the long and short

Aha! You thought you wouldn't hear from me for awhile didn't you? Well here I am. In an effort to blog more I've decided to do smaller posts more frequently. So right now I'm on a matatu going to a women's meeting. It's hot as the devil and the meeting is about 2 hours away but they are one of my favorite groups. They've been saving about 8 months now and taking loans since October. They are still a little shaky on the particulars of loans. Like the fact that you have to pay interest every month. Yet, I'm glad they are learning now when the loans are small ($50 and less) than go to a bank and learn the hard way with thousands of dollars at stake. They are also coming up with a new business to do. Most of them are just middlewomen in the market place for low margin items like maize. We'll see what they come up with!

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.3

Yep...I'm still alive

Ok so since it's been more than six months since I posted. I have no excuse. This last half a year has been some o the most fulfilling and also disheartening months in my service. I'll be sure to go back in time and fill you all in but for the short version since June I have: secured and managed an $8,000 order for beaded bracelets for Lord& Taylor to be made by various artisans in town, participated in Camp GLOW (Girls Leading our World), started an arts resource center/ food nutrition project with kids in my area, planted a garden, practiced baking bagels and pie from scratch and making donuts, kept up with my VSLA groups (one of which graduated and finished a cycle), fundraised for our Books for Africa project (we still need more money!),read a bunch of books, watched way too much TV, washed enough clothes by hand to know that I never want to wash clothes by hand again, applied for a greenhouse, and made a lot more friends. Sounds busy right? Well the main reason I stopped blogging was during the L&T order I was too busy and afterwards my work kind of went from 60 to 0 in 5 seconds. For instance, if I were going to write about what I did today it would go like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, lay on couch and watch TV, go to post office and get amazing Xmas package from my dad and stepmom (thanks guys!), lay back on couch and eat all the candy in the package, sweep my house and haul about 50L of water into my reserve bucket, admire my blooming garden and water it, chat with Brian when he arrives from Kisumu, go to the main house and say hi to the girls and my supervisor, watch a bit of a Nigerian movie, send off a project proposal, try to find graduate school scholarships, sit on the couch with Brian watching TV and eating ramen. Granted, this is a "slow" week because the country kind of shuts down between mid-December until school starts back up in January. But you get the idea. Many of the things that were novel to me in the first year have just become mundane. And the things that used to irritate me now just really really annoy me to high heaven. On the whole, life has been pretty good though. I feel I have at least two projects that will last beyond my service and even just one would make me happy. I've certainly had a lot of time for introspection and I feel really good about the way things are heading. Now starts the real downward slope. 7 months left in country, 4 of them a final push to solidify projects and 3 of them for transitions so that hopefully something I did here will stick after I'm gone. So, as I always say, I'll try to be better about the posting and if you have anything specific you want to know, let me know in the comments!

Domestic Disturbance

Fiiiirst, I know it's been awhile and that's pretty much how every blog post on here starts. But, I was studying for the LSAT very diligently (mmmhmmm) and took it last Tuesday :-) Scores won't be back until the end of the month but for now I'm so happy to have it over and done with and not have to plan my day around studying. And I'm going home in a week so super excited for that too.

But, what has been going on in the life of Megan lately? Pretty much the same old. After a full year in Kenya, I feel like I have some sort of a schedule. Tuesday and Thursdays I teach at the secondary and also hang out with the kids in my neighborhood and draw. Class is going much better. I feel like the kids understand me more and feel more comfortable telling me when they don't understand something. Their scores are improving, thank goodness. The kids in the neighborhood are having a dandy time coloring two days a week. I just finished a grant trying to make an arts center at the school across from me. They said I could use a room for the neighborhood kids and they would get to do arts and crafts with their students. Hopefully we get the grant, I really want to do a public health project with the kids incorporating public health messages.

Mondays and Wednesdays I have VSLA meetings, we are up to 4 groups now! Fridays I try to keep open to do paperwork, office work and all that. And no day is complete without the requisite hanging out. Meaning I go sit with people and just...sit. It's a very important part of the PC experience. I've also been helping PC to get ready for the new batch of Public Health/SED volunteers, who came on Wednesday. So we have newbies! I hosted a trainer this week and I will be going to their training when I get back from the states. Hopefully I have some sort of wisdom to impart...

