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Monday December 1, 2008
Last…non…program…day! We spent the day in Loitokitok, at the VCT (volunteer counseling and testing center) celebrating World AIDS Day. We also had a surprise, 40 newly arrived Peace Corps volunteers were there to celebrate with us and the community, and let me tell you, they were definitely fresh, in respect to time in Kenya. More on that later, first I must fill you in on Thanksgiving in Kenya.
Our Thanksgiving celebration wasn't until Saturday since our SAM (student affairs manager and mom basically) Sara, was in Nairobi until Friday afternoon. Anyway, she came back and brought with her all the ingredients necessary for an amazing feast!! Mary, Spenser and I started prep work Friday night by whipping up a pumpkin pie! I made the crust since after this summer I'm a pie crust whiz and the other two worked on whipping the pumpkin into a texture that was eatable.
Saturday came and all morning and for most of the afternoon everyone was busy working on their DR papers. I joined the Thanksgiving at 4:00 to help get the dinner rolling. There turned to be more cooks than the kitchen could handle so we had Izzy, Haley, Mary and SAM Sara outside skinning and coring apples while inside Liz and Sara made stuffing, Spenser made sweet potatoes, James and Judy (two of our usual kitchen staffers) made turkey stew, Laura made delicious cornbread fry cakes, Wendy made green bean casserole, Sammie made bread, and I made a vegan apple pie. (Which by the way is ridiculously easy for those of you doubters out there).
Anyway, as you can guess, we had a fantastic feast. Fresh bread, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, turkey stew, stuffing, corn bread, gravy, pumpkin and apple pie, and apple crisp. Pretty close to the typical menu, with some Kenyan flair. All of our English system to metric system measuring turned out pretty good, the pumpkin pie didn't quite set as expected, but spicy pumpkin soupish dessert is good too!! Overall our improvising turned out great!
The best part of the meal was eating it of course. The chumba was rearranged to make one large X shaped table, complete with a cornbread turkey center piece and pressed leaves, both courtesy of Laura. There were also cheerful Happy Thanksgiving signs that had a picture of the turkey Patrick had slapped onto his back by Ben at RAP the night before. (That probably doesn't make sense to you, but a picture would explain it all). Some of the staff also joined us and sat inside instead of outside where they usually do. Okello was more than happy to have such a meal! He stole food off plates of others while waiting in line! Not that we would expect anything else! Sammie even took the time to put together a twisted story of how we were all related and what led to us eating Thanksgiving together. It was filled with love triangles and interesting occupations, and sadly I never heard the final product, but it did make Thanksgiving even a little more special! Anyway, all things considered it's the most memorable Thanksgiving I think I've had yet and I didn't get banished to the kids table in the basement for the first time in a few years!
Back to today. So we left KBC at 8:30 and made it to Loitokitok in record time thanks to the excellent road conditions from the rain. Our first entertainment for the day was right outside car. As soon as we jumped out of the Cruisers a skinny man in a colorful outfit yelled us, "Kenya isn't a toilet you know." Then he proceeded to tell us something about how we were pieces of s*** or something like that and he wouldn't shake hands with us even if we were circumcised. Not the most welcoming guy, but luckily our past visits to Loitokitok were great so I knew it would be a good day.
When we got to the VCT Kristi, a Peace Corps volunteer who we've met before, and who has been here for quite a while, greeted us and gave us the low down on the day's plan. Shortly afterwards we walked to Loitokitok Hospital where the parade through town was set to begin. Turns out we were in the parade, which was more of a march through town from the hospital to the VCT. There was a band leading our way. We walked with community members, VCT staff, and the 42 Peace Corps volunteers.
