Choodom or Kingdom of the Choo

The choo (pronounced Ch-oh) or as it is more universally know; the pit latrine, is a mixed bag of interesting that is a regular part of one’s life in rural Kenya. If you are unfamiliar as to the visual marvel that is the pit latrine here you go:

Now there are many benefits and disadvantages to the choo that are both humorous and an disasterous to one’s dignity. Let’s run through a cavalcade of pros and cons.

Pro: Squatting - it is said that squatting is the best position for eliminating waste, as it aligns in inner canal for effortless disposal and gravitational assistance.

Con: Squatting - while it is good for a thigh workout, after a long day of walking the last thing you need is
your legs giving out on you and having to put your hand down to prevent yourself from falling over…eww

Pro: Time saving - for many reasons (a.k.a. a need to inhale a non-choo breath of air, leg exhaustion, or
multiple spiders looking on and debating if you are indeed a tasty snack) it is in, out, and on with life.

Con: Choo Draft - that uncouth gust of cold air that rushes out of the hole in the floor to your multisensory
displeasure.

Pro: It’s green (in the ecologically beneficial for the environment) - No water, no fowl, right?

Con: Misses - Dear Kenyan who egregiously covered the floor with your waste, HOW!? I’ve only been
doing this for 5 months and haven’t missed yet… you’ve been doing this your entire life! WHY!?

Con: Choo sniffles - when you have a runny nose and accidentally sniff a huge intake of choo air. Bleh!

The Aftermath Pt.3

I wake up to the worse mixture of dillusion, muscle spasms, and of course the after pains of getting cut open through skin, muscle tissue and of course intestine. I need pain killers stat.

The next 32 hours are in a perpetual state of half-consciousness.  Barely registering the frequent visits from nurses to inject gallons of anti-biotics and pain-killers into my vein every four hours. Hardly able to move and eat the copious amounts of hospital food, that I get scolded severly for barely touching.  Finally Sunday morning the moment of truth and first challenge arrises, I have to pee.  Needless to say it is an interesting twenty minute attempt to achieve the crossing of 10ft from bed to toilet, what I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall to witness the awkward attempts at standing up without using any abdominal muscles... I'm pretty sure I got stuck twice trying different ways and maneuvers.

*Slightly graphic warning*
The unfortunate thing about the pain-killers that are given is the side-effects they leave for your bowels. They stop you up like the Hover-dam. The second unfortunate thing is the nurses' opening line when  visiting your room or when there is a shift change is inevitably "Have you opened your bowels?", and in front of three new nurses having to mutter an embarrassed. "No".

To my torture, I had to struggle with this condition for 5 days following my surgery. Meanwhile, forced to chug sluggey helpings of metamucil equivenlent substances thrice daily in the hopes of freeing my excriments from their yards long prison.  When that didn't work at 10pm monday night the head nurse walks in and smacks a small cap full of some yellowish syrup and says ominouslt, "It's time for some stronger stuff." Little did I know that the next 8 hours would be a living nightmare. I was woken at midnight with the worst gas pains imaginable and spent the next three hours doing calisthenics, and one leg bicycle kicks to work it all out. From there I spent the next four hours on the loo. The worst part was feeling it push against the recently operated on intestine.

When I was finally able to walk for more then just to the bathroom, I ventured upstairs to visit my friend Josh who had been hit by a motorcycle about six days earlier. The funniest and saddest part was making each other laugh telling ridiculous hospital experience stories etc. This was cause it hurt to laugh. I would end up doubled over clutching my appendix area and Josh would in turn have to brace his broken ribs. One time *another slightly graphic warning* he got me laughing so hard my wound began to seep a little.

We were forced to spend the next week in a hotel with little else to do than to lie around and watch movies or talk for hours sense we were barely mobile.

