I have a lot to write, it's been a very exciting week, but should save this post for info about the project!! This week (and for the rest of the summer) Austin and I have suddenly stumbled upon/worked out a huge list of things to do! We're both really excited about it:
1. Applying for a 25,000 dollar wat/san grant. This will fund water and sanitation projects from rainwater catchment to latrines to WASH education in 4 community centers (the clinic and 3 schools). This is SOOO very exciting- the kind of work I see myself doing for a substantial portion of my life!! So now we're compiling info from every possible source- surveys, clinic history, oral history, etc to try to get some good baseline info to use. We're also looking up cost-effectiveness, availability, sustainability, etc etc of different interventions from education to rainwater catchment to biosand filtration to VIP latrines. We're calling all possible resources/experts to try to plan these projects so that we can apply for funding for them!! I feel SO thankful for the water policy class I took this semester. Never in a million years did I think I would be using Dr. Whittington's infinite knowledge (well not this soon!!!) but it's really been useful!
2. Health clubs at Minyenya and Lwala primary schools. This is a follow up from the training last week since the participants were teachers, parents, and community members from these two schools. We started these this week and it was sooo much fun!
3. Follow up with participants from the last training- this is almost like a health club but with adults! From this group we're hoping to possibly start the soap-making group!! They're also hiring a public health worker from the community (prob someone who has completeled secondary school but needs money to go on to college) who will work alongside Austin and I on all of these things in hopes that this will make our projects more sustainable and ensure that the work is continued after we leave. This person will have a salary of about 50$/month (which is a pretty average salary here) to put towards University AND this will give the person a better chance of recieveing a scholarship from the Lwala Village Development Committee (a group of Lwala-ers who give scholarships for high school, make decisions on behalf of the community for various projects, etc.
4. Baseline surveys and tippy taps at 8 other nearby schools- one of the staff, Susan Ocof, is helping us with this- she's awesome so I'm excited to get to know her better walking around the beautiful western Kenyan landscape (Ive never seen a place SO green!! in search of this info)
5. Mobilizing Kamije and Katianga for the training to take place July 13-16th at these schools/communities.
6. WASH education at the clinic
7. Designing a flier with "quick facts" about WASH such as diff facts about the SODIS method of disinfection, cost of latrines, 6 steps of handwashing, local potable water sources, etc. Interestingly, this will be in English bc apparently more people can read English than Luo.
8. Completed WASH training at Lwala and Minyenya (I learned and Laughed more in these 4 days than i have in a while!!)

More silly stories to come soon!!

ps: most Kenyans pronounce Feces (fisheys) and soap (shoap) Imagine how hilarious this is during a WASH training. haaaaa!!!

