Glass Coca-Cola Bottles

So it has been two week, four days, and give or take a couple hours since I arrived in Kenya. The weeks have blurred by, and now it the expierence has turned into travelers bliss, that disconnected feeling of not feeling at home, but not feeling like home is home either.

Tomorrow I will leave on a plane from Kisumu and fly back with Caroline. (Yes, all by ourselves, I'm sure we will get lost or abducted or something that has sitcom potential.) As I write I'm trying to reflect back on my expierences and it is priving to be a little difficult. I want to remember the trip in movie sequence, day by day, moment by moment, but it is just coming up in spots, patches of images rattling around. Glass Coca-cola bottles, red dirt roads, the smell of fish and rice, squishing ugali in my hands, shaking hands-so many hands, chapati, and riding in vans-bumping and hitting my head on the cieling. Laughing and new friends. The smell of burning trash. Thumping African rap coming from the market.

In 24 hours I will be leaving. Getting ready for yet another culture shock.

-Lydia

mondays in kakamega

At home, Monday's during the school year seem to be everyone's least favorite day of the week -- the first day of school after the weekend and the promise of 5 whole days in school before friday night rolls around again. In Kenya, some of the feelings are the same and some are different. For students, it is different here -- school is a priviledge, not a dreaded task. However, the same chaos as in America also insues as the first alarm rings (4:30 for Lucy who is in form 1). The schedule for the 3 of us was a little more relaxed as we woke up at a ghastly late time of 8:00 and headed over to the Okuya house at around 10:00. We spent the day with Yvonne, who does a part-time tailor training program.
She asked us if we knew how to walk distances, and we said yes, we did. She seemed sceptical and made the walk seem very scary. The walk to Chesil's school was very long, but we enjoyed it despite Yvonne's worries. It is very interesting to travel the same long distance that Ches and Lucy go every day to get to school (they usually take a Boda Boda but sometimes end up walking the whole way). We made it to Ches' school and got to see him in his cute little uniform. He was so proud to have us there and we knew he would be the popular guy for the rest of the day after we handed out sweets to all the class 1 students.
Next stop on our journey was Lucy's secondary school which was even further away than Chesil's primary school. We spent time with the Deputy Principal and then went in to Lucy's english class and spent some time answering questions from the students. Then, we caused a riot. It was an accident, but it was still a disaster. We went to give out sweets to the students but we didn't realize that class 1 students are more well-behaved than form 1 students. At first everything was fine and then all hell broke loose and we were mobbed. Somehow in the process the class ended up getting around 300 pieces of candy. There was some tension with the teachers after we managed to escape the classroom. This is not to turn people off of Kenyan schools or to make them sound like hooligans, but more to show the immense excitement they got from some simple lifesavors. Later, we tried to think of what would make American students act in such a way, and couldn't think of anything. It shows the great unequal distribution of wealth that still exists in the world.
The rest of the day was spent seeing Yvonne's tailoring school and hanging out around the house with Tansy.
Today, Caroline and Lydia's last night, we are seeing where Anneh teaches preschool and preparing dinner for the Okuya family.
It has been an interesting few days that have raised many questions and thoughts about the differences between cultures.

Just Kidding -- We're still here!

As it turns out, Lydia and Caroline also stayed in Kenya with Ellen and Callie at Joseph's home. After we said our goodbyes to the group Friday morning, we journeyed to Kakamega, Kenya where Joseph lives. We were greeted by his family (His wife, Anneh, his two sons, Chesil (6) and Tanzy (2), and his two nieces, Lucy and Yvonne) and were immediately immersed in daily Kenyan life. It turns out that a very large part of Kenya culture is food, food, and more food. We are gaining pounds by the hour.



On Saturday we accompanied Joseph and his family to his Seventh Day Adventist church. Afterwards we were given a tour of the nearby medical hospital. We began the tour by waltzing into the Phych Ward with the entire gang including the two small children. We shook the hands of all the patients who seemed to be very drugged.



Back home again to eat and eat some more. We played with the little ones and then headed to bed. Sunday brought a trip to the childhood home of Joseph. It was a forty five minute drive into the country, and when we arrived we were met by Joseph's mother (Shosho Florence). She was an adorible little old biddy who welcomed us to her home. Lucy showed us around the compound and surrounding farmland, and we watched the harvesting of the sugarcane. Then we moseyed down to the riverside to collect water to prepare the midday meal with.



As you can guess soon came more food, lots of chapati of course. The skys began to darken with rainclouds as we said our goodbyes to Shosho, and we pulled away as it began to drizzle. It is a very different experience to see the day-to -day life of a Kenyan family than an American family. However, there are many similarities as well. We look forward to visiting the kids' schools tommorow and exploring around Kakamega with the Okuya's. We will hopefully be blogging more throughout the week as we have more computer opportunity at our guest house.

From Anne

Well, as I suspected we had very little internet access this week. Here are a few blogs from the youth over the past few days.

We're heading for Nairobi in a few minutes... an all day drive prior to an all night and day plane ride.

But I think we're ready to see our friends and family, so we're willing to push through! See you back in Indy tomorrow! :)

When Taylor Gets Home

Well it's almost time to go home.

