Salima

Salima is our house mama. She cooks and cleans for us and sleeps on the lower bunk of my bed. She is in her forties and has a daughter. I'm not sure where her daughter lives or what she does.

There is another Kenyan living in our house called Beautiful. She is 18 and Salima treats her like her own. Beautiful has tuberculosis and is on medication and working on getting her strength back.

Salima makes dinner for us every night, even on her days off. She takes one or two days off a week, and gets 4 weeks vacation a year, which are practically forced upon her because she feels bad for taking time off. She gets paid 8x more a month than the typical housegirl who usually makes about 1,000 shillings or $13. She'll do our laundry for 300 shillings a load, which is all the dirty clothes we can give her. She is saving up for a sewing machine.

She was raised Christian but converted to Islam. She prays 5 times a day; the first prayer is at 5:30 am and I wake up at 4:50 when her alarm goes off. The other prayers are at 1pm, 4pm, 6:45, and 8pm. She's very open to talking about her religion, so I plan to find out more from her.

Salima is a fantastic cook. She's made beans, chicken, pasta, plantains, and chapati, among other things. Sunday, she made us mandazi - a special dough that's cooked in oil and tastes like a doughnut. We sprinkled icing sugar and spread strawberry jam on them.

Salima is incredibly strong. When she leaves on vacation, she takes 3 or 4 bags with her and carries them all on her back and head. I'm kind of looking forward to her taking a week vacation just so I can see her do this.

Monkeys see, monkey do

We spent Saturday in Nairobi's City Park. After taking 2 matatus from Mlolongo, 9 of us took a nice stroll through the park and played with the monkeys. It reminded me of St. Vital park, but slightly more exotic and instead of loads of ducks, they have monkeys.

There are men who sell small packets of peanuts for 5 shillings to feed the monkeys. We stocked up and headed into the middle of the park and immediately, the monkeys started approaching us. It was intimidating at first, but if too many started to hone in on me, I would just scare them away. I threw a few peanuts at one monkey and he caught them in his hands. Then he started to take them right out of my hand. Their hands are soft but their fingers are incredibly strong. There were even some little babies hanging on to their momma's bellies. It was really neat to see so up close.

After seeing a few of the others with monkeys on their shoulders, I was courageous enough to let one jump on my shoulder. If we didn't pay attention, they would take the whole bag of peanuts right out of our hands. At one point, I had Milanne's camera and was snapping pictures of them up in a tree and three monkeys pounced on me all at once. I didn't even have any peanuts, but they thought I did. I screamed, ran around in small circle, then managed to shake them off of me.

Once we ran out of peanuts, we climbed some trees and took turns swinging on a vine. It was nice to see greenery and escape the dusty streets of Mlolongo. There was such a difference in the air, it was refreshing.

We hopped back into matatus and headed to downtown Nairobi for some lunch. We stopped at Tacos - they had the exact same logo as Taco Bell, though no affiliation... they just ripped off the brand. We took a quick walk through the Saturday market after lunch and I scouted some items to barter for when we go to the big Maasai Market later on.

Half of us headed back to Mlolongo while the rest went to a micro-brewery in town. I was exhausted from the heat which seemed the strongest it's been since I arrived. Today is our rest day. I don't plan on leaving the house and we're going to attempt to make chocolate chip cookies. :)

Chang'ombe

We got cut off from our internet provider last night because too many of us were using it and apparently we're supposed to pay per computer and not per household. Bah. It's amazing how restless a dozen people can get when there is no way to connect with people back home for 24 hours.

We headed out early this morning to set up for a mobile testing in a slum called Chang'ombe about 20 minutes away from our town. All the houses were made out of corrugated tin, the roads were awful, and there was more garbage on the streets than in Mlolongo. The main road there we were situated had ruts that were at least 3 feet deep and filled with water at some parts. Massive trucks drove through and splashed anyone who was near with dark grey, sludgy water. Luckily, I was always far from the road when one came by.

The streets were lined with fruit stands, chip stands, and other stores similar to the ones we see in Mlolongo. The people here are dirt poor, and the children run around picking things out of the garbage piles. There was one little boy in particular who followed us around all day. Him and his friend would peek out a shop door and fun away giggling when we looked at them. He came and sat next to a few of us for a little bit. He was eyeing my water bottle so he dipped his head back and I poured what I had left into his mouth. Katie handed him one shilling and his eyes lit up and he took off down the street, almost as if he was afraid she would ask for it back.