the start of something great

Oyaore (good morning) from Lwala! Its been about a week since I left the US for this beautiful country that has held a big piece of my heart for the past 4 or so years. Its incredible to me that in just 4 flights and about 24 hrs, anyone can be tossed from the US with electriicity, toilets, being the majority, variety in food, fast food, highways, cold drinks, computers, etc... To a place with no electricity, a rectangle in the floor to use as a toilet, no refrigeration, and basically everything you would see in a national geographic magazine. I've been to Kenya before but I think I was probably the most culture shocked this time... Maybe because after spending the last 3 years in school working for a development project in Kneya (very close to where I am now) and taking classes on public health, global issues, etc, I feel overwhelmed by the size of it all. That being said, there is a palpable feeling in Kenya of strength in mind and body yet a light-spiritness, and tremendous joy (furaha) yet calm contentment. These things can't be pictured in a photostory and they're the aspects of Kenya that I think will create the change in Kenya that Kenyans want. This week has been a blur! Its been incredible. The beginning of the week I spent meeting people in the village (its very rural here) and learning some of the language and helping out in the clinic wheereever I was needed. Elizabeth, the water sanitation and hygiene expert Austin and I are working with arrived Friday and we've spent every second since planning our education and research program (to start monday!) We'll be working at 8-10 schools doing a survey on current resources and practices and following it with a series of a 4-day, all-day training program where we'll train 10 reps from each school (each representing a different community). We'll have about 20 participants at each training (2 schools/communities at a time) and we'll be doing a participatory type of education where they, the participants, design the program based on what the feel is most feasible and preferable for their community. We'll be ending each training by starting a health club at each school where they can make handsoap, tippytaps, latrine patrol, etc and mobilize their school to create changes for themsel
ves. We might also do a training of the trainers type thing so certain ppl who are really excited and motivated can train others in the future. I'm also trying to think of some kind of business that can work here and in the US to empower the impverished in both places and provide a means to make more capital in both : ) its important to say, I am incredibly impressed by Lwala Community Alliance. The clinic and the work they've done for the community is beautiful. They serve about 1200 patients a month and there are no other clinics for these people. The brothers, Fred and Milton Ochieng, are so compassionate, intelligent, and loyal to their home community of Lwala. Only Kenyan staff are employed in Kenya, and the very few people who lead the group commit themselvees fully to their work... They do a lot with a little! The clinic is expanding to add a maternity ward (there have been 5 births in the past week and a half!) And you should look into helping them out financially! Lwalacommunityalliance.org! Finally, I have the overwhelming feeling of how blessed I am... In a narrow sense, blessed that I am here and enjoying it so much and that I have a community in the US that I love and appreciate and where I am loved, and further that I can communicate with them bc technology is so amazing that I'm living in a house without electricity, with a hole in the ground to use as a toilet, and I'm online on my blackberry. But more then all that, I feel so grateful for everything I have... Guilty maybe sometimes, but incredibly grateful that I was born in the US and that my day to day reality is soooo different from that of anywhere here. I can get on a plane and leave at any time and return to my life with hot showers and crepes and salad and equal rights with men and quality affordable education, but for all the people I meet here, this is their life, this is their escape. Not only does it make me feel thankful and blessed, it motivates me to spend all my time and thoughts on changing their reality (the way they want it to change) because they have just as much grace and blessing but are somehow stuck in this reality. Don't get me wrong, kenya is beautiful and the people are so intelligent and kind and vibrant... but some of their reality is completely unjust. Keep thinking of ways to inspire big change in the sheer poverty in kenya : )

So close!

Leaving in 2 days! (Feeling slightly unprepared, slightly nervous, but REALLY excited.)

www.LwalaCommunityAlliance.org

Haionekani na haishikiki.

I'll be leaving in 2 weeks and 1 day! Here's my schedule in case you (this is for you mom and dad) want to know where I am at any given moment!

May 29th: Raleigh-Newark (by plane)
May 30th-31st: Newark-London, London- Nairobi (by plane)
June 1st: Nairobi-Lwala (by land)
June 1st-July 27th: Lwala Community Alliance!
July 28th-August 2nd: Uganda
August 2nd-5th: Rwanda
August 5th-10th: Tanzania
August 10th-14th: Shimba Hills/Mombasa
August 15th: Mombasa-Nairobi, Nairobi-London
August 16th: London-Newark, Newark to Raleigh

Heri kufa macho kuliko kufa moyo

I'm heading to Kenya in 1 month and 2 weeks!

It seems unreal. www.Lwalacommunityalliance.org

Water and Sanitation Research and Education PUMPED.

I find out in about 2 weeks whether or not I received a travel grant. Fingers crossed! And Kili is looking less like a dream and more like a possibility. Whooo! I think my parents are becoming more comfortable with the trip. The past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind and I know that the Kenyan side of me (I consider myself part Kenyan for sure) knows that I've been carrying out my days in the worst way possible. Why is it that we get so busy doing the things we think are important only to realize that the things that are most important are the things you have to slow down to enjoy- the little things- kindness, sincerity, listening, learning... I'm in Wilmington right now (my 3rd favorite place in the US so far) and it's so very relaxing and great to spend some quality time with the beautiful people in my life. Sunday is home for Easter and it's going to be great- I've been seriously neglecting my parents since spring break and I want to spend some great face-to-face time (and talk about this summer) with them.

