rags, filthy, their eyes are always bright and they're quick to run and play. Beginning to help shouldn't be too difficult because one of those neglected orphans, Paul, lives in my own yard!

Mud Hut Pharmacy

When Kenyans learn I'm from the U.S., they begin to ask about the weather, how it compares to Kisumu, and the cars, 'how much would that white car cost?' they ask as they point. And they all want to know the cost of air fare from Kenya to the U.S. Street children ask me to take them to the U.S. and grown men want to know if we have lions and cows and giraffes as they do in Kenya. And what about these secondhand clothes, one man asks, do people sterilize them before they're sent to us?

The U.S. is the land of milk and honey to Africans. I now know why, after seeing the poverty, and especially when one shop owner asks me if people in the U.S. are as poor as the people in Kenya. I had somehow managed to avoid thinking about the disparity. Not even close, is my answer when I'm forced to think about it. Everyone in the U.S. has access to health care and emergency medical care, even if they can't afford it. They at least have somewhere to go in the middle of the night and usually have means for transport. In Kenya, most rural people have no money to pay for healthcare and they can't even afford the cost of a ride.

TICH works with rural communities to provide medicine, training local women as Community Health Workers (CHWs) to dispense the medicine to their neighbors in the middle of the night, or whenever necessary. These women work in the community pharmacy as volunteers and farm for a living. I was at the community pharmacy in Abom, Bondo District, this week. It was an hour and a half drive out of Kisumu. The pharmacy, a round mud house with a thatched roof, sits under a huge Mango tree. It's incredibly neat inside, and cool compared to the heat of the sun outside. All day, chickens and chicks walk into the room, peck around, then tumble over themselves out into the yard. The walls are covered with flip chart pages showing the community's animal and farming projects, their objectives, goals and results. There are graphs and photographs, everything you'd expect to see in the boardroom of a major U.S. corporation. Except for the little chicks pecking at your feet occasionally.

Phelesia, Janet and Prisca are the three trained HCWs for their area. Phelesia looks old and has eight children. She's a Traditional Birth Attendant; what most people simply call a mid-wife. She's delivered 20 babies in her neighborhood in the last seven years. These woman are bright and energetic, bringing us tea and tiny bananas for tea. Alice, a TICH co-worker, refuses to drink tea until they bring cups for themselves. She translates into Luo and English so we can share stories.

One flip chart shows a list of the most common illnesses for the people of Abom: Malaria, diahrrhea, cough, common cold, headache, fever, rashes, backaches, worms, wounds, scabbies, measles, stomachaches, cholera, swelling body, typhoid, asthma, ulcers, amoeba, T.B., Virus (HIV).

When I ask if they discuss birth control with their neighbors, especially the 16-year-old girls who have just given birth, they giggle. Yes, they can discuss these things with the women, but it is still the man 'who wears the pants in the family.' He decides if they'll use birth control and if they'll have more children. Amazing that Prisca was able to stop after her third child. Maybe she'll be a role model to women in her community as she dispenses drugs from the round mud hut under the Mango tree.

Deputy District Officer Dreams of School

Reverend Obondi, our boss, drives me and Ian to the Kisumu District office to introduce us to the District Commissioner. The commissioner is busy, however, so one of the Reverend's old friends takes us to see the deputy district officer (DDO). People, mostly elderly, line the hallways and stand corralled behind barricades. They are here to talk to the government about land issues. Reverend introduces us to the DDO, who says, 'Karibo,' which means 'welcome.' Then he looks at me and says, 'Tell me about the doctorate program at Washington State. Is it true I can sit here in my office and write a thesis and receive my degree over here?'

I know nothing about the program at Washington State but encourage the officer to look it up on the internet, telling him he can even apply on-line. He seems impressed. Reverend tells the officer we have stopped by so they'll know we are, just in case we're out in the field sometime and are suspected of being spies or researchers. 'Spying on what?,' Ian asks in private. And when did researchers become criminals? The DDO says, 'Karibo. You know, they say alignment and non-alignment is over now that the cold war is finished. My dissertation will be on the impact of shifting power on African countries.' Again, he is directing his comments to me. Again, I encourage him to pursue his studies.

