Week in Review - Eldoret, Nairobi, etc

Wow, quite a week. I'm back in town today after a whirl-wind tour including a party and an agricultural trade show in Kakamega, a visit to see volunteers in Eldoret, and several meetings in Nairobi. Friday night was a going away/birthday party for Melanie, the Canadian volunteer I have become friends with in Kakamega. Melanie is a friend of a Dutch volunteer living in town who has a Kenyan boyfriend that owns a clubhouse he offered for the event. It was a great place for a party. All of Melanie's Kenyan work colleagues came, and everyone had a good time. There was great food and I made a lot of connections with volunteers and their Kenyan counterparts working throughout the area. Several of the people I met at the party came here for volunteer projects by themselves. It's impressive to see people who found their way to Kenya without all the nice perks (language and cultural training, health insurance, a network of friends around the country to visit) offered through the Peace Corps. Most of these volunteers are here for much shorter amounts of time though, and the longer I'm here the more I realize that at least a year is needed to really experience this place.

The two-year Peace Corps term is seems about perfect. One girl who I met from Alaska (and all this time I thought the only people from Alaska were grizzly alcoholic men with flannel shirts) is only here as a volunteer for two months and she is really disappointed to be going home so soon. Once you actually live with the people in a place like this as opposed to just staying on the tourist routes, two months, to me, seems like barely scratching the surface.

So the party went great, there was plenty of dancing and drinks, and by about one o’clock I was really wiped out. For some reason roasting in the Kenyan sun all day takes a lot out of me. I retired with the early crown while a few people left to go dancing at clubs until six in the morning. At the request of Melanie one of her work friends brought chang’a, which is the Kenyan version of moonshine. It's made from corn husks and has got to be the most vile tasting substance on the planet. I had a very small sip just to say I’ve tried it but there’s no way it’s a safe beverage. Since it was about as refreshing as nail polish remover I won’t be drinking it again.

So at 9 the next day I went to town for the agricultural trade show. It was mildly interesting for awhile, but there is only so long that I can focus attentively to people talking in detail about cow medications and hybrid seed maize. We did manage to finalize a deal with a seed fertilizer company to buy their products in bulk though, so it was productive nonetheless. The intention is to sell the seed and fertilizer to the farmers in small quantities at the bulk pricing we paid for it.

After the trade show I made my way to Eldoret to catch up with a few Peace Corps friends and to discuss a project with AIDS education through an organization in Kisumu. We had yet another Small Business Development Volunteer ET (Early Termination, or go back to the states early) and she left behind a good potential project. Actually, the only volunteers to go home from our group so far have been business volunteers, and with eight of them gone that means about half of us have left early. From what I gather this is not routine and I’m hoping the remaining people from my group will stay for the two-year term. I’ve had a recurring dream where I’m one of the people who decide to leave early and I’m back in the states with an office job, a house payment, etc. In it I always regret not staying in Kenya and I’m trying to find a way to come back, but it’s too late. Sometimes I’ll wake up and it won’t register that I’m still in Kenya until the pitch black night, lack of any sounds except insects and bats, and the mosquito net wrapped around my bed remind me where I am. I wonder if any of the ET volunteers are living my dream and regret their decision to leave.

So back to my week: Adrienne, my volunteer friend living near Eldoret, is living in with Nuns on a compound near a Catholic girl’s secondary school. The nuns have it nice, with a beautiful compound and plenty of amenities most Kenyans live without (good food, electricity, running water, etc.) They are great people and fed us the entire weekend I was there. When I got to Adrienne’s site I ended up finding her with two other volunteers playing sports with the girls from the secondary school. Soon I ended up on their handball team, and being both a mzungu and the only male on the compound the girls found it amusing. I really enjoyed it though. The sport is a cross between soccer and basketball, where the ball is thrown from person to person, dribbled, then thrown through a guarded soccer-style goal. It was a lot of fun to try to get the ball past the goalie, who on the opposing team was bigger than me and pretty much blocked every shot I threw. Afterwards I watched a field hockey game. The goalies don’t have any padding and the field hockey puck is about as hard as a billiard ball and is slapped at high velocity towards the unprotected goalie. Needless to say, they have been through many goalies and the person protecting the goal is either extremely brave or insane.

Adrienne and her friends left to prepare dinner (pizza!) and I stayed to play volleyball with a group of guys hanging around nearby. They were using a soccer ball that Adrienne had loaned them, since a volleyball was nonexistent. It was a lot of fun and there was plenty of arguing over whether missed shots were in (ndani!) or out (nje!). A soccer ball makes a painful volleyball though and by the time the game was over my forearms were red and raw.

