i'm an idiot and can't figure out pictures. here's the best i could do.

just another day at watoto wa baraka (i'll include photographs later)

so i usually wake up around 7 AM to the sound of the cow - there is one who just moos her life away - and the pigs, maybe 20 of them, wiling out because they are being fed.  i had no idea pigs are this loud.  i would think the rooster would be the one i wake up cursing, but no, it's the pigs.  the rooster just makes noise all day long, completely against anything i've ever thought of roosters.  but hey, ive never lived on a farm before.  so then i stumble out of my mosquito net, which i have carefully tucked into the mattress to keep creepy-crawlies out, grab a little bit of toilet paper and rush through the coffee bean trees to take my morning pee-pee.  this is done in a hole in the ground that is called, in jest, "the hilton", which also includes the shower (the two are divided by some sheet metal).  which is just the area designated for you to take your bucket into and wash up with.  i've finally stopped saying "i'm taking a shower" because the word "shower" isn't exactly what i'm doing.  anyhow, then i go to wash my hands out of the bucket of water - this one has a spigot though, thank goodness, though i have no idea where the water comes from - and look around on the ground for some soap.  yep, i've found it and it's covered in mud.  effective?  i don't know, but i use it anyway.

the next task is walking the nursery school children to school.  i don't know if they are supposed to be there at a specific time or what (highly doubtful), but we usually leave somewhere between 7:40 and 8:00, and arrive anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes after that, depending on how the children are acting.  sometimes they walk incredibly slow, sometimes they have to pick up everything along the way.  in the case of francis, sometimes he just feels like eating sticks, so that has to be thwarted.  if it has rained and there are millions of those little frogs hopping about, the children have to throw rocks at them, and any chickens we see for that matter, and this can take awhile.  afterward we sometimes have chai at margaret's hotel for 5 shillings, and maybe even mandazi (sweet puffy bread), also for 5 shillings.  the hotel is two rooms, one with a bar that holds the case of mandazi and samosas and two tables to sit at, and the other where the magic of making this stuff happens.  talking to her is nice, she has a daughter in university and it's interesting to learn about how loans work and how she finances putting a child through university.

if you skip margaret's, there is always the orphanage breakfast, which consists of bread and chai.  i got smart and keep peanut butter stocked to eat because plain bread isn't that great.  more recently there has been hard-boiled eggs too, but i don't know if that is a permanent deal.  i eat the white for protein, even though there is a worm in my belly eating all my proteins (more on that later, when i get to 5'oclock fruit time) and give the yellow to whatever kid is running around.  you might ask why we would pay for chai when it is offered for free at the orphanage, or maybe you already know the answer.  there is a major difference in quality between orphanage chai and margaret's chai.  i think they use powdered milk at the orphanage.

then it's usually time to get to work.  this depends on what you have signed up to do for the day.  for me it's typically field work with eric, which i have gone in detail many a time about previously.  but sometimes is doing laundry, helping sort beans in the kitchen, cleaning the children's dorms, sweeping the dirt path, animal care and farming, going to the clinic, or going to the school.  these activities typically wrap up between 1 and 3 when we eat lunch.  lunch is always one of two things: beans and rice or gidtheri (beans and maize and whatever else is around, pumpkin, sometimes potatoes).  

after whenever you eat lunch comes the lull in the day.  the kids are still at school, so there isn't a lot going on.  we can continue to help in the kitchen or with laundry, do our own laundry, bathe out of the basin, go to use the internet in kenol, go to makuyu and get fruits, take a nap, read, or whatever else we can find to do in essentially the middle of nowhere in kenya.    

i've developed a creepy ritual which i like to call "5 o'clock fruit time".  this is when i indulge myself in a fruit - i'll be honest, it's usually either a mango or a papaya.  it's a long time to dinner and this is a good in-between snack.  other snacks include, because there are millions here readily available for purchase at the nearest stall: samosas, mandazi, a million different types of sweet biscuits, all kind of nuts, suckers or other sweets.  anyhow, five o clock fruit is what eventually has led to the sad state of affairs in my intestines called worms, though i don't regret one day of it.

around 5:30 someone rings a bell letting the kids know they need to wash their feet.  this is something they do daily, wash their feet.  bathing is necessary three times a week.  anyhow, they have to be done by 6:30 (ring that bell again) to go to "school" where priscilla has some kind of lesson for them, or they are supposed to be doing their homework.  then you know, you find something to do.  i've really mastered the art of taking it easy and being patient.  