Once we got to the VCT, the MC of the event opened by inviting a local pastor up to lead the crowd in prayer (In Kiswahili and English). The prayer was followed by a series of speakers, doctors and leaders of support groups. Then several groups of kids from local primary schools did skits or sang songs for all of us to enjoy. The singing was my favorite part because I didn't need to understand every word being said in order to enjoy and get the message. We then had a lunch prepared by VCT volunteers, it consisted of rice, goat, cabbage and tomato - onion salad, your typical Kenyan fare. There were more speakers until about 3:00 when the rest of the crowd ate. Sad to say, that by that time only Maya and I remained with Sara to represent SFS students. The rest had mostly gone back to KBC to continue working on DR papers, and a few went into Loitokitok and to the bar. Anyway, Maya and I got the pleasure of helping a few women feed the children. It turned out to be finding the best way to avoid a pint sized stampede! All the kids wanted as much as you would give them of course. I found myself wondering if maybe this was the only meal a lot of them would get for the day, sticky rice and if they were lucky a piece or two of goat. It was the first time where we were eating in a community setting, so underlying facts of life were a little more apparent than they had been in the past. Kids were pushing and shoving to get at the rice. One woman who was serving was batting them back from the pot with a stick and two others used plastic plates to knock kids on the forehead and get them into line. At first I was a little taken back, but none of the kids seemed to be fazed by it and simply obeyed and got in line. Just another fact of life as a kid here I guess. Once all the kids got their plates and finished them off I was responsible for collecting dirty plates to one: make sure we got them back and two: to make sure no one tried to go up for seconds before everyone was served. That was an easy task.
After all the kids had their serving the women stepped back and let them at the three huge pots that were basically now empty. It didn't matter to the kids if the pots were empty, pushing and shoving ensued again until every last grain of rice that wasn't burned to the bottom was gone! I'm not sure if that's just the nature of kids everywhere, but it was quite a sight to see. I hope that all left a little more satisfied.
Well now to my impressions of the Peace Crops volunteers. First, I'll give you a quick description of what I know of them. They arrived two weeks ago. There are three groups of them, micro financers, biology and science educators, and deaf educators. A few of the volunteers have teaching experience, but most do not. The micro financer I talked to couldn't explain micro financing to me. An old lady volunteer asked one of us what we were leaving behind, or were we just studying and leaving? Basically, for volunteers that are supposedly here to help and mobilize people, they weren't very engaging with us and were at times downright condescending. They were however for the most part friendly.
My first remark will be on the lady who asked Haley what we were leaving behind. Okay, true, it is a study abroad and the majority of our time here has been devoted to learning. Let's not take that out of context though, wildlife management may be the theme of our program, but we've learned a lot more than behavior and identification of large mammals. We've been living in Maasailand, a large percentage of the staff here is Maasai and those that aren't are Kenyan, we've traveled back and forth across the Loitokitok District, observing, talking to locals, meeting with KWS personnel, wheeling and dealing at the market, visiting schools and talking with children, and overall doing as much immersion into Kenya as we can with what we have to work with. True we aren't in home stays and our Kiswahili is marginal. However, that doesn't mean our impact will be any less valuable. Our current DR projects are being presented by us on Sunday to the community members we interviewed. Our professors take what we do and use it to help those in the position (KWS, gov, NGO's and whatnot) to make sound decisions to better the lives of people and animals in this ecosystem. So yes, we are leaving something behind. We may not leave two years worth of things behind, but I think we've done a damn good job of leaving three months worth of things behind!
On top of that, as people positioned to be educators, I would hope that they would think back to their own college careers and time in school and realize that it's opportunities like our SFS program that lead people to go into service organizations like the Peace Corps. I was surprised to find the old women to be the harshest judges of us, I guess I assumed that they would be supportive, just as our parents are (No reference to age intentional here). That's not to say that the younger ones were much less judgmental. They were certainly friendly enough, but even they were correcting us on our Swahili, telling us how to answer Swahili greetings, and overall seemed to think we were just dumb college kids, which is funny because at least a handful of them just graduated this spring or summer. I don't know, maybe it's just Peace Corps power trips they're on and in good time and a few more months in Kenya they'll realize how they're not such hot s*** after all. Maybe I'm just being sensitive, but many other SFSers were saying similar things. Maybe it's the fact that for the most part they weren't science kids like us, and on top of that it's been awhile since we've had to interact with wazungu besides ourselves. It makes me wonder how going back to a country with wazungu everywhere is going to be…
Well, enough of that. I hate to end on a sour note. Spirits at KBC are actually really high considering all the work that has to be done before we wrap up. Crunchiness was setting in earlier last week, but these past few days have been filled with laughter, smiles and just enjoying the company of one another. I think a lot of it has something to do with the fact that during data collection we really only saw the other 10 students in our DR, but now we're all back here together and there are things to catch up on! Let's hope spirits stay high. Just over a week left, unbelievable! I didn't think it would fly by so fast!
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