Time Flies!

Habari ya'jioni (how are you this evening?)

I feel really bad that so much time has gone by since my last post (almost two weeks). The first week after I last posted I felt like nothing happened, then I moved to a village where the place I stay has no power and suddenly many things were happening but I did not a chance to post. I'll give an outline of where I have been and what I have done, and try to fill in details along the way.

July 13-17th (ish) I was back in Ugenya (the village I started in) staying at the nice hotel there. It was actually a very fun week because Pat and I were also with Grace and Filipo (the two other SOTENI interns) so we were a big group. The week in Ugenya was the one that felt slightly uneventful. We visited all of the schools that we needed to and collected data. We also worked on some applications for grant money that SOTENI is applying for and other SOTENI work. We had one fun day when we went to the market and saw stuff that people were selling there.

Then we made the move to Kuria, which actually takes a full day of travel. We stop over in Kisumu which is a big city in the western part of the country. We didn't get to Kuria until very late. Our week in Kuria was actually very eventful. We only got to visit two of the three schools (one was in the middle of exams and decided to decline to participate in this section of the study for that reason), but it still felt really busy. We were working on the proposals SOTENI is submitting.

We did some fun "touristy" stuff. Kuria is right on the boarder of Tanzania, so one day we crossed the boarder and went to the town on the other side. This area of Kenya has lots of the classic African print fabric (kitanke or kanga depending on the quality) and it is mostly made in Tanzania, so its cheaper there (also the Tanzaniana shilling is much weaker than the Kenyan shilling so stuff is cheaper in general). I bought a bunch of fabric. I had one piece made into a skirt and matching top (the top was forced on me, i dont think i will ever really wear it) getting both made cost 800 ksh (10.25 usd) I think I am going to make some more of it into skirts when in the next village I go to. (its pretty crazy that you can get a made to fit item of clothing for $5). Other than that Tanzania looks pretty much just like Kenya. We did see one of the big truck stops that have been known as hot spots of HIV spreading in general, so it was an epedimiologically intersting trip.

Funny story: the guy who sold me all of the fabric that I bought told me that he wanted me to meet his son, and that he would negotiate a good dowry with my father. In general I have been told that my father can get twice as many cows for me since I have "brown" skin. So, Dad, if you are interested you could make a killing selling me for cows. I was also told that if cows are not involved in a marriage it "can't be permanent" I also got marriage proposals from a couple of the truck drivers.

I also got into a big discussion about religion that day, with a friend of Mathias's wife who came with us to help me get the right price for the fabric. She concluded after a long discussion that since she was a seventh day adventist she and I were practically the same religion. Though she did spend I bit of time trying to convince me differnt things about Jesus rising based on the placement of stones it didn't have the fire and brim stone feeling that you get in the US.

Back in Kuria, I found a group of boys to give the soccer ball that Jeff and his friend Toby gave me to bring over here. They were a big group playing next to my host mother's house. They had been playing with a ball of plastic held together with string and the ball made them all so happy, it was great.

I'm leaving the office right now, and heading back to my hotel. I'll post more later tonight.