The Scar:

Darn the Thumb-sized Organ! Pt. 1

Little did I know an innocent Thursday afternoon would turn in to a whirl-wind of craziness and pain. I was sitting with my counterpart Esther discussing how best to prepare for World AIDS Day next month, when it hit me. I began to sweat profusely, felt light headed and dizzy, and was suddenly gripped with pain through-out my abdomen to the point of vomiting. Thinking that it was likely food poisoning from the yogurt I had eaten earlier that day, I called medical to see what I should do.


Thinking the same, my PCMO had me lie down and try to calm the vasovagal response that my body was having. When my body’s response to the shock did not dissipate she had me press on different parts of my abdomen, when the right side yielded more pain, she worried this was something more and told me to get to the hospital in Nakuru, my nearest larger town.

The ride there was beyond the scope of being quick and easy. It had just finished a near 5-6 hour perfuse period of rain, therefore the 10km dirt road from Ngorika to the main tarmac was a nightmarish battle through thick mud and water for the little Honda hatchback that carried me to my doom.

After a terrifying 2 hour (in normal conditions would have been 30 mins) trip to a tiny private hospital, I proceeded to wait another spanse of time to be seen by a doctor. Following more pushing around on my stomach and stiffling a desire to slap the doctor for pushing on the same inflamed spot eight times, they had to call a radiologist to come in to perform an ultrasound. Any hope of blood-work was for naught, due to the lack the hospital had of a laboratory.

Swelling, they told me. An emanate and sure sign of appendicitis.

I would have to spend the night in this tiny hospital until they could air-flight me to Nairobi and the seeming inevitability of surgery. I spent the next nine hours trying to rest, while nurses came to check on me every hour to make sure I had not worsened, while the thoughts of surgery in a foreign land swam through my brain…

Global Hand-Washing Day

Celebrated every 15th of October this day is one set aside to teach kids, and adults alike the importance of proper hand washing for hygiene as well as a highly effective means of preventing multiple disease from simple colds to typhoid and pneumonia which kill thousands every year.


This year we decided that as a way to celebrate we would not only teach the kids how and why to wash their hands but also to have them simultaneously wash their hands to demonstrate what they learned. It was a great idea, unfortunately we weren’t prepared for the number of kids that showed up.

We held the meeting at the local primary school and five other schools showed up upon last minute invitation. Of course it was amazing to have 2,400ish kids chanting and attentively listening (and of course gawking at the gangly white human in front of them) unfortunately we had not prepared for nearly that many and only had a couple dozen buckets and basins.

To give you an idea as to how many kids were there:

Building a Tippy Tap:

Having the kids demostrate washing their hands (P.S that is Esther my awesome counterpart!):

Showing all the clean hands:

Locked In the Closet

My utility closet has one specific flaw in its working as a house; the outer gate/door to the building as a whole, locks (with a dead-bolt) from the outside.

I never figured that this would pose a significant problem until the group of contractors that were went to work on my new house arrived. A couple days after they came I had been sitting in my house after making dinner relaxing and I had to use the restroom which is located outside of course. To my shock and horror I tried to use the outer doors and they would not budge.

Slowly I realized that I was trapped and as far as I could tell no one could yet hear my pleas for release. I tried calling a couple of Kenyan friends and of course it is the one time they did not answer the phone. As the hours passed, the bucket I usually use for purifying my water was beginning to look very appealing as a pee bucket. This, of course, I still begrudged to do out of shear stubbornness, not wanting to adhere to fellow PCV’s argument that this is an ok and necessary thing to do. Jenn.

Thankfully, three hours later, I was rescued by a passing patient, who saved my life, my bladder, and my pride.

The Kiss

I think I gained a woman problem.


From all the stories that we heard during PST, and all the tips that they gave us to avoid awkward opposite-sex interactions, I swore that I would do everything in my power to make myself undesirable and make it obvious that I was unattainable.

Apparently, I failed.

Now, I have been very careful to never go to any particular mama too often to buy produce, as well as to never always buy the same particular item from the same mama. This mama has been no exception, however I did like going to her stand because her produce was always of quality and she has, from the beginning, always given me a fair, non-mzungu, price.

Then yesterday happened.