Sounds more or less pretty busy right? I feel like I'm doing a good amount of work each day but the days definitely seem longer here and there's a lot of free time. A lot. I have to be home by dark and most days I leave my house around 9ish so that's about 14 hours of alone time. My only neighbor in the compound isn't always home so it's just me. For a long time. What's a girl to do? I had the LSAT to take up study time but you can't just study for hours and hours on end. And, when studying becomes stressful, whaddya do? I started to think about the things I used to do in the states to reduce stress and fill bored days...

1. Talk on the phone
2. Go clubbin
3. Go shopping
4. Walk the streets of New York
5. Go to a friends house
6. Read
7. Go to the park, ballet, etc

Ok so not many on this list transfer to peri-urban Kenya. As such I had to get creative so I didn't lose my mind. There's only so much reading and tv watching a girl can do. Out of my boredom has come a love of baking. Well I always really liked to bake but in the past there were so many other things to do that didn't require that much effort. Alas, that is no longer the case and I have become a baking machine in the last couple of months. On my repertoire to date we have: bread, bagels, carrot cake, chocolate cake (with homemade frosting!), mac& cheese and banana bread. Remember that post way back when I first came to Kenya and I talked about how cooking was so much harder here? Well baking is like that squared. First problem: No oven. Solution: Make a jiko oven! What the hell is that??? Basically you take a big pot and fill it with sand or dirt. Place the pot on the gas cooker and put what you want to bake in a dish inside. It does work in the sense that it bakes but there's no temperature control and it can take awhile. Still, I can bake! Problem 2: No measuring utensils of any kind. Solution: guess. Problem 3: Recipes who don't understand the plight of the volunteer. I don't have a mixer. I don't have a candy thermometer or any of these other fancy tools recipes want me to use to bake. Solution: Just whip it all together and hope for the best. So far things have turned out pretty well, I put some pictures of the process below, enjoy! Today I had a potluck with some friends and brought the macaroni and cheese, they really liked it. I also made pickles!

My other stress relief has been "shopping" which here means tearing out designs out of magazine, finding fabric and giving it to my tailor. So far she's been doing a great job, 2 skirts and one dress. Pictures to come! A skirt costs me the equivalent of about $4 and the dress about $6 for her to make. Love it!

Finished Mac& Cheese!

I dance when I cook, no judgement!

The cake is ready to bake!

The pot with dirt

My own oven

Potluck!

Finished cake with frosting!

The boys and their birthday cake. They were beading so we were all having a domestic day. Brian is licking the frosting from the bowl. Stomachache!

Kenya read me a story?

What was your favorite book as a child? When I was young, I remember James and the Giant Peach, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Are you there God, it's me Margaret. I also remember going to the library weekly with my mom and checking out as many books as she would let me. Ok, yes, I know I am making myself sound very much like a nerd here but the point is those books were available to me. I could lose myself in them, travel to a distant place or just read with the satisfaction that the my fears, joys, and anxieties about the world were not singular just to me.

Sadly, most children in Kenya don't have that luxury. Outside of the capital, libraries are virtually nonexistent. Schools have enough trouble getting (or allocating) funds to buy regular text books, let alone pleasure reading. The Form 3 (high school junior) business class I teach has a total of 4 textbooks for 27 students. That's including the book I use to make notes and share with students. 4. So what is the likelihood that such schools have a Judy Blume or Roald Dahl to avail to their students? Nil.

Butttttt...you can change that! How? Donate to my Books for Africa project!
https://www.booksforafrica.org/donate/to-project.html?projectId=77
Your donation will help provide books to various schools throughout Kenya. This is a collaborative project that I am working on with two volunteers from Eastern. Some of the schools will even get computers! Books for Africa sends free books to developing countries, asking only that host countries pay shipping. Shipping is a pretty penny though so please donate today!

Major kudos to Aunt Barbara, a personal champion of literacy, who was the first to donate. Thanks!!!

And, just in case I have not pulled at your heart strings enough, here are some photos of the children you would be helping!

Pictures!

We went to Hell's Gate and saw a hyena print...and then quickly went in the opposite direction!









Rusing Island in Lake Victoria, where PCV Adam lives. Some people have all the luck!













My Peace Corps Fam at Rusinga Island















Clare, me and Jenn having fun













When we get together, it's a guaranteed party! Porter, me, Clare, Adam, Jenn, Z