We tested 62 people today, at least 5 or 6 of them turned out positive, probably more. Before I arrived in Kenya, the centre visited this slum to do an outreach and they asked us to come back to do testing. We ended up having a lot of people just show up to our tents once they realized we were there, so mobilizing wasn't much of a task today.

We were such a novelty in the slum. They see white people even less than they do in Mlolongo. It definitely helped to attract attention. When I was mobilizing with the youth, they would want to shake my hand and know my name. Another group of women thought it was hilarious to see us. One of them came up to me, shook my hand and then started to feel the skin on my forearm because she thought it was so strange. It was a different reception than what we receive in Mlolongo.

It's pretty annoying to be a young, white girl in Mlolongo. The truckers line the roads and call out hellos, or even make a "tsss, tsss" sound, like they are calling a cat. We get so annoyed at it, but depending on my mood, I can tolerate it... somewhat. They're all pretty friendly and harmless, so there's nothing to worry about. Occasionally, we'll get a drunk or a straggler follow us for a bit and try to chat, but they usually wear out when we don't talk to them. It's just that there's no novelty for us in being white so it gets tired very quickly.

Tomorrow, we're paying a visit to the monkey park. Not sure what else tomorrow has in store, but I'll be sure to update.

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

Support Group

After a break on Monday from all the rain, we headed to the centre on Tuesday for a planning session and support group. Our group of volunteers and the youth had a small brainstorming session to plan the in-school education visits. It's a bit tricky to talk to kids about HIV/AIDS and protection because the government has a law that we cannot talk to anyone under 20 years old about condoms, unless they come to the centre or a mobile testing site.

I was completely wrong about what VCT stands for, it actually means Voluntary Counselling and Testing... which makes a LOT more sense. To answer your question Doug, I'm not entirely sure how RAY is funded, but this particular project is funded entirely by Josh's efforts. He has received two grants in Winnipeg: $15,000 from a church group and $5,000 from the Carpe Diem Foundation - this foundation was started by the mother of Cpl. James Arnal, who was killed by a roadside bomb. Josh is trying to establish charitable organization status to start receiving donations and be able to provide tax receipts, but the paperwork for this is huge and the process takes an incredibly long time.

After the brainstorming and planning session, we heading out for lunch then back to the centre to wait for the group members to arrive for support group. We had 5 people show up, 4 women and 1 man. The youth member running the session was not normally the one who runs it, so it ended up being very different from a typical session. Unfortunately, the man at the session monopolized the conversation and was essentially asking us all to give them money. I think it's really important to separate the men and the women into different support groups because there was a sense that many of the women were afraid to speak because the man was present. The only difficulty with that is there isn't a man to run the male support group and they also need to corral some more men to attend the support group.

It's interesting to be in the support group as an outsider. The people in the group invite us and want us to be there. It is almost as if they feel more comfortable opening up to us than to other Kenyans because we don't discriminate against people with HIV the way locals do. I've heard stories of people having their houses burned down and of getting kicked out of family homes because people found out they were HIV positive.

Another big obstacle for this project is the government's denial that it's a problem. A lot of leaders have said that Kenya is a good, Christian nation and HIV is not an issue because people do not have sex before marriage and they remain faithful to each other... yeah, I don't think so. There is also such a big push towards teaching abstinence, which does not work in a town that thrives on prostitution.

Josh has told us about Uganda and the success they have seen with a drop of HIV. The important thing that happened there was their leader stepped up and said HIV was an issue and implemented proper measures to reduce it. They did essentially everything we are trying to do through the centre, but people were willing to participate and educate themselves because of their leader stepped forward.

Today is community outreach. We've all been paired up with a local youth who is going to show us the ropes. The weather isn't as hot as it was last week. Apparently last week was unusually hot and we will see more clouds and wind - yaaayyy. I don't know if I would have been able to handle it here if every week was like the last.

Rainy Day

It's been raining off and on since about 6am today. Josh headed into town to have a meeting with the youth organizers about this week. We're waiting for his phone call to find out what we're doing today. There is supposed to be a focus group discussion every Monday, but rain tends to cancel plans. So we'll see what happens...