As I finished purchasing a couple items, I, as with any Kenyan, was leaving with a farewell handshake. Now it’s rare, but not unusual, for a mama to give what I call the “Double Bro-hug”, keeping the hand-shaking hands in between and proceeding to sort of chest-bump/hug. This is what she proceeded to go for but as I was turning to leave I suddenly feel a kiss on my neck.

My heart-drops and I hurry away without looking back as fast as possible.

On taking counsel with my counter-part, my worst fears were confirmed; this is definitely not normal for a strictly plutonic relationship, even amoung most family units. Ugh. So now I have to put shields up to maximum, phasers set to kill, and utilize every avoidance procedure I know.

If I Look Back Then I Am Lost

I really love hiking and exploring and it is so beautiful up here in the foothills of the Rift Valley that I do it quite a lot. Walking around forces you to meet and greet people along the way, not to mention that it absolutely helps me to clear my head.

I was reading a story about a guy who does a lot of backpacking and other exploring type trips and in it he says something that caught my attention; “When your exploring you are never really lost as long as you keep going, it is only when you look back that you become lost.”

Most days things are great. I feel “in the groove” so to speak. Yet every now and then I start to long for home and dwell on certain things I miss too much and get myself into a funk. This happened to me the other day. I looked back.

The area surrounding Ngorika reminds me remarkably of Oregon, which made me realize I am going to miss our family’s annual Polar Bear Jump on the 1st of the year, which, well you get the picture.

I’m not saying that I shouldn’t remember good times, or try to forget people or things in the past. Simply that now I need to remain forsighted, on what’s to come and the people that are here in my life now.

It is only when I look back that I get lost.

The Burden Be...

Love is hard.

Often it leads you to places you never expected and to do work that is so rewarding.

It looks like perseverance. A smile when you’re being stared at or attempting a conversation when you know your speech is going to be made light of.

Maybe it’s having your heart broken to see desolation and unlivable conditions, and have them seem viewed as normal by others, all while using everything in your power to keep it together.

It’s being bored out of your mind but sitting through the four hour church service you were invited to anyway.

Sometimes it is going to dinner and spending time with people who opened their home to you when you have a migraine and want nothing more than to lie down and sleep.

It is feeling lonely and missing out on the lives of those you love, maybe even not getting to say that permanent goodbye.

It is sacrifice. But the work that I do and the words I speak to convince a crowd, if they don’t have love, I leave a void attempt to do good and a bitter taste with every word I say.

If I don’t have love I waste my breath.

Using the "Kenyan English" Voice

Monday I got the privilege of teaching a lesson about HIV/AIDS and STIs at the training of a group of new CHWs (Community Health Workers). The class went really well, and it was a chance to practice one of the undiscussed, and personally disliked, “skills” known as the “Kenyan English Voice”.

I absolutely haaaaaaaaaate utilizing my “Kenyan English” voice. I feel like I am being pretentious and speaking down to the Kenyan I am communicating with. However, without using it in some form most Kenyans are less than able to understand what I am saying in my regular Californian accent.

Now, everyone has their own form of the “Kenyan English Voice” but there are some pretty universal traits that one must use for effective communication in English. These include; lengthening of vowels (particularly ‘u’ and ‘o’), the disuse of contractions, and a hard pronunciation of ‘t’s. My personal flavor is these key traits with while adding a light British lilt and a staccato-ish rhythm tends to aid almost perfectly the ability to understand what I am trying to communicate.

When it comes to understanding what’s being said to me, sometimes I get completely lost. Mostly because in KiKuyu 'r's are pronounced as 'l's, 'b's as 'f's, and 'c's as 'sh'.

On the plus side I got complemented by a mama that I had the best English she had ever heard from a Mzungu... something about not "sounding all scruntched up in the nose"... which totally make sense why children "talk" all nasally or plug their noses to say "How are you" as I walk by... Still sounds like their making fun of me =(

Storm Clouds Over Africa

Today has been a terrible day, and the weather is expressing the sadness of what I had to witness. I don’t know how else to express the weight of the loss of life:

The morning breaks a mother’s heart, leaves her crying in the rain.
Left alone with her thoughts, as the boy she’s grown slips away.
Melding into dreams and other people’s memories.