dinner is somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30.  so you go to ask grace if she wants help serving out the food sometime before 8:00.  it all gets put into the bowls beforehand and laid out, so it can easily be distributed through the window from the kitchen to the dining (and everything else) hall when the kids are ready to eat.  someone has to be sure they wash their hands before eating and also that they pray.  this roar of a prayer is something that i will miss dearly when i'm gone.  it also lets me know it's time to eat if i'm not helping serve.  then we distribute the food and eat.  it's either gidtheri, rice and beans, ugali and cabbage or beans, or, the best night, on friday it's chapati and green grams.  the volunteers typically give a lot of their portion to the kids, who are incredible at sharing it, and also incredibly in that they are bottomless pits who can eat and eat and eat.

after dinner we have to make sure all the kids brush their teeth and are using their own toothbrush to do it.  i'm sure there is nothing worse than grabbing your toothbrush off the wall where they hang only to find it's all wet, so this is an important job.  this is also how we account for all the children, a sort of roll call.  this can be quite a chore.  sometimes the kids start dancing and singing for awhile, but in the end we always we hold hands and pray (the kids doing the lord's prayer is something else i will miss dearly), and then go to bed.  i tuck myself tight in my mosquito net and dream sweet dreams until the pigs wake me up.                  

way to go, dumb

i'm an idiot. ok, so i needed to go use the internet and was feeling anxious and needed out of the orphanage. so i walk to makuyu to catch the matatu to kenol to internet it up. and i'm stressed because i only have 1,000 shillings - the equivalent of 8 bucks, but a lot of money here. the ride to kenol is 30 shillings. i ate a full lunch yesterday for 25 shillings. so the matatu operator comes up and is all "get in, get in" and im all "do you have change for 1,000 shillings?" and he calls his friend over and is like, here, give it to this guy, he'll get change for you. and something in me was kind of like "maybe this isn't a good idea" but i did it anyway, because i was being stared at by EVERYONE, and honestly, in my experience, the people in this small village are good people. but i'm always effing being stared at and laughed at. if i've learned anything in kenya it's how to essentially be the butt of a joke i don't understand. and so duder runs off to get change with my 1,000 shillings. and then i realize, woah, this guy isn't the matatu operator AT ALL, it's just some random DRUNK dude hanging out at the matatu stand. and i just gave my money to his friend to make change for me. shit. all the while i'm just being stared and laughed at. so i wait and wait. and drunk guy number 1 is like "he's not coming back", and i'm just thinking i can't go anywhere if he doesn't come back, so i may as well wait it out. and everyong is kind of looking around for him, and i try to talk to these girls who are about my age, asking them if they think he'll come back, and they say they think he will. and so i can't tell if the drunk guy is messing with me, i don't know how to read kenyans. but for some reason i felt like there are all these people here who saw this and they somehow made me feel like he would come back. after ten minutes or so, he came back. as he is walking i realize that he himself is quite drunk, too. what the hell morgan?! anyhow, i gave him 100 shillings for making change for me/for coming back and being a good person - which the actual matatu operator could have done free of charge. anyway, it's actually pretty surprising he came back at all - being that he was wasted at 3 PM and clearly doesn't have any kind of stable job, and he could have easily just ran away with this large bill. but really, people here, in this small village, are good people. emily left her wallet on a matatu and someone ran after her to give it to her. anna came back from thika after dark and these guys approached her, at first scaring the crap out of her, to help her get to the orphanage safely. it doesn't mean i should be overly trusting, and that was really dumb, but it's also refreshing. it's easy to become cynical, when people are constantly asking you for money or your shoes or a soda or the mandazi you are eating, or trying to charge you way too much for a piece of fruit or matatu ride. it's easy to feel like a target, because people here really do think we white people have money trees in our back yards and are just rich rich rich. which, relatively, we are. anyhow, that guy could have taken advantage of my overall dumb white girl ness and he didn't.

on the positive side, we are having a typhoid outbreak at the orphanage, and i just returned from the clinic, getting my blood tested to see if i have it, since i'm feeling quite cold-ish. i'll return after lunch to see if i can get the results. who knows if i'll get them? i waited all freaking morning just to get my blood drawn. these kenyans are so good at waiting. another thing i've learned how to do is be patient, to "just wait". "just wait" is a phrase i hear quite often. efficiency is not a priority on anyone's list here. it seriously just isn't a thing that anyone cares about. you stand in one line to get a card, stand in another line to talk to a nurse, stand in another line to pay, stand in another line to get the lab work done, then stand in line to wait for the results, and then stand in line to talk to the doctor again about your results, and then stand in line for your medication. anyhow, it will be much cheaper to deal with here than at home, whatever is wrong with me.