Andrew and Meghann, the couple from Halifax, came in very early this morning. Josh went to meet them at the airport at 4am. There was a misunderstanding and we thought that they were coming in the day before, so unfortunately Josh had to go to the airport two nights in a row.

We're volunteering as part of a 2 year project for the RAY Consortium. They have an office in Mlolongo, just across the highway from the middle of town. The project is called Si Siri and the goal is to educate people of all ages about the effects of HIV/AIDS, how it can be contracted, and to test people in the community for HIV. Percentage of HIV varies depending on the area, but in our area, it is about 25%, which I was told is very high compared to other African countries.

A typical week here consists of:

Monday: Focus group discussion - discussion of exactly what, I'm not sure of yet

Tuesday: Support group - so those who have tested positive for HIV can come to the centre for discussion and support. After the group meets, then we can sit down and discuss with people individually on how things are going and what else we can do to help. This is also where I will be helping out with an income generating program for women in the community to support their families. More on that later.

Wednesday: Outreach - when youth and volunteers go out to the town and put on a play to educate about HIV and there are also songs that they sing. This is a way for them to get attention and be in the face of everyone so they start becoming aware of it.

Thursday: In-class education - We will be heading to schools to talk to kids of all ages about HIV.

Friday: Mobile HIV testing - they call this VCT - Vaccination, Care, and Testing (I think...) is what it stands for.

These may change depending on the week. The local youth are volunteers, some are paid, but minimally. We have weekends off to travel or relax. On Saturdays that we're in Mlolongo, we'll likely go visit the baby orphanage to play with the kids for an afternoon and bring them food and supplies that they run out of.

Kitengela

After my three hour nap and shower yesterday, I was feeling much better. I think I just needed to get it out of my system.

When everyone got back yesterday, we hung around for about an hour before heading over to Kitengela, a town about 15 minutes away. There is one hotel in that town that is quite nice with a pool and a restaurant surround the pool. The drive there was ridiculous. The roads are terrible; mostly gravel or old asphalt with giant potholes everywhere. The drivers swerve everywhere to avoid them, so half the time it feels like we're playing chicken with the cars coming from the other direction.

Dinner was good and we said goodbye to Wendy, Josh's mom; she had to leave to catch her flight. Then we had a very leisurely dinner with some pretty good food. When ordering off a menu in Kenya, one must always have 3 choices because the chances are that they won't have what you want at first go.

The ride home was a bit smoother because there was less traffic. That is until we hit the highway... We instructed our driver to take a particular turn off, and when he missed it, we ended up driving the opposite direction on a one-way highway. Pretty certain that Milanne almost passed out in the back seat due to fear. Then when we arrived at our place, the driver tried to get us to pay him more because he claimed it was farther than the centre of Mlolongo. But it was actually closer had he not missed the turn off that we told him to take. And I wasn't about to pay him and extra 100 shillings for almost killing us.

We have some new arrivals coming today - Andrew and Meghann, a couple from Halifax. They arrived at 4am Sunday morning and Josh is at the airport right now, picking them up. They should be here by now, so I'm not sure if they had any problems landing.

We won't be up to much today, so I'm not sure if I'll have any stories to tell til Monday evening.

homesick

I felt a bit off after eating breakfast this morning, most likely because of the malaria pill I took yesterday. I think I still have a bit of jetlag so my sleep wasn't great either. Add to the list that I twisted my bad knee on the walk home yesterday so it was sore this morning... it didn't make for the best start to the day.

We normally wouldn't be volunteering on weekends, but the centre is doing a joint 4-day mobile HIV testing event with the government. Today is the last day for it. Everyone headed out to town around 10:30-11am, but I stayed back to rest. After lying in bed with my music and my thoughts, my stomach sickness turned into homesickness. It hit me how long I'm actually gone for and it's gonna be tough to be away for 4 months.

I slept away the afternoon and feel much better after having a shower (... only my second since getting here... water is very limited!) Once everyone comes back from town, we'll be heading into Nairobi to drop Josh's mom off at the airport and then to his friend Christine's house for a little party.

I promise future posts to be more cheery! I think the worst of it is behind me.

173 Tsavo Lane

Mlolongo is roughly a 45 minute drive south of Nairobi, and only about 15 minutes from the airport. We live in the Valleyview compound at the far end of town. It takes us about 10 minutes to get to the edge of town and another 10 to get to the middle of things.