It's the Little Things

Today I learned a valuable lesson: Never wear gum boots when someone tells you that you are going to walk somewhere and you have no absolutely no idea how far this place is…

Since I did not think this out thoroughly I ended up walking, what I was told later, was close to 18km round trip (aka 11 miles) in just rubber boots =(  Needless to say the entirety of the bottom of my foot is one giant blister.

On the way back I reached to clear out one of my pockets of the old duct tape I had used and pulled out 50 /= (that slash-equals is the symbol for Kenya shillings). I don’t know why it made me so happy (because it’s only the equivalent of about 55 cents, but I guess it’s just the act of a random surprise that made me so happy.

Other little things that brighten my day:
1. Chapati – there is something about this overly oiled flat bread that warms my heart

2. Someone getting so excited that I said something to them in Kikuyu. Not even kidding they love it.

3. Chai – sometimes this tea is waaaaay to sugary, but I still love it (though not after being force feed 5 cups throughout the day)

4. My counterpart Esther’s laugh – it’s not even that funny or peculiar or anything but it makes me smile

5. A letter from home – honestly it can seem like nonsense to whomever wrote to me but trust me the sight of an envelope with my name on it sends me over the edge. (You don't even wanna see me when I get a package...talk about lack of propriety)

6. A kid yelling my name instead of Mazunguu – probably just because this takes me from being a 'thing' to being a person again.

7. Someone greeting me in Kiswahili and not English - I feel less like an outsider.

8. The stars – there is nothing like the stars at 7000ft on a clear non-light polluted night.

9. The smell of the Eucalyptus trees down the road from the Health Centre

10. Squelching around in the mud with my gum-boots. I'm 5 again.

There is Something About Blood

I honestly don’t know what it is, but some of my favourite fruits are “Blood” fruits. Back in California is was the Blood Orange. Sure a regular orange is delicious but the Blood orange is AMAZING! When my parents planted a Blood Orange tree I was ecstatic!

One of my favourite fruits so far here in Kenya is the Pashoni ya Damu a.k.a. the Blood Passion fruit. I think half of the allure of the fruit is it’s aesthetics, the beautiful drops of red within the yellow fleshy part of the fruit.

It looks like this:

And oh mama is it delicious! I mean passion fruits are good and all, but they are a weird texture and have a unique after taste. The Blood pashioni is a whole ‘nother relm of delicious.

The Explorer's Heart

The path softly crunches beneath my feet. It’s gentle moan assuring me that it supports me. Each step though, a risk, the unevenness threatening to do me damage, but I like it. It is a game to be played, not but a challenge to overcome.

The sun’s piercing rays lick at my skin, beaming down with the promise of life and punishment. The carefree clouds float lazily across the vast spans of the African sky. Twisting, forming and reforming their delicate shapes, as they move the spirit with the beauty of their dance. Leaving the heart to groan with the longing for the promise of freedom their movements represent.

The sweetest of smells assaults my nose and clouds my brain with its overwhelming allure. The seas of grass shake their long appendages at me, trying to point me in the opposite direction. The wind that blows them whips across my face. Each soft touch of grace whispers with encouragement.

Moving through the underbrush, I let the strange alien succulent’s needles to scratch at my flesh. It is a masochistic enjoyment, as my cells part to give way to bushes sharp protectants. It is a reminder that I am alive, a form of penance.

A brilliant, black and white bird’s song carries me to the peak, giving musical theme to my journey. I crest the rise of the earth and the air escapes my lungs. The awe before my countenance is wide and vast, beckoning with the promise of adventure.

Wildebeest graze far below, dotted beneath the canopied arms of the acacia, moving slowly towards the lusty interior that spans between the legs of the foothills. Completely unaware and unthreated by the humbled presence above them.

