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.