So I recieved two wonderful treats today! The first was a surprise text message from my darling Lonestart Claire, the second was a lovely email from my sister... oh you guys love me so much. Anyway, Claire has said that although she is enjoying reading my blog, I haven't mentioned how I am. So, here, is the head to toe Kelsey assessment, just incase you're curious.
Physically I'm quite well, no malaria, no intestinal parasites (that I know of). I got a sore stomach during the first week but I think it was related to the gallons of chai being forced down my throught (they drink chai here about every 2 hours, it is tea made mostly from whole milk). I have told them I'm off the chai now, which means they usually pester me until I take at least a glass or two; but even that is better than six or seven daily, and my stomach seems to have adjusted.
I got a sun burn the other day, which created quite a stir. Grace said to me "sister, you sat in the sun and I was afraid you would turn black, but instead you are red! What happened?" I tried to explain that the sun burns my pale skin, which lead them to insist I cover all skin when ever I left the house. Obviously that is not going to work and I tried to explain the powers of sunscreen and that a little sun is okay, just not too much. Now, every five minutes outside, they are all checking to see if I'm going red yet. They were also pretty amused by pushing on my sunburn to see it go back to white, until I explain that it is a 'burn' and that does hurt.
The awkwardness of being the only muzungu (white person) around, seems to be fading as people in town get more used to seeing me around. Of course there are still days when I'm not in the mood to be stared at, honked at, hissed at, or generally molested to try to get me into a matatu or over to a particular market stall. But those days are fewer than I remember them being when I was in Ghana. When I was in Ghana I found it very emotionally uncomfortable to be so painfully visible; now, although it is sometimes annoying, mostly it's just amusing. I'm pretty impressed with myself for that.
Yesterday I was feeling a little bit homesick, not really bad, just a touch. Me and some other volunteers decided to combat our homesickness with a throughly Western afternoon - we went to the movies (in a lovely air conditioned theatre). For 350 shillings (about $4) we saw "I am Legend" complete with popcorn, pop and a chocolate bar! What a deal! Anyway, I feel much better now (and my lovely sister's email helped too).
I am really enjoying my work at the hospital now; it is so interesting to see their way of doing things and I feel like I am actually a little bit helpful now that I have my bearings. There are so many challenges in providing health care here, and it is a bit hard to negotiate how to help without just telling them what to do. I find it is best to just talk about what is different between here and Canada, most times they are really interested to know about how we do things there.
Even my Swahili is coming along... I can even form simple sentences. Most people find it pretty amusing when I come up with some sentence or another (they are still laughing over when I proclaimed "nimenunua maebe" or "I bought mangoes") It's pretty fun... and if only Scrabulous would let me use swahili words I would be amazing... seriously swahili has so many strings of consonants, it is a great scrabble language.
Overall, I'm doing very well. I'm learning so much and loving living here. I have been thinking occasionally about what I'm going to do when I get back to Canada, and so far I have no answers. I have been hoping that coming to Kenya would help me decide what I should be when I grow up.... but I still have two more months away so I'm not worried. Besides, I don't need any concrete answers, just some general ideas would be nice.
That's it for now,
Kelsey Aaron
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