Everyone in Kenya wants to go to school in the U.S. 'Cindi, will you have a few minutes to talk to me about education in the U.S.,' a co-worker asks. 'Of course,' I say, 'come by my office anytime.' And as I pad my way up the stairs, I wonder what exactly I can tell them.

Red Sails in the Sunset

Romantic sunsets are seen from the Lake View Hotel in town. Last Friday night, Frank, Ian and I stopped in for a bite to eat and to meet Ugutu, a co-worker. We drink a cold Tusker and read the menu; Goat, chicken, chips, crisps, ugali... It's the same menu every time. The only physical menu the Lake View Hotel owns. While it's laminated, the plastic has weakened, especially at the bent corners, so grease has soaked up under the laminate. Frank orders an omelette with chips (fries), Ian orders lamb and I ask for their roasted potatoes, so tasty and filling.

While waiting for our food, we notice through the tall, screen doors how the light is receding over the lake. A sprawling, gnarled tree across the street stands black against the red glow of the sunset. The lake sparkles in spots where the light hasn't died. Two couples in the room with us snuggle in their respective comfortable, couch-like seats. Bryan Adams sings out through the speaker mounted high on the wall. Then Elton John and Cindy Lauper and U2, all love songs. How romantic; me, Frank, Ian and a gorgeous glowing of the night sky. I'm sure we're each thinking of the person we'd most like to share this sunset with.

I am.

We get a good laugh at our romantic dinner and sing along with Bryan and Cindy and Elton until the lake goes to sleep and the sprawling, gnarled tree across the way fades, then disappears.

Cycle City

I buy a bicycle today, a Raja, made in India; the only women's bike available in Kisumu. It seems women don't ride bikes here (they think it will ruin a woman's reproductive organs--good thing I'm through reproducing!). I buy the bike from Banyala Wholesalers on Odinga Oginga Street near the lake. I've been looking at the bike in the window for two weeks and actually sat on it last week, in the window, to see how it felt. So today I plunk down my 4200 Ksh on the counter. That's about $55 US. It has a platform behind the seat to hold things. One gear. Frank is town this weekend staying with us and he finds a mountain bike for 8000 Ksh. He needs the nobby tires for his 3km trek to the hospital in Ndewa. When it rains in Ndewa there is serious mud, so the 18 speeds and wide tires will get Frank to work in style.

The sales guy walks our bikes to Odis, the 'best bicycle man in Kisumu,' according to the store owner. Odis runs his bicycle repair shop at a corner on Mosque Road. He has a beach umbrella set up and his tools spread across the grass. There's not even a tree, just the umbrella. It seems bicycles are assembled on commission, so the assemblers just throw them together and do not tighten or straigthen anything. Once a bike is sold, it must be 'serviced,' which really means it must be made right. I'm told Odis will charge 150 Ksh for servicing, but instead he says 250. 'The woman at Banyala's said you would charge me 150.'

'The charge is 250, but I'll give you a discount of 200. And I will do a very, very good job for 200.' I go back and tell the store owner Odis is charging me 200 and the owner becomes upset, says Odis is being 'crafty' and charging me more because I'm white. He tells the sales guy to go tell Odis to only charge their customers 150.

Frank and I pick up our bikes around 1:30, in the heat of the day, under the intense sun. There are two guys sitting under the umbrella and one fellow is tightening my pedals. Odis is pumping air into Frank's tires. The men have sweat standing in pools on their faces and their coveralls are spotty with moisture. Why the hell am I arguing over 50 shillings when these men stand in the sun all day, holding metal tools that hold the day's heat? I gladly hand Odis 200 shillings and tell him we'll be by to see him when we need repairs. He is grateful. While Frank, Ian and Roselynn go to lunch, I cycle home carrying some of Frank's purchases. It's a good ride, even with the package suspended from the handle bars and bumping into the front tire occasionally. People look at this 41-year-old woman riding a bike like a kid. Then they look again. But I am home in minutes and out of the sun!