This weekend we went to the Kakamega rainforest. It was our
first weekend out of Kisumu, and was quite well timed as we were getting a
little stir crazy. Kisumu is beautiful, but small. Our friend from work,
Brenda, had a friend who got us a great deal on a hostel. So the three
Gettysburg interns (Shane, Ludi, and I), two interns from another clinic at
Ring Road (Cody and Cat), and Brenda and her three friends (Malike, Steve, and Ken) took a 45 minute
matatu to the forest. Instantly upon walking in we saw monkeys and butterflies galore.
We went to the view point to look out over the forest and then visited the
falls. On the way out, Cody bought the group a stick of sugar cane to gnaw on.
Sugar can it weird to eat. You chew it for the sweet taste, but it is
impossible to swallow. Its much easier to eat when you resign to the fact that
there is no attractive way to eat it. As we were walking back to the gate, it
began to rain. Not unuaual for a rainforest. A family in a hut on the way waved
us inside, where we sat and hung out until the rain passed. American would
never causally let a stranger into their home to get them out of the rain. The
gesture was random and cool.
Pictures are worth a
thousand words, so here you go:
 |
| Almost everyone who went- left to right- Cat, Ken, Ludi, Steve, Brenda, and me |
 |
| In the jungle |
 |
| INCEPTION TREE (a tree within a tree) |
 |
| View from the view point |
 |
| The fall...were small |
 |
| Adorable big-eyed baby from the field |
Last week Shane and I went out to the community to deworm
some kids and hand out vitamin A supplements. The kids were adoreable. Some
were outright terrified of us. The outreach worker assured us it was ok, it’s
just our skin that freaks them out. I guess that makes sense since we are all
pasty and pale like corpses. Us walk through the slum is basically like the
zombie apocalypse. Outreach work is the most enjoyable thing we do here, but
sadly that is not every day.
 |
| Deworming |
On the home front, my family is still awesome. Clyde, the
little toddler next door, is finally not scared of me anymore. While writing
this post he came into my room and hung out with me. He doesn’t talk, just
stares. Still cute though.
 |
| Clyde |
Junior, aka Kim, my host brother, has a new favorite game.
He just tries to scare me any chance he gets. It worked once. He wiggled himself
under the couch I was sitting on without me notice and then kicked the seat.
Since then he’s tried to top it. He knocks on my window oat night, hides under
my bed, and even tied a battery to a shoe lace and hid it in my bed, hoping I
would think it was a snake. I threatened to spray him with bug spray and he
lightened up, but I still check under the bed before I go to sleep.
 |
| Junior |
Last week we went to Jomo Kenyatta sport ground to play
around a bit and were joined by Charles. Hs English was flawless and smiled all
the time. Upon asking where he was from, he announced a was a street boy. Being
a street boy is a terrifying prospect in Kisumu. They are abandoned, beaten,
raped, robbed, and recruited into gangs. Often times you see them stumbling
through the street sniffing glue to numb whatever they are feeling. After a
while you get used to some unsettling sights here, but not this one.
Fortunately, Charles was only two days into his scary stay on the streets and
Cody knew a place specifically for street kids called Agape. Cody made him
promise to meet back at the sports grounds the next day to go to Agape. After Cody left, Ludi, Shane, and I took him
to buy some bread for dinner. The next day, we met up with Cody to find
Charles. Like the bright boy he is, he decided to wait under the tree we had
first met him at.
Agape seemed to be a fabulous facility. They are about a decade
old and did rehabilitation for street children. The manager told us of their
overwhelming success and preached that he believed that the primary thing the
children needed was a little love. As a hippy-liberal-psych major, I was
fascinated. Find a mindset like this in Kenya is rare and I was excited that
Charles was admitted.
A final story to put Kenya in perspective. On Friday, I fell
while on a run. The roads are rocky and I scrapped up my hands and knee. I
finished the run and arrived home. Typically, the women around my house freak
out over small thing. If there is too little rice on my plate or my shoes are
not clean, I will hear about it for ten minutes after. But when I walked into
the house bleeding, every woman stopped me, looked at me for a minute, smiled,
and said “That is life”, and walked away. It’s so true. That is life. Life
hurts and there is not all that much anybody can do about it except cover it
with a bandaid and hope it turns out ok.