Speaking of home, there are a few things I need to have when I arrive.

I want quesadilla's (a bunch of them) (corn)I want pork and chicken tacos (both in the same taco) (flour)
I want to have all the supplies necessary to make my burgers.
I want a sausage and pepperoni pizza (not on a tortilla) (I want the homemade dough)
I want Arizona Green TeaI want a milkshake (Lindsey agrees) (strawberry banana)
I want Yatz

And last but not least, I want a hug from my sister!

Thoughts from Callie

I am not quite sure how, but after 2 weeks this is my first time writing in the blog. I have attempted many times to start apost but have failed every time. Though some of these times were because of distractions, others were because I was simply at a loss for words. But now, as I sit in Lindsey's and my room with friends, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, I find myself wanting to type for forever.
Fortunately, I will not be leaving Kenya tommorow with the rest of the group but will be staying with Joseph (Umoja project director) and his family in Kakamega, Kenya for another week. Last night at dinner, Richard asked me if I was excited to be staying or was ready to go home. Immediately, without much thought, I said I was excited to be staying and definitely wasn't ready to leave this gorgeous country. However later as my roomie, Lindsey, ran off somewhere (she disappears often), I began journaling and thinking about my feelings toward staying behind as the rest of my group would be heading home. I realized that I can't possibly go home tommorow. Though if I didn't have the opportunity to stay longer, I wouldn't revolt and refuse to board the plane, I know I would be very upset about our departure. I cannot leave Kenya yet. This is partly because I have fallen in love with the country and also because I have not been able to comprehend any part of the trip thus far. I have loved every minute being here, even through the heartbreaking moments, but I haven't processed anything I've seen or learned.

The last night in Eldoret, Richard told us all that we shouldn't be worried or pressured about how we individually reacted to the trip because everyone has their own processing schedule. That was something we all needed to hear as we had all been having very different experiences and all express ourselves very differently. I have kept that in mind since then, especially this past week, as I have been so overwhelmed that I haven't comprehended anything fully since we have arrived. But last night, as I was thinking about my excitement and whether or not I wanted to be at home, I realized that I need to do some of my processing while in Kenya. I think it is important for me to relay the events of these weeks and truly think about them while I am still in the country. One can only be here to truly know what Africa and its culture are like. One can only be here to truly understand the overwhelming hospitality and graciousness of Kenyan people. One can only be here to feel more humbled than it seems possible in a lifetime.

So, though I will be sad to say goodbye to the group who have become my family tommorow, I need to stay in Kenya. I need to be here and take more in and continue to be around the awesomeness of Kenya, Kenyans, and Kenyan culture. Otherwise, if I am not here, I worry that I will forget. And I can't forget, for that thought scares me more than anything else (including when I am fed an entire fish, including the head, eyes, and fins, and it is turned so it is staring at me).

I hope that as the group goes home tommorow and begins to feel the affects of all that we have seen they remember the names and faces of those in Kenya. It's important to remember them, because they matter. We, as representatives taking in as much as we can to bring home, must never forget the people -- we can't forget Vicdes, Monica, Calvin, Charles, Moses, Katherine, Steven, Joan, Judith, Faith or countless others who have graciously shared a part or moment of their lives with us. As most leave and I start my 3rd week tommorow, we must prepare our memories to never forget the faces, names, stories, and indescribable moments that we have experienced in these two weeks in Kenya.

Thoughts from Allison

In the past 2 weeks I've experienced the amazing and life-changing. When reflecting over the ups and downs of the trip, I realized the similar ebb and flow of perspective I received.
I don't mean to sound naive or sheltered, but my view of the world before last week may have been just that. I knew what a map of the world looked like and I had an idea of how many people lived in that world, though now that seems insignificant. Previously I had never been outside of the U.S. and that definitely defined my view of the world. I knew about other cultures from school, the media, stories, etc. however, having a picture of a map in your head and knowing bits and pieces of random cultures is so miniscule that writing this is almost embarassing. The first week of this trip expanded
how I thought of the world to a point that was almost unimaginable. I saw extreme (and I mean extreme!) poverty, I heard HIV positive patients moaning with pain in hospital beds, I spent time in a land and culture different from anything else I knew. Suddenly, instead of picturing a globe I saw millions of tiny villages struggling for survival.

This idea of the world was a bit overwheming and hard to handle, but the experience didn't end there...
Yesterday, we attended a celebration of the launching of a school lunch program through the UMOJA project; also in attendance were teachers, community leaders, students, and parents/guardians. During this ceremony my view of the world shrank, but not back to what it was before, in fact it reached its most mature point yet. I was then able to see the unity (what UMOJA means) across the cultures and I could see how people are the same across the world. I saw the little kids getting restless and throwing leaves at the kid in front of them, just like kids throwing spitwads in school. I saw a parent attempting to be subtle (but failing) as he texted, and I could only picture an American dad whipping out his blackberry at a PTA meeting. And once I started noticing these examples, they just kept appearing.

I now understand that the world is more than maps and statistics, and more than each tiny community struggling to survive but truly the world is a place of unity where we are all truly just like one another once we manage to see past the divisions and barriers we ourselves create.