we went to lake naivaisha/hell's gate national park for a little vacation this past weekend. i got to ride a rented bike through a park with zebras! it was so cool. the park was just breathtakingly beautiful. i took pictures, but they surely don't capture it. on the way there, a old woman got on the bus and she had chapati and soda pop, which she started to feed to the toddler sitting next to me on her mother's lap. and it's just interesting, that this woman starts to feed this unknown child chapati and soda pop and the mom doesn't care that this old woman she doesn't know is feeding her child. that would NEVER fly at home.

no hope

we went to a children's daycare center, aspiring to become an orphanage, in one of the slums in nairobi yesterday. a lady runs it, brings children in (whose parents have abandoned them, are alcoholics, vegabonds with no place to stay, have so many children they can't support them, etc) and tries to teach them simple things like the alphabet, how to pronounce letters, parts of the body, manners, how to greet people, what items in a house are called, etc. she has 25, but there were only 17 when we went because, she assumes, the other 8 are out collecting plastic or trying to get money for food. some of the children don't even get one meal a day, and so providing food there is an incentive for them to come, but not something that is affordable - one of the challenges she faces. she tries to get children to learn the importance of an education, while they could be out, not learning, and trying to make money for food.

other challenges, on the long shitshow list of them - all stemming from the lack of resources - are keeping an educator there who will work for no money, paying rent on the tiny shack that is often robbed in the night, trying to teach anything without pencils, paper, books, desks, and keeping the children safe, as there is a huge hole right behind the center where one child has fallen in and died. she has taken discarded, large potato sacks and painted on them to create instructional posters - with the alphabet, the body, the kenyan flag, animals, etc on them.

we asked how many children, in the same situation as these, she thought there were in the slum. hundreds was her response, stay right here and i can bring you hundreds.

it's way too overwhelming, as there are many slums in nairobi, this was just one. i was informed that this was actually a nicer one, which was hard to believe, i mean, the place made makuyu, even with its trash everywhere and tied up donkeys and stray dogs, look pristine.

but ahhhhhh! i feel, just, hopeless and helpless. i wasn't completely naive to these situations, but seeing them first-hand, ugh. and i know why i was brought there in the first place, because im white and it is assumed that i'll have oodles of money to shell out to them. but even providing what i could isn't sustainable. i dont know, i guess no one really knows, that's why this situation exists, in more places in the world than i can fathom. i think this is probably how a large portion of the world population lives.

so i feel completely hopeless, but will try to sponsor a child there when i get back and hope that that does any good whatsoever.

oh, ghana, no!

being here for the world cup has been sooo fun (i wish i could think of a way to say that sounding less trite)! i've watched more soccer (football) than i ever have in all my life. the kids get to stay up late to watch the games, and i was at a bar in nairobi for the ghana/uruguay game and have never seen people get so rowdy! just so happy and dancing, dancing, dancing, everyone dancing and fist bumping and yelling and blowing those loud annoying long horn things. the end result was quite depressing though. and the bar was very quiet. no more shakira waka waka.

i went to mombasa for a three day vacation that inevitably turned into a four day one. we stayed on diani beach and the place was so beautiful even thinking about it makes my heart ache. we had to take a 8 hour overnight bus from nairobi to get there (and back, soo frightening, i was sure i was going to die on a stupid bus, people drive sooo crazy). this was the first time i'd come to nairobi since coming in from the airport, and the degree of culture shock i experienced was out of hand and made me realize what a rural area ive been staying in. i felt like a country bumpkin. we werent stared at or pointed at because we are white, women wore high heels and tank tops (scandalous!), there are so many cars, and people, and pizza and fast food and traffic lights (that are certainly not obeyed, but they are there) and internet cafes with more than four computers and bathrooms with toilets that kind of flush. it was like this in diani beach as well. when i buy credit (minutes) for my phone in pundamilia/makuyu, i can't buy denominations bigger than 100 shillings, its usually just 20 or 50 because thats what people can afford. in diani beach i asked for 20 shillings of credit and was laughed at. i couldnt find anything UNDER 100 shillings. it's just a different world. tourism of course changes the scenery (and makes everything about five times more expensive).

we didnt do anything in diani beach except hang out at a beach bar and be barefoot in the sand and swim in the ocean and drink wine and sweat and discreetly eat and drink items we snuck in because we couldn't afford the prices - which was good enough for me. it was so much hotter on the coast than it is here. but it was also a chance to meet some interesting people from around the world - switzerland, denmark, mexico, france, sweden, ireland, you get the idea. it made me quite grateful that english is my first language (because that's what everyone spoke), and also made me feel like like a lazy american who doesn't have to learn how to speak anything else. i did get quite defensive though when these jackasses from holland started talking crap about america. who knew i was so patriotic? this language thing also reiterated to me what bad english i speak. i was talking and this guy legitimately asked "is that english you're speaking?"

