Habari zenu!

What's the new with you all?

It is a beautiful day here along the Kenyan coast! This week has been a great one so far. I have begun working on a couple of the projects I will be doing while I am here. One is coming up with informational and marketing materials for the EAC. They want to get the word out about what they do to the surrounding communities and to potential donors in Kenya and around the world. I am working on a brochure, a newsletter, a standard power point presentation, t-shirts and stuff like that. Thanks to Broadreach - I am totally prepared to do that.

I am also helping out with the after school program for students from 6-15 years old. I will be helping them with their English and Math homework. The students are divided into two classrooms and I will be leading one a couple of days a week.

The third project I have started this week is the health surveying. On Monday I walked around with the students from the University of West Washington with GPS units marking huts and wells that hadn't already been mapped. The surrounding area is so beautiful! Anyways, starting tomorrow, I will take one of those GPS's and go along with a community health worker to a randomly choosen sample of houses. There we will survey women about the health needs and they ways they access health and water so that the EAC can provide better services for them. We (the four or five of us women) are conducting 260 surveys in about a 10 squared mile area. I will do those 2 days a week until we have them all done.

My home life is great! My Kenyan mom - Aisha - and sister - Maryam - are awesome and we hang out every night at the house, talking, laughing (mostly at me) and watching South American soap operas dubbed over in English. Aisha's nieces, Do and Dea stay over every night and their other relatives come a lot to sit and talk. I am surrounded by children and loving it! But these kids are more like adults cause they have so many responsibilities at such a young age. Plus, they have had to face so many adult situations, mainly death, already. I am learning a lot from these little ones.

Elizabeth (from the New School) and her boyfriend Adam are here now. Their flight was all messed up coming in so they were late. They are awesome and are going to be my BFFs here. We are planning a safari for the end of July.

This Saturday my mom is taking me to a wedding in town that she was invited to! I am so grateful that I get to go. It is going to be a big Muslim wedding of some of the riches people in town! I will let you know how that ones goes.

I am having troubles uploading picture. That might have to wait until I am in Mombasa in a couple of weekends. Also, I will try to make this blog a little more interesting and share some funny stories. Thanks for your comments and emails!

Kwa Herini!
Jen

Emerson - I am still Jen here, no Swahali name but it would be Rickia if I could choose.
Owen - yes they have days of the week in Kenya.
Kim - you say friend "Raficki" like the Lion King or the trap Raficki's village at the Animal
Kingdom in Disney World - remember that?! too funny.
Bryan - you will be getting that drawing in the mail soon, please put it on the fridge.
Hopie - don't get lame while I am gone ok? I had another dream about that the other night.

Hamjambo!

Hello everyone!

Takaungu is amazing! Each day I am taking 5 hours of Swahali in Bwana Asis's living room with three other girls from the New School. In the afternoons, we have a lesson about culture or visit a neighboring village or practice the language lessons. In the evenings, I am at home with my mom, Aisha, and her 12 year old daughter Maryam. They are fantastic! The food is wonderful - rice, beans, fish, eggs, flatbread and fresh mangoes from neighboring trees. Each night, a couple adults and numerous children come by to sit and talk at different times. Aisha is pretty popular. I have conversations with them, especially the kids and love getting to know them. Most everyone speaks some English as many people have been taught it in school since colonialism.

My house is 'downtown' and is very homey. Right when you walk through the door, you are in an outdoor hallway that leads to the kitchen at the end and the living room and bedrooms to the left. If you take an immediate left you stand in front of two doors. One is the shower (a room with a faucet and a bucket) and the bathroom (a ditch with a hole at the deepest point). I take cold 'showers' out of the bucket in the afternoons and am enjoying it now. That is how Bryan used to shower when he worked up on Beech Mountain in Boone!

The village and entire surrounding area is beautiful! There are palm, mango and coconut trees everywhere. And goats and roosters. The river and the ocean are gorgeous and great places to chill and read or study language. Seriously, this place is paradise! As I walk through the streets, everyone says hello and how are you. I feel very welcome here as people are as interested in learning about me (and if I voted for Obama) as I am about them.