So that evening the girls were having choir practice, and we snuck into the back of the room to watch. There are hundreds of girls and they were all singing church songs for the service in the morning. Afterwards they wanted us to visit the study hall classrooms and dancing/drumming practice, and I was basically dragged from classroom to classroom to introduce myself and talk about where I’m from and what I’m doing in Kenya.

The next morning we went to the church service and watched the girls dance and sing the music they had been practicing the night before. The service was extremely long and hard to follow and even though the singing was nice it was all I could do not to doze off since I’d stayed up late the previous evening watching movies on Adrienne’s laptop. The rest of the day was better. We had breakfast with the French teachers from the school and I had a chance to catch up on sleep with a nap afterwards. Later we went to the weekly HIV/AIDS meeting held by the girls in the secondary school. It is led by a girl who is HIV positive and currently on ARV’s (antiretroviral drugs). HIV/AIDS has a stigma in Kenya of being something that is not discussed and it was inspiring to hear her talk so candidly and honestly about it to her classmates. Later the girls asked us a few questions and Adrienne decided to start working with the girls on a weekly basis as a secondary project. As terrible as this is, the girls say they have received no formal HIV or AIDS education from teachers in the classroom.

Speaking of which, I never did get to the part about the secondary project in Kisumu. There is a secondary school in Kisumu that consists of nearly 1,000 girls, and 700 of them are orphans. That is about the perfect target demographic for AIDS education, and I have decided to work with Adrienne in Kisumu about once a month to discuss HIV and AIDS with the girls. I still haven’t formalized anything but there is a large supply of reading material available through the Peace Corps on AIDS education and a volunteer friend of mine in Kakamega has been doing AIDS education for six months now. She has offered props, books, and advice on the best way to present the material.

Now back to the week again, this is going to be a long blog entry… After the HIV/AIDS club I went for a bike ride through Adrienne’s village. I was really having a good time showing off by zipping up and down hills and jumping ledges, and if you know me it should now be apparent where this story is going; I went up on a ridge that had a deceptive three foot drop on the other side that was a little beyond the skill level of my bike riding ability. I took a nosedive, and for the first time (ok, maybe not the first time) wearing a helmet really came in handy. I tore up my shoulder and knee pretty good but managed to take most of the blow to my helmet and walked it off. It was about at that time that the rains came in and drenched me, and crazy as it sounds I had a great time. Being muddy, soaked in rain, tired, and bloody (but not to the point a hospital visit is required) is for me the sign of a successful bike ride. I think any of my biking friends from home who are reading this will agree. Plus the occasional minor accident helps keep me in check with where my limitations are.

So the next day I left for Nairobi to visit my wheelchair contact. The Peace Corps actually paid for my hotel. It was surprisingly nice and included a continental breakfast free of charge. That meant I had money to spend at Java House, which provides break from Kenyan cuisine with American style food. While in Nairobi I had vegetable lasagna, a big salad, a double expresso milkshake two times, and a real hamburger with fries and Heinz ketchup. I also went to a movie and watched “Munich” (I’d give it two and a half stars) and the next night I watched “Oliver Twist” (two thumbs down, terrible movie. However, it was free popcorn and hotdog night, which made it worth it).

Nairobi is a different world compared to the rest of Kenya and it really felt like being back in the states again. I need to try to avoid spending too much time there though because honestly I just lack the self control to avoid spending large sums money (well, not really compared to any given weekend back home but it really puts a significant dent in my Peace Corps stipend). Plus I get a bit of a guilt complex spending the equivalent of $7 on a meal or $4 on a movie when I know almost everyone back in my village is getting by on less than a dollar a day. I know part of it is the way I was raised and what I’m used to but while I’m here I feel like I should be willing to get by on less.

Oh, the other great thing about Nairobi: Not that I would do this because I’m sure it breaking copyright laws but there are so many great DVD’s for sale at Kiosks on the side of the road. How about 8 Jonny Depp movies on one DVD for $3.00? Or entire seasons of the Simpsons for the same price? Or what about a “best of 2006” movie collection that has 9 different movies, some of them not even released to the theater yet? Plus I have several friends in the Peace Corps that have DVD players on their computers. Anyway, just something interesting about Kenya I thought I would point out.

