Community Outreach & more fun stuff

Yesterday (Wednesday), I participated in my first community outreach. We spent the morning at the centre learning some mobilization songs. They were all in Swahili, so us Mzungu (white people) just learned the chorus and the dance moves. It consisted mostly of some rocking back and forth and a few hand claps. Nothing we couldn't handle. The outreach's goal is to educate the community about HIV through a skit and post-performance discussion. Our job in the beginning to to attract as much attention as possible by being loud and acting like fools essentially. It seemed to do the trick.

Today, we would normally go to schools to talk to kids about HIV, but that hasn't been set up entirely yet. Instead, we practiced energizers and icebreakers at the centre with the youth that we can use at the in-school education sessions. It was a really fun day and we got to know the other youth a lot better. Oh, and FYI, youth here are considered to be anyone under the age of 35. I think the oldest youth we have is 33 years old, but the majority of them are in their early 20s.

Milanne and I shared lunch today which consisted of a banana, a whole mango, and a quarter of a pineapple. All of this for 50 shillings... about 65 cents. So fresh and the vendor peels the mango right in front of us and slices it so we could eat it right out the plastic bag they put it in.

Something really interesting I learned the other day (you may already know this, but I didn't so I thought I would share) - when a woman who is HIV positive is pregnant, her baby does not have HIV. The baby can get HIV when they cut the umbilical cord if they aren't careful. If there is a transfer of fluid from the mom to the baby through the cord after they cut it, then the baby can contract HIV. They stress to women who are HIV positive to deliver in a hospital because they are much better at keeping things clean than a mid-wife. Women can also pass HIV through their breast-milk, something Nestle promoted a lot and made a killing off of with their baby formula (which is about 700 shillings for a week's supply - way out of the price range for most Kenyans).

I'm sure I've missed a lot that I wanted to talk about, but all the information that I've absorbed so far seems to be stuck in my brain and won't come out. I'll probably post again soon. I'm also trying to post pictures on here, but it is incredibly slow. So they only ever make it to Facebook.

ttfn