More concrete details to come but so far the itinerary is looking like:
Leave: May 17th
Spend the night in Nairobi May 18th
Head towards Lwala by bus May 19th
Lwala May 19th- July 20th
Visit Morenyo/Sauri cluster of the Millennium Villages July 21st
Kili/Moshi July 25th-August 5
Uganda/More Tanzania? August 5-10
Ray of Hope/Mombasa area: August 10-17
Home- August 17th
This is all just an idea... who really knows?

Geez I can't wait. Everyones going to have a phenomenal summer doing what they love and I am too.



It is better to lose your eyes than to lose your heart.

The beginning?

I've always been cynical about these blogs... spending time to write down the things you're doing with the thought that someone wants to read about your life. BUT I'm trying not to be cynical.

Where this all started:
http://lwalacommunityalliance.org/
Go to the site, watch the documentary, give your dollars if you feel compelled; the story is beautiful.
It then starts with the project, which was really all thanks to some incredible professors at the Gillings School of Pubic Health and a really fascinating Point-of-use water treatment lab I'm working in.
It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teddy-warria/18/855/7a1
It also starts here: http://www.kenyarayofhope.com/shimbahills.html
I think it started somewhere before that though, really.

I'm leaving around the 3rd week in May, spending 9-12 weeks in Kenya. I'm hoping to raft down the Nile or see Kilimanjaro, and definitely make it back to Shimba Hills to see the kids who taught me Furaha.

A lot of criticism about the education in developing countries is based on the idea that teachers essentially shove information, repeatedly, at the kids. Critics say that children aren't taught analytical skills but rather just to spit back out the things they've heard over and over again. I saw this in the preschool at Ray of Hope, where the kids could recite numbers 1-100, in order, in English (and Swahili and their mother tongue), but when the teacher would point to a random number on the board, not a single child could identify that foreign symbol. Eventually though, they'd learn...

Anyways, in a sense, I feel like that's how the kids at Shimba Hills taught me Furaha. We sang and danced and smiled and laughed, because we were having fun and because that's how they live every moment. Furaha is different than happiness or having fun; it's joy, it's contagious, it's an effortless attitude. When I got home from that first trip (I'm not sure my parents would have given me the ok to go if they knew it would be the first of many) I had a view of Kenya that was so different from anything I'd read in a book or seen in a movie. All I could think of was JOY. When I went back the following summer, the kids had given me the nickname Furaha. Geez, how humbling; the people that I saw as the embodiment of a word as beautiful as joy, and they had seen that in me? On rainy/cold days when I'm in a terrible mood or stressed with schoolwork I think of that and almost laugh.

OKAY, so maybe I'm over-analyzing the situation, but it's a story and a feeling that I try not to forget, every day. Needless to say, I forget it a lot. So when I say I'm finding Furaha, I don't exacly know what that means. I know I'm excited to get back to that place where it seems to be overflowing. And I really hope that while I'm there I can bring the people I meet a little more joy, cleaner water, and some understanding of sanitation. Thats where I wonder how this can possibly be the beginning... implying that it's starting!

I feel completely unprepared and inadequate. 2 months ago I was worried because I had no sense of where I was going with my life. I don't presume that I've found the answer, but rather just in the moment where I was growing tired of worrying, and accepting that my future is out of my hands, I found out about this internship. Excitement. Apply. Worry. Wait. Worry. CARTWHEEL. Life is such a joke sometimes. I do believe in something greater...and I think that God or something/someone out there must be laughing about all of this and laughing about the length of this blog and laughing about my inability to construct sentences.

Life is so beautiful and unexpected and uncontrollable and I love it. I love it all the more because it is beautiful without my doing. And I feel so grateful that I've been given the experiences to realize that.

What I came here to say: I think LCA is doing really great work and I'm going to try to learn as much as possible in the next two months so that I can go and teach the people I'll work with exactly what they've said they want to learn... Water purification and sanitation! I know I'll learn a lot, and have a lot of fun along the way. : ) And find some Furaha. And hopefully share some too.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Kenya. It's been hard to sleep.