So I need to get going and I still have a ton to write. The wheelchair contact is named Benson and he is an incredible person. He is the chairman of an organisation (I’m using British English without noticing now) called the Kenya Programme (there is it again) for Disabled Persons (KPDP). Once the Chief Executive of a multimillion dollar insurance firm in Kenya, Benson was in a car accident that shattered his spine in three places and left him paralyzed from the waist down. After this he put his life into rights for the disabled in Kenya, which has been an uphill struggle to say the least. Nothing is done to help the disabled here, which is obvious even by going to Benson’s office. On any given day in Nairobi you will pass dozens of disabled people crawling on the ground, or missing legs, or basically immobile and miserable as they sit in place and hope someone will be kind enough to toss a shilling into their money jar. Benson has send in proposal after proposal with extremely limited success through the Kenyan government, and he feels the anything relating to the assistance of the disabled is put at the bottom of the pile and forgotten about. One success story Benson has, however, is getting the first Kenyan disabilities act put into place through his connection with the Vice President in 2003. However, the results of this initiative have been lacking. An example: the wheelchairs available through free wheelchair mission have been delivered to the port of Mombassa, which is as far as the organisation has agreed to ship them free of charge. There is about an additional $4500 for clearing costs and shipping to get them to Nairobi where the crate of 550 can be distributed to the disabled. Benson has had no success getting this money through the government, and is currently working with Free Wheelchair Mission to see if they can cover additional expenses, although it is not looking positive. Meanwhile, the wheelchairs are accruing additional storage expenses as they site in storage in Mombasa. I have spoken to the Peace Corps Country Director and Assistant Director about this and hope that through some of the leads I have been given I may be able to get the grant money together to assist. However, this is a lengthy process and may take to long to be a feasible option. Basically Benson has unlimited access to as many wheelchairs as he wants up to Mombasa but cannot find the funding from there. I cannot understand why there is not help from the government on this.

(Author's note: I am reading this much later as an older, wiser individual and have learned many bitter realities about Kenyan development work. Benson stole a $5,000 donation that was given to him to retrieve the wheelchairs from Mombasa. The wheelchairs were never distributed and through this incident testimonials from others it became clear that Benson's motives as a disabled individual are only to benefit himself. If anybody wants to assist the disabled in Kenya please go through the APDK, the Association for Disabled People in Kenya. This has proven to be an honest and transparent organization)

So also in Nairobi I visited the KACE headquarters, where I learned of potential markets for fresh produce in Eldoret and Kisumu. I will be scheduling meetings next week to discuss this with the branch offices in these locations. Finally, I went to the FAO office and discussed some of the work I have been doing in the network. The FAO is wanting me to begin conducting “Farming-as-a-business” seminars throughout Kenya, which means I may be getting some all expensed paid trips to the coast! Luckily the volunteer before me left plenty of good training material, and I also plan to go through this over the following week.

So I’ve got a lot to do now and I’m feeling good about it. I think I’ll stop now and send my congrats to anyone who made it this far.

Valentines Day in Kenya

I had a really good Valentine's Day. True, I spent it single and in a remote African village, and in Kenya the flower industry has not yet managed to infuse the real sense of Valentine spirit by tripling the price of flowers and forcing guys to buy them through marketing propaganda. However, days like yesterday really help me to remember why I'm here.

There are times when I sit alone in my house or in an endless and repetitive meeting and start to dwell in self pity. I'll miss friends and family, or start to regret how much it seems I gave up to be here (e.g. a valentine's date, a good job, and plenty of the material possessions that were dear to my heart).

Was it worth it, or am I crazy? I've concluded both. I'm happy to say that, at least as of Valentine's Day 2006, I would not go back and change my decision to be here. The experiences I'm gaining in Kenya are undoubtedly changing me for the better. Life here has really put into perspective what I consider some of my biggest flaws. Above all I'm learning patience. It's funny how restless I would get standing in a line in the states or how ridiculous it would seem for a scheduled event to start two hours late. Back home I was often the guy that would tailgate until people changed lanes, or as an alternative I would just weave in and out of traffic at dangerous speeds. For what? Just to get somewhere a few minutes earlier when it usually didn't matter? Americans live in such a time sensitive culture, and for me it often feels as though there are never enough hours in a day. It's refreshing (and at times frustrating) to be in a place where people take their time getting to where they need to be, all the while stopping to shake hands and chat with everyone they meet along the way. In fact, if people suffering from severe poverty, famine, and/or disease are not taken into account, which of course they are and that's the reason I'm here, I'd have to say that the average Kenyan seems more satisfied with life than the average American. Most Kenyans do not have much by way of material wealth, but so many have an aura of self satisfaction and contentment that is rare back home. This would have come as a complete surprise before I came here six months ago.

