here is a view of one of the bays in lake victoria. it is such a huge lake that you can only see a tiny portion of it standing on the bank. the dhows on the bank are still used by fishermen who fish for tilapia, which is abundant in the lake and one of the main foods in this area. lake victoria is only about 60 miles south of where i lived in kakamega.

this is one of the tiny market stalls on our lane. there are many of them, they all sell only a few items each day. the little boy in the front right was adorable, he loved bob and ran to greet him everyday. he called bob muzungu of course and he was only about 15 months old and i think that was one of the only kiswahili words he knew

these are some of the kids who live on the lane where i am currently living. the showed up every afternoon to greet us. in kenya, children as young as 18 months are taught to shake hands with adults and to respond "mzuri" when greeted. the also use the only english they know which is "how are you" the moms don't really take care of the younger kids. that responsibility is left to the little girls who are about 8 or 9 years and older.

The first building on the right is where my office is located. it is on the main street in kakamega.

This is the house where I lived with my host family. It was a really nice house and very upper class by Kenyan standards. The little building to the left is where the "cow" boys lived, they took care of the 3 cows and 2 calves that the family had.

This is the compound where I am living on my own now. A retired school principle and a few of his grown children and their families live here. The cars and cows in the courtyard are a sign of prosperity.

This is one of the market streets in town. the piles of clothes you see on the right are the mitumba(used clothes) that everyone wears. I kept expecting to see something I had donated to the Salvation Army.

Here are some of my pictures from Kakamega. I didn't take