Our compound is very nice compared to town. Every house has a gate and the streets are lined with bushes. Our front yard is small and has a garden. The first room in our house is a large living room with tiger print couches that look a lot more comfortable than they actually are. Off of the living room, there is an open area that leads to 3 bedrooms and the wash area. The sink for the toilet is in the middle of the open area, then there is a door to the toilet and another door right next to it for the shower. Two of the rooms have a pair of bunkbeds. My room has it's own washroom off of it. There is a third bedroom with a double bed. Also off of the living room is the kitchen which is a narrow galley kitchen leading to the back patio. The area in the back is small but charming. There are clotheslines and a large water tank and I can see right into the back neighbours' kitchens. I wave good morning to them when I'm out there having a coffee with the sunrise.

Salima - our house mama - in our room. I sleep on the top bunk behind her.
Our kitchen leading to the back patio... and that's Beatrice. Our cat... it's a him.

Now for some of the characters I'm staying here with...

Josh is the manager of it all. For those of you who don't know, I went to high school with him. He was here for 6 months then came back for a 2 year project, which he is now in the middle of.

Katie is a friend of Josh's and she is out here until the end of March.

Milanne, for those of you who don't know her, is a friend of mine and is here until the end of April.

Deb is Josh's mom's friend and is here until mid-March.

We also had Josh's cousin Rob and his friends Don and Judy, they are on safari as of this morning.

Andrew and Meghan are a couple from Halifax and they are arriving next week.

Salima is our house mama - she cooks dinner for us, cleans, and takes care of us :) She's great.

Beautiful and Benson are two Kenyans living here. Beautiful is a firecracker and loves to be a brat. She keeps us laughing. Benson is a quiet guy and Josh is helping him to get into boarding school.

And how could I forget Beatrice, the stray cat the house has adopted. He also has two kittens that hang out in the back. Yes, I said he.

Jetlag

I woke up yesterday morning at 1am. I spent the next 4 hours lying in bed, wide awake, until I finally decided to get up. Everyone else only started to stir about 2 hours later. Damn jetlag.

Mornings are quite beautiful here. The sun comes up behind our house and right into my bedroom window. We tend to get up between 7 and 8 and take a couple of hours in the morning to leisurely eat, chat, and update people from home. We aim to get going around 10 for whatever it is we are doing that day.

Yesterday, we walked into town just after 10am and headed for the "matatu" station. A matatu is a main mode of transportation in Nairobi and the surrounding areas. It's a haggard, old van that seats 14 people, but they usually try to jam more than that inside. It's only 50 Kenyan Shillings (KES) to ride from Mlolongo into town. 1000 KES equals about $13 Canadian. So roughly $0.65 for the minimum 45 minute drive into Nairobi.

Our ride ended up being free thanks to the corruption of the police service in Kenya. We were stuck in traffic just before the bridge to get us inside downtown Nairobi when a Kenyan officer kicked out the two people sitting in front and made them squish into the back. He made the driver pull over to the side of the road where they chatted in Swahili for a bit. On a matatu, there is the driver and the conductor. The conductor sits by the side door in the back and collects money and tells people when they can get in and out. Our conductor had jumped out of the matatu when he saw the police coming to our van. So when the Kenyan officer was asking our driver for bribe money to be let go, he said he didn't have any. Our conductor came back to our matatu, money in pocket, and then we all got kicked out of the matatu and were told to go find another.

From what Josh explained to me after, because they lied about not having any money, and then the conductor showed up with the money, they were going to get in much more trouble than if they had just paid them off in the first place. So we ended up walking over the bridge and into town because it wasn't worth it to try and find another matatu for the 8 of us. Let's just say I much prefer the Winnipeg Police to the police in Kenya... for a few reasons ;)

After a hike through downtown, we stopped to book flights for Josh's cousin and his 2 friends who were with us, then Milanne and I got a cell phone for out here. We wound our way through the streets of crowded and chaotic Nairobi until we jumped into another matatu, this time with giant speakers blasting rap, and headed to a small market area. We stopped at a buffet place for lunch and ate some delicious food. I was quite nervous to eat, partly because I didn't know exactly what I was about to eat and I was still slightly nauseous from the rollercoaster matatu ride we just finished. Oh, I should also mention that they often open the side door of the matatu far before they are about to stop so the conductor can stick his head out... I was sitting in the seat next to the door. I feared for my life several times during that trip.