Another life lesson I'm learning is to stop taking small things so seriously. I don't have a Bible on me so forgive me if I misquote this, but there's a phrase in the Gospel where Jesus says something along the lines of "Why worry? Does worrying add even one extra minute to your life?" Even in a country surrounded by poverty, corruption, and disease, Kenyans seem to live by this mentality. Seeing a sincere smile on a women toiling in a field for less than a dollar a day makes me realize just how fortunate I am, and how often Americans, myself included, take things for granted and allow themselves to get worked up about the most insignificant things. Simply because I was born in the US I've been given a countless number of opportunities that most people in the world will never have. Sometimes I've made the right decisions and sometimes not, but at least I've had an option to follow the path I want to in life. I am so blessed and fortunate in this respect, as is nearly everyone I know back home. I would not have realized this to the extent I do now if I had not decided to come here and see first hand the standard of living available to the majority of the people on the planet.

So I'm straying off topic as I tend to do in these rambling blog posts. My intention was to write about my really good Valentine's Day and leave it at that. I'll focus better now. Yesterday was a "Farmer Field Day" for the Kakamega Farmer Field School Network. This is the second Field Day I have attended, and like I've written earlier it consists of presentations on farming tips, techniques, and products combined with lots of singing, dancing, speeches, presentations, and food. The farmers I'm working with, with a few exceptions, have to be some of the warmest, friendliest people anywhere. At this particular event there were several hundred farmers and I found out I was to be their "guest of honour". This meant I sat center stage while there was plenty of dancing, singing, and music, as well as speeches from several of the collaborators who attended the event, including some big names (here anyway) like Western Seed Company and representatives from KENFAP (Kenyan Farmer Agriculture something or other). I even managed to give a decent speech (although I did need assistance with a few words) completely in Swahili. In the speech I encouraged the farmers to grow orange fleshed sweet potatoes, as that is the focus crop the network has been able to find profitable markets for, and I told the farmers about the potential for a composite flour processing mill in the network. At the end of the ceremony the field school hosting the event brought me a sweet potato cake they had baked and I danced like an idiot with several mamas who were singing a "Cut the Cake Joseph" song in Swahili that they were making up as they went. After cutting the cake the farmers gave me a gift of about 50 fresh eggs. It was a really nice gesture but I didn't see how I would ever use them all so I gave most of them away, but I walked away from the event with a real feeling of satisfaction since I have an opportunity to really help people I really care about.

So tomorrow I'm off to Bungoma to work out some potential commodity trades. This weekend I'll be at an agricultural trade show in Kakamega before going to Eldoret to look into doing some HIV education work with a friend. Then, on Monday I'm off to Nairobi. It seems things are in full gear now and I'm really enjoying it, so expect to hear more soon.

Update on the job, etc.

Ok, I'm in town and have some free time, so here's the latest. This weekend was relatively uneventful. I spent Saturday lounging by the pool at the Golf hotel with my friend Mel, who is a Canadian volunteer from British Columbia. She's leaving next weekend after a six month stint in Kenya and we had a good time doing basically nothing but reading and jumping in the water when it got too hot. She's throwing a big going away party on Friday so hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about soon.

It was nice to veg and do nothing Saturday because things have been ridiculously busy at work, and a meeting was even scheduled for Sunday. Naturally this meeting turned into an all day affair. The meeting was scheduled for 10. I was assured it would actually begin at 10:00 "mzungu time" after halfway joking that I wouldn't show up until around 11 so I wouldn't be the first one there. So I got to the office on time and of course people didn't start drifting in until after 11. I'm not falling for it again. The meeting actually started around 12:15 and was still going strong without a lunch break in the late afternoon.

Although Kenyan meetings are among my least favorite part things, but we did get a lot accomplished yesterday. The first thing we learned was that the Ministry of Agriculture, for some unknown reason, has decided to relocate and rearrange all district and extension officers. This poses a bit of a problem in that we have a good relationship with one of the officers who has done a lot for the network and is working with us in getting the funding for our grant proposal. Also, the extension officers, whose jobs are to be in the field working with farmers, spend their days in the office next door to mine lounging around and chatting. I've never seem them actually work but are a fun group nevertheless and it's shame they are being transferred somewhere else. I spoke to my supervisor in town about the relocations and he seems confident that it should not affect the Kakamega FFS Network or the grant proposal too much, but we'll see.