Chance Encounters

I love walking. Especially around this area because it is so green and beautiful, it just puts me at ease. Several of my new Kenyan friends have commented on and, of course, had to have a good laugh about my affinity for walking.

There is also another, less advertised reason for my walking. It is a great way to be able to interact with people. Especially in the settlements even more interior than Ngorika, people want to greet me and ask what the heck a white guy is doing
way out here.

Today my walking led to a chance encounter that turned out to be more brilliant than a simple conversation/greeting. I was troddling along when I hear “tssst tsst, come to us!” Now usually I ignore people when they due the “tsssst” to grab your attention because it just grates on my nerves but some feeling within me told me to stop and see what they wanted. When I hit reverse I see that it is a man and a woman (and when I got closer another man deep within the hole) working to dig a well. I stop and chat for a little when I quickly find out that one man is a carver and road worker and the other is a mason.

Ding.

My interest alert goes off and excited level goes up. Why, do you ask? Because one of the major issues I have come to notice here in Ngorika is that unless you have a little extra pesa in your pocket (and even then sometimes) most people use the three stone cooking method. It is literally three stones put closer together, fire in the middle, and pot on top. This is highly less effective fuel wise aaaaand produces a lot of smoke. Upper respiratory infections are a high in the area.

The problem I have been encountering with further enquiry is that ant hill soil is hard to come by and much more expensive to purchase in this area and because of the many quarries in the area the use of brick is little to none, yet still much more expensive than many are able to afford.

Long story short he has offered to assist in creating a more cost effective means of creating the improved stones with resources available! He gave me his contact information and I left sunburned, yet satisfied that my little walk had proved to me more valuable than I could have imagined.

When Frustration Leads to Murder

Well not murder exactly.

This is a story about how an accumulation of personal issues led me to murder a chicken against my better judgment.

There are a couple things I like about my personality; I have a wide variety in things that I love, and as such I like to remain relatively unpredictable or surprise people because they don’t expect me to have done, or enjoy, one thing or another.

There are also a couple things that I hate about my personality; I have an insatiable need to prove people wrong when they doubt my abilities. This is doubled when my masculinity is brought into question.

This weekend I was over at a family’s place that I have recently become friends with. As with many interactions with Kenyans, this visit was full of “In your place (America) do you have, do, use ______?” This particular time we were going to prepare dinner and the son upon being asked to go slaughter a chicken asked, “In America do you slaughter chickens?” Which lead to an argument about whether I have ever killed anything, and ended with a statement of absolute assuredness that I have not, and would never, kill anything, followed by my angrily grabbing the chicken by the head and proceeding to take off it’s head in one clean stroke. (To the slack jawed gaping mouths of 6 Kenyans and 11 chickens)

Internally I wanted to vomit but for the sake of saving face and upholding my pride and honour, I continued to pluck and gut the chicken with not so much as a grimace.

Lessons learned: - Chickens can still cluck without a head
-The scales on their feet peel off like snake shedding it’s skin
- It’s ok to let people doubt you, they’ll get over it, but even so, there is odd satisfaction in proving that a Mazunguu can do (almost) anything a Kenyan can.

Donkey Blues

Donkeys are the bomb.

They are so useful here in Kenya; keep down the lawn, great source of transport, and excellent for labour purposes and they are so mopey it’s cute.

Yesterday, as I was walking home from Nyaitoga (a “nearby” community) and witnessed a poor donkey with a ridiculous load slip and fall over into a ditch. The owner was in a slight panic and I rushed over to see what I could do to help.

It was at just a wrong angle that even when we released its load from around it, it couldn’t wriggle to its feet. We were trying to help it by pushing its back end around so it was more downhill, when it freaked a little, and kicking, made contact with my thigh.

Needless to say it hurt, no broken skin, but the fattiest bruise is probably going to show up. We managed to get the donkey up, and I proceeded limping the last 5 km home.

Just another crazy day in Kenya.