things at the orphanage are not great. everyone is sick, two of the volunteers have typhoid, and the youngest orphan, mwagi, who is three they guess, has broken his leg very badly and has been hospitalized for six weeks. im waiting for my cold to set in, as it feels inevitable with 32 coughing children running around, not covering their mouths. we got more volunteers, mostly from canada, one from chicago, and another guy from holland. i've been doing all field work (walking walking walking) and helping in the kitchen if needed in the evenings. we do child assessments and the guardians have to sign the paper with the questions on it (how is the child? how many meals does he/she get daily? how is their health? etc). most people can't speak english and the paper is all in english and i'm all in my western ideas of how could you sign something that is in a language you don't understand?! when the guardians cant write, because they never learned, eric shades their finger with pen and gets a fingerprint on it.

lucy, who is my absolute favorite - i know i shouldnt pick favorites, but i just love this girl - was looking very sad after dinner, so i went to sit by her and try to give her a hug and she put her head down on my lap, kind of lying on me. and i remember being little and my mom just gently rubbing my back and never ever wanting her to stop and i almost just burst into tears. but i didnt, i just rubbed her back and tried to make her feel better. and these moments hit me, where its obvious morgan, you are at an orphanage, as implied these children have no parents, but its like a ton of bricks sometimes. all the things we (i) have that they don't and never will and they still are as happy as can be. they make toy cars out of boxes we throw away - juice boxes, cereal boxes - and make wheels with soda pop caps, and just love pulling them around and actually share and it's just... humbling (i dont know if thats the right word). im being inarticulate.

well i've been on here for too long, so even though i feel like i have an outpour of things to say, i should go. i have to bear the two and a half (maybe 3) hour matatu ride back to pundamilia, so i should get on that.

why does abstinence-only sex information have to be riddled with mis-information?

i knew this was going to be troublesome for me. i'm just going to vent my frustrations and not pretend like this is something isolated to kenya. this happens in america, too. undoubtedly world-over. this is an overall response to my complete misunderstanding of lying to young women when they need accurate information.

i get it. i'm in a country (and a rural, poor part of this country at that) where HIV/AIDS is a real problem and young girls getting pregnant creates amazing financial strains on themselves and their future children that i can't even begin to imagine. contraceptives aren't widely available, abortion completely illegal, and women's ability to advocate for condom use - or at least i've heard, i shouldn't/can't speak to this personally - relatively low. so, yeah, sure i'll let go of my "liberal" ideas that young women should get the whole story and just suffice it to say "don't do it, at all, it's not worth it". i get it.

i don't get telling these girls that if they are blessed god will protect them from being raped, with absolutely NO mention of the fact that if you are raped, there is a drug you can get at the government clinic, PEP - post-exposure prophylaxis - that significantly decreases your chance of contracting HIV if taken in a sufficient amount of time. i don't get telling them that the morning-after pill causes infertility, that condoms aren't even 70 per cent effective, that if you get pregnant and HIV your child has a 99 per cent chance of being born HIV positive, and that getting pregnant young leads to cervical cancer. these are all, to the extent of my knowledge completely untrue. if i'm wrong, let me know. the worst part was just the re-iteration that your life is completely over if you get pregnant (but under NO circumstances should you seek out abortion). how often does this lead to self-fullfilling prophecies? oh, im pregnant, my life is over. why should i try anymore? why should i aspire to do the things i dreamed of doing? again, i don't know and can't comprehend the challenges these girls would face getting pregnant, but why the extreme scare tactics? the fact is that young women are going to have sex. this was obvious in the types of questions asked in the question and answer session. one girl asked what should she do if she gets pregnant. the answer? don't get pregnant. hmm... helpful.

hakuna matatu

another post about the matatu. i could go on for days. i've had a huge bag of potatoes fall on me, sat with my legs propped over a bag of beans, had a ten year old boy on my lap, and a man's armpit literally on my head.

the other day we got kicked off before getting to our destination because not enough people were going there. awesome. when we were taking the younger kids to the clinic, we were kicked off because they weren't running anymore; there were too many police officers on the streets "ensuring" they meet safety standards. these things never meet safety standards. i have no idea how old these machines are, and they are only supposed to hold 14 passengers - it says so on the side of this ramshackle bus, and there are only 14 seats - but very rarely do they run with only 14 people on them. i found this slightly confusing, only because i've been on many a matatu that got pulled to the side of the road by the police and then took off without much conversation or any kind of ticket or anything. i later learned and then noticed that the driver hands the officer money, basically bribes the police officer not to ticket them. this is very common and also not a big deal. eric explained this to me as if it was as common as anything, and then he asked if we had this in america.