Other than that we are working on getting five commodity boards placed in various villages throughout Kakamega District. The plan is to use these boards to list the prices that crops are selling for in markets throughout Kenya, so farmers have some leverage in selling and will hopefully be able to get higher prices. The plan is to update these boards weekly and we plan to do that by sending a text message with the latest crop prices to shop owners who will place the boards in front of their stores. The organization that will provide us with the latest crop prices, as well as help us find markets, is called KACE (Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange). They are headquartered in the nearby town of Bungoma and I have a meeting scheduled with them on Thursday to renew our contract and discuss potential markets for various crops the farmers are growing.

I also discussed the discrepancy in finances at the network meeting and will be going to the bank this week to get a printout of all transactions since the account was opened. I'm still working on getting this worked out but hopefully it will happen soon.

Finally, I managed to get in touch with the contact for the free wheelchairs in Nairobi and I have scheduled a meeting with him next Tuesday. I've gotten a lot of feedback from volunteers and if we will be able to get the wheelchairs from him it appears we will have no problem in distributing hundreds of them.

Oh, and I just finished a book called "Zanzibar Chest". I highly recommend it and hope that at least someone reading my blog will check it out. It's by a Reuters correspondent from Kenya, and among other things he discusses his experiences in East Africa over the past twenty of so years. Some of his descriptions of Somalia and Rwanda were really difficult to read, but I found it a very enlightening book.

So that's about it, lots coming up and I'll keep everyone informed.

Weekend Pics - Malava and Kakamega Forests

Here are some pics from my adventures last weekend:

Colobus monkeys hanging out in a tree in Malava Forest

Here I am trying to get a Baboon to take the banana from my hand, I got within inches but they wouldn't actually take it from me

Here's a happy baboon eating a banana. I have a monkey complex, but I'll try to restrain myself and make this will be the last monkey picture for awhile.

These kids went running to my friend Adrienne with their toy doll. They thought it looked just like her and were so excited about it.

Here's the sunrise over the rainforest. The view is spectacular, and I'm told that after the rains come it will even be better as a mist will rise from the trees in the mornings.

Kakamega Rainforest, Baboons, etc.

I came into town this afternoon to send off some paperwork required by Peace Corps. After getting that mess out of the way I finally got around to sending out emails (still not caught up completely, but I'm close), and now the Cyber Cafe is about to close. I want to update the blog though so I'll be quick and fill everyone in on the weekend, hopefully before being run off.

This weekend there was a birthday for a PCV in Eldoret, which is about a two hour matatu ride from Kakamega. (By the way, the time taken to travel via matatu/boda boda has become my measurement standard in Kenya, so add a few hours on a bad day) Five people came to my house, which gave me a great reason to finally clean it up, and we had an action packed night of eating salsa and bean dip, playing the yahtzee game I bought for a quarter from the returning volunteer's auction, and catching up with everyone's latest adventures. The next morning we went to Kakamega town and met up with Elly, who is a Kenyan that I met on my return trip from Eldoret a few weeks ago. He is a college student in Nakuru who lives in Malava, which is a town bordering a forest filled with Baboons that is close to Kakamega. Elly agreed to take us to Malava and we met a game warden there who gave us a tour of the forest. We brought a bunch of bananas to feed the baboons, but at first it appeared they decided to take the weekend off. We walked through the forest for several hours and could not find any, although the trees were filled with blue and colobus monkeys. Finally we gave up and almost made our way back into town when we found the baboons standing by the side of the road. We walked towards them and they started to run off until I tossed a banana in their direction, after which they became friendlier. First we got to watch a baboon skirmish between two large males over who had the right to get to the bananas first, and after that they were almost taking the bananas out of our hands. A baboon inches away from you is an interesting experience, as they are huge and look like bears with long tails. I guess they are friendly though since they area vegetarians, and Kenyans would never do anything that was unsafe. (ok, maybe not always true)

Anyway, I got to feed baboons which made me really happy. Afterwards we went camping at a new spot in the Kakamega forest a short hike from a phenomenal view. We walked to the overlook and could see hundreds of miles of rainforest. A mist comes off the trees during the rainy season and everything looks different, so I plan to return again in a few months when the rains are here. At the campsite we caught up with a few more volunteers, and we had five people in a four person tent. It's amazing how cheap getting paid about $150 a month will make you, because for an extra dollar we could have slept in a hut with cots. Anyway, at about 3 in the morning, after approximately zero hours of sleep, I was fed up and slept outside the tent. The next morning I woke everyone early to see the sunrise, which looked like it would be fantastic from the overlook. It turned out really nice and I'll post some pics now if they don't run me off.