Just A Little KuKu

Herein lies the story of a most peculiar occurrence during one of my opportunities to teach at a women’s group.

We were meeting in the living room of one of the women of the group. Now, in rural Kenya it is rather typical for animals, especially chickens, to come roaming through the house and then leave and nobody usually minds unless the animal is getting into or doing stuff it shouldn’t.

While I am teaching on proper hand-washing technique one such chicken marches into the living room and proceeds to sit between two women who are sitting on the couch. Though this is odd enough, the chicken proceeds to lay an egg. Yes, full on squawking, painful, awkward laying of an egg.

And nobody tries to shoo it out of move it. They just let it proceed with it’s business.

After about five minutes of complete distraction, and me trying to focus on the lesson without busting up laughing, it nonchalantly gets up and walks out the door like nothing ever happened.

Talk about child abandonment…

Stars

I wish I could describe the stars at several thousand feet.
The unpolluted, all-consuming wonder they bring.

Millions of pin-pricks twinkling with hope, pierce the inky blackness surrounding me.

The crisp, thin air that already labours my breathing, cannot compare to the manner with which they take my breath away.

The arm of the galaxy lazily floats transverse, a trail blazed by millions of years, a glimmering haze in the darkness.

Constellations I am not used to, dance their balled across the sky.
The ones un-named to me, them the western world has no myths for.

The howling and chirping of unfamiliar animals sing their melody but they cannot capture the symphony echoing from my heart.

Praise that would not be coherent in words, You, the stillness I rest in.

I wish I could describe the stars at several thousand feet.

Case of the Ng'ombes

I’m assuming that it is because cows used to be (and with some ethnic groups still are) the source and expression of someone’s wealth, that they seem to become the topic of conversation quite readily.

A perfect example of this is Chief Mburu. Often times I get to go around with him to visit different parts of his jurisdiction and, honest to G-d, every time we stop by to visit a homestead, he, mind you not the property owners usually, insist we visit the cows.

“Look at these cows, they have some very good cows. Well bred, very good.” As we inspect every aspect of the cows holding area and feeding station, typically.

The best is when we’re on a completely different topic while walking passed a cow that is tethered close by. “Ashhh. Look at this! Bad breed. These owners shouldn’t be allowed to tether them like this, what it that male tries to breed with that very good female? It’s just not right I tell you.”

Gets me every time.

P.S. Where do little pointy-hatted bearded men and Clostridium Tetini (Tetnus) like to go swimming?

What Love Sometimes is; A Desire for Deepening Relationships -- Pt. 1

There are many times in my life where a relationship felt incomplete, where I would be left with the question, “Does this person have love for me?” The answer is; of course they do, but perhaps it just deep love being unreturned, the simple fact that my love for them might be greater than their love for me.

This brought me to wonder if this case is true for me. What causes me to have shallow love for others? A few realizations came to mind:

1. Often times love expressed is simply to fill an appetite. We are selfish creatures, only basically concerned with meeting our own needs; hanging out with someone to fulfill a need for entertainment, or doing a favour for someone, knowing they will return it someday. What if I was more concerned with meeting other’s needs? What would my relationships look like then?

2. Sometimes love has to be generated by an atmosphere. In a romantic sense; a rose, candle light, or sweet music. Friendship wise; some sports, good food and drink, or a great movie. Yet as I have hear it said, “Real love loves at all times, at the butt-crack of dawn or at gentle twilight, and whether the odor is Chanel No.5 or ‘Perspiration No. 6.’”

3. Most love becomes disinteresting once acquired. I hate this one the most but I know I’ve done it. Often it is the being or having of the relationship that people desire more than the object of the relationship. The worst is when it this happens in relationships with other people, especially if it comes down to bragging rights. Gaining the relationship is just the commencement; real character is never satisfied at this depth.

4. Often love never knows the degree or availability of depth. What do I mean? It should never be simply “in love or out of love” or love or no love. As one begins to learn how to love a whole world of possibilities and growth opens:

“When someone loves you, the way they way your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”