After we ate, we bought some rice and oil at a grocery store and some fresh vegetables from the market and got into taxis to head to the Hope Baby Orphanage in Thika. This orphanage isn't legally registered because it does not have 25 children. The woman running it does not think she would be able to provide adequate care for the children if she had that many. For that reason, they run entirely off private donations and, just recently, they have volunteers living in a cabin in the back and they pay rent.

There are at least 15 children there, full of life and energy. We held 3 babies, all under 6 months, and one of which is only 2 weeks old. Another girl, Precious, is 10 weeks, and one of the Australian girls who is volunteering there has decided she is going to adopt her. She has been in Kenya for 8 weeks and got there at the same time as Precious. She will now be living in Kenya for 3 years before she can start the adoption process, which will then take another 6 months.

After about an hour at the baby orphanage, we got back into taxis and headed to Westlands, an area of Nairobi, and had drinks with Josh's mom who is in town for a conference on communicable diseases. I also met Anina, the woman who owns the house I am staying in. She is the woman that Josh initially started working with and is incredible. She does a lot of work with sex workers in Nairobi regarding HIV/STI prevention and care.

At 7pm, we were ready for dinner, but I was exhausted. Milanne, Katie, and I took a cab ride back to Mlolongo. Traffic in Nairobi was crazy, so it took us about an hour and a half to get back to our compound. After wiping the layer of dirt off my skin, I went straight to bed. Got up at 6am today. Yay, looks like I may finally be on a good schedule.

Til next time.

Day One

It's 5:30pm here and I can't wait for the sun to go down so it will cool off here. I know I'm not getting any sympathy from anyone back home, but it's painfully hot here. The whole house went to to town today to help out with HIV mobilizations. Mlolongo is a town along a very busy, main highway. Trucks have to stop to be weighed, and the wait is a long one so that is how the town developed. There are loads of semis along the road, opposite multiple rows of guesthouses (i.e. brothels).

We met the head mistress for the female sex workers in the area. There is one particular street, one block off the main road, that is the primary area for the women to work. They just call her "Mistress" and she is working with the volunteer group to educate and distribute condoms to the females in the trade. Essentially any woman walking around town who isn't working at a kiosk or shop is a prostitute.

The streets of Mlolongo are dirt roads covered in garbage. I wasn't able to get a great look at the buildings and shops and people because I was too busy watching my step. There are piles of garbage around town that get burned at the end of the day. We even passed a man with several goat heads on a grill, fur and all, cooking and preparing them. I think I'll stick to the mangoes.

After a few hours in the hot sun, and a good layer of dirt making me look much more tanned than I am, Milanne and I headed back to the compound. We needed a break from the sun and are feeling the effects from the last couple of days of travel. We missed a play from the volunteers aimed to educate the community about HIV and different ways of contracting it as well as STIs. After lunch, the group was heading to 3 or 4 guesthouses/brothels with Mistress to hand out condoms and talk about HIV/STIs.

I don't think I had many expectations coming here in terms of what I would see. The town is a far cry from anything I have ever been exposed to before. Walking through the streets, I wasn't scared of anything, as people were pleasant and just going about their business. It's just very... different.

Tomorrow we are heading to a baby orphanage and may go to a monkey park as well.

Quick Update

I've arrived in Mlolongo, Kenya. We landed around 8:30 Tuesday night and we were at the house by 10:30 after getting our visas and luggage and a cab home. The house is full until Friday when 3 people leave. I slept on the top bunk of a bed right next to a window so I was able to watch the sun rise over the neighbouring houses. But I got some much needed sleep last night.

The flight from Toronto to Amsterdam wasn't great. I was sandwiched between strangers like a sardine and couldn't get any sleep. I was exhausted by the time I got to Amsterdam and met up with Milanne. Then we slept for the majority of the flight to Nairobi, only waking up to eat meals. Milanne was splayed across my tray table and I slept with my head on her back.

Today, we're going to head out with Josh and the rest of the volunteers from the centre to a brothel to hand out condoms. Mlolongo is a town built around a truck stop, so the prostitution rates are incredibly high. Part of the HIV awareness, prevention, and care initiatives include focusing a lot on these women.

I will try to post pictures of our house soon!