That's about all for now, work is coming along well and I'll write more about it at another time.

Happy Groundhog Day

Here in Kenya, if the choo (pit latrine) roach crawls out of the hole and sees his shadow, that means 22 more months of warm, perfect weather. It looks like I'm in luck this year. I don't know how I'll be able to go back to freezing my butt off six months a year.

Anyway, I had to go through to Kakamega again today for work, so here I am at the Internet cafe. I seriously think I may have a problem. I sat in the front row of a matatu on the way into town and a speaker was blaring Swahili rap music a few inches in front of my face. There was a sign above it that said "If the music is too loud, you are too old".

Not much new to report so I won't waste everyone's time, but I'll write again soon.

Proposal - Stage 2

Monday was a good day. After an early morning workout I rode to the office to find that the result of our proposal request was available from the DAO (District Agricultural Officer). Since the Peace Corps book on grants that I used as a guideline in writing my proposal (they don’t hand this out for the first six months but I managed to swipe one from a volunteer that has been here for awhile) claims the longer you have to wait before getting a response the more likely it is you will get the funding, I was really disappointed to hear they had already decided, I assumed, to can the project. So with a heavy heart I hopped on my bike again to go into town. By the way, my bicycle has quite possibly the cheapest, most uncomfortable seat of all time. I won’t get into details about it, but since I haven’t completely ruled out having children someday I convinced my father to mail me something better....thanks again Dad.

Now back to the story: So I ride my bike into town and pick up the envelope with the results, and wonder of wonders, we were approved for the grant. Not that we are home free yet, but we are getting closer. The approval committee in Kakamega decided our plan was feasible, and sent it on to Nairobi to be finalized for the funding to come our way. Out of the entire Western Province we were one of only two organizations approved for funding, but unfortunately we were ranked second of the two. So in order of priority they will take care of providing the funds to the group picked first before coming to us. Also, the people in Nairobi could look at our grant and decide not to fund it after all. I’m told this is highly unlikely though, as they stay so “busy” they do not even read the proposals and leave that to the committees at the province level to decide.

Also, the donor expects the applicant organization to fund 15-20% of the total cost of the project. Since this was my first attempt at a Kenyan grant application I was unaware of this. When I wrote the proposal I explained how the farmers would show their support by purchasing the materials for the drying racks and assembling them, but the costs of this endeavor is far from the 15% minimum contribution required. We are going to have to rewrite the budget so that we are tying in a larger percentage of our own funds for this initiative, which may prove difficult since our funding is limited.

Anyway, I’m hoping for the best and it seems the most difficult hurdle has been crossed. I’ll keep everyone posted.

Yesterday I went to Busia again to talk to the farmer field school network there, and they seem to be about where the Kakamega Network was two years ago. They have recently acquired an office and are in the process of getting a computer. They want me to spend a lot of time working with them on finding markets and computer training. Busia is a two hour matatu ride away on a good day, so I’m really not too excited about the prospect of riding back and forth regularly. Their network is huge, with over 4000 farmers and hundreds of field school groups, so if I can take any knowledge that has been beneficial to the Kakamega Network and bring it to Busia I guess I’ll feel obligated to cram myself into Matatus for over four hours a day. I even proposed involving them on the flour project assuming that it takes off and is successful.

So that’s what’s new with me. I’m planning a camping trip in the rainforest this weekend, might go rafting on the Nile in Uganda in the near future, and hope to climb Mt. Elgon this month, so I’ve got a few adventures to look forward to. I found a lead for inexpensive wheelchairs and am in the process of seeing if anything will come out of that, and I’m heading to the border town of Migori in a month to work with an orphanage there. So email, write, and call me, I miss everyone. You’ll be proud to learn I've sent two letters to the states today, and many more are coming soon.

Random thing I like bout Kenya: When the Cane Trailer drives through my village, it’s like the ice cream truck is in town. Barefoot children run after it screaming enthusiastically, gathering the sugar cane that falls from the back of the truck. Often, the children here shout “howuryou” (just one word for them) at me with a mouthful of sugarcane.

Random thing I don’t like about Kenya. The accounting software on our computer, which I’m assuming was kept up to date by the previous volunteer, shows an account balance of about 300,000 shillings. Our bank statement shows an account balance of 144,000 shillings. Where did all the money go? There are no receipts or transactions anyone knows about to account for it. I’m running by the bank and scheduling a meeting next week to figure it out.