Lala vizuri!

Sleep well!

Hello to all! I am here in Kilifi again, trying to email, mail some letters, post some photos and pick up a few things from the store. I think I am going to get some bananas today for the family.

Friday of last week was World Population Day and the Vutakaka site was chosen as one to have a celebration and to offer free medical services to the community. We set up early in the morning for the festivities, assigning rooms for general care, family planning, HIV testing and counseling and a pharmacy. The local chiefs came and made a big fuss over themselves, rearranging the chairs in their area in order of color, requesting flowers and a rake to move the grass around that they were sitting on in their special area. A number of people showed up from the central Takaungu area and the surrounding villages for medical care. I learned a lot about the way things work in Kenya on this day - worse than a trip to the DMV in the States. Numbers were passed out with no clear meaning and were sometimes recognized and at other times ignored. Lines were crowds instead and only the 'important' people got water and food. All and all, a large number of people received care and medicine and were tested for HIV while the EAC and another organization performed skits, read poems, danced and sang. It was a fun day! There was even a dance competition! I spent the day helping to set up, running around taking photos, trying to create lines, talking my local friends into getting tested and watching the events. I was tested and am happy to say I am HIV negative!

The past week has been another great one! Last weekend I went to another disco on Friday night in Takaungu. They have a 'disco' the night before and of a wedding. It is super tame, but fun, especially since we have a solid core of friends now. Saturday I took about 10 kids that I hang with to the beach after they got out of Madrhasa school. My sister Maryam and nieces Do and Dea and their friends Uschi, Fatma, Habib, Ali, Mani, Alisha and another whose name I forget. It was awesome! We played tag and other games in the water and then explored the reef exposed by the receding tide. We searched for fish and crabs.

Sunday Liz, Adam, Sarah, Jakob, Wyclif and I went to the beach early in the morning and stayed until lunch. We played in the water and frisbee on the beach. That afternoon I played an awesome rugby match with the girls near downtown. They were fierce and I fell twice diving for the ball! My team won, but Fatma was kind of injured so it didn't really count.

During spare time on the weekend Liz, Adam and I wrote a skit for the Vutakaka drama club to perform at their close of school celebration on August 6th. We met with the drama club teacher on Monday to pitch it and then presented it to the drama club yesterday. Tomorrow, we will perform it for them so they can see how it will work and then we start practicing.

At the after school program on Monday, the regular teacher wasn't there and so I taught the older group of students by myself! It was great! I really enjoyed doing it and think I am getting better at it every time. I tried to teach when to use 'since' or 'for' and 'remember when/who or where'. It is particularly tough because the students range in age from 9-16 and their English comprehension level from non-existent to where it should be for the grade they are in. Also, as you can tell by the many mistakes in this blog, most of which I will blame on the keyboards here that are so tough they cripple my fingers and from being in a hurry because the power can does go out at any minute, I don't have the best spelling or grammar skills. These combine to make teaching a challenge, but we work through it somehow.

Another issue that has come up lately has been the realization of some of the ways people here perceive me (any whitie). In particular as an opportunity for personal gain. I am not able to go into the depth about the ways in which this realization has unfolded over the past couple of weeks and know that it will continue to be an issue here. I am learning a lot about myself and what the great divide between the haves and haves not looks like when you are here and what I must look like from the other side. I have come here wanting to make a difference and when I was faced with the great need, I wanted to make a difference quickly, something I could see. Now I realize that in trying to do that, many of 'us' get hustled. I'm taking a step back and reevaluating what making a difference means, my motives in this endeavor and the best possible actions I can take while I am here. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I am still working through it all, but thought I would share.

Oh and I spent two mornings taking individual photographs of the students for their files. That was awesome! I am still working on the system for communication between donors and the children they sponsor.

Hopie - I can not believe I don't have an email from you in my inbox. Precedent is being set as I type from this slow internet room that is very hot and stinky where I have to sit and watch this sand glass slowly move while I read a book just to get a simple message to you.