After the end of next week, I will begin working on the development project, health surveys, administrative stuff and even teaching in their grade school! I visited the school the other day and fell in love with the kids there. Crazy huh? To get online, I come up to Kilfi by riding on the back of a motorcycle (more like a scooter) and then a bus (more like a van) for a half an hour each. Don't worry -it's totally safe, they are licensed and have to go super slow on the bumpy, dirt roads.

That's all for now! I have been taking as many pictures as I can and will post them asap. It is tough to get pictures of people here because they typically get 3 pictures of themselves during their lifetime - 1 at birth, 1 at graduation and 1 at marriage. Thus, they feel it unfair for someone else to have pictures of them. Thus, I am not running around, camera out offending everyone around.

Love and miss you all!
Jen

P.S. This blog has places where you can comment ya know? It's a two way street people.

In Mombasa

No more flying for me! I am in Mombasa with the three other girls Mahmud and the driver. We are at the internet cafe and then going to the grocery store and then a 1 hr drive to Takaungu. It doesn't look like I will have internet access there at the village, so it may be just once a week that I can get in touch. Everything here looks awesome! I saw Mt. Kilamanjaro out the airplane window today and am feeling great about being here.

In London

Virgin Atlantic is a great way to get to London! I had a bunch of movies to choose from, great food and free drinks! I choose to watch 10,000 BC, the epic prehistoric adventure complete with mammoth hunts and big dinosaur bird type things. It was great! I slept pretty well and hope to do the same on the 9 hour flight to Nairobi tonight.

I've found a cozy leather couch at Caffe Nero with a great view of the runway. The weather is beautiful out and I am watching planes take off and land while sipping some strong Cafe Americano. Saying goodbye to Bryan was torture yesterday. I am going to miss him more than words can describe.

Thanks everyone for wishing me well! I promise to have an amazing time and not bore you with the details and photos when I get back (except Brittny cause she does that to me and Hopie cause I love to torture her). Next time you hear from me, I'll be in Kenya!

Currently reading - Jitterbug Perfume (thanks Eve) - my first Tom Robbins book!

P.S. I am currently siting in a massage chair after just having taken the most amazing shower ever! I feel great and refreshed and relaxed! I will be sure to hit this spot up on the way back from Kenya so I don't arrive to JFK a hot mess.

Today is the big day!

My flight takes off at 9:35 tonight and I am just finishing packing now. Everything fits though I am not sure how I am going to carry it all on account of my not having any strength. If there's a will doesn't seem to work when it comes to muscles. Anywho, I have decided to tough it out in the London airport for the 12 hour layover and found some fun things I can do! I will read and sip coffee at Caffe Nero in Terminal 1 which great views overlooking the runway, at the Urban Retreat center I plan on taking a shower and attempting to sneak into their sauna, and finally I will be drawing a picture of myself riding an elephant with a cheetah, zebra and giraffe running along side me at Bryan's request. There is internet access, but it isn't free, so I will be online emailing for a little at some point. I am excited and ready to throw myself into this internship! Wish me luck!

The final week

In one week from today, I will be on my way to Kenya! I am getting things done each day and am not stressed as I thought I might be by now. We will see how I feel next week though. I hope to have consistent internet connection while I am there, but if i do not, I will be typing up updates and posting them here all at once when I get to the internet cafe in Kilifi. In case you want to know what I might be working on while I am there, I thought I would tell you. These are the projects I will probably be working on.

1. Creation of a 10 week (10 module) development curriculum, covering development work, community participatory methods, Swahili culture and language, etc., for use in bringing new people into development work and through "reflective service," as well as the study of development theory, learn from, evaluate, and problem solve for our organization. Possible aspects of the curriculum can include:

• Swahili language and culture
• Leadership and management in a Majority World context
• The political environment and working with the government
• The steps to program design and implementation
• Program evaluation
• Introduction to Participatory Rural Appraisal
• Introduction to primary research in the Majority World
• Service and journaling / reflection
• Stress management for development professionals
  

2. Collection of 200 more demographic and health surveys in the community, going house to house, partnered with CHW (Community Health care Workers).

3. Collect/take updated photos of EAC (East Africa Center) programs and volunteer activities. Write and collect stories and pictures for EAC online newsletter.

4. Photograph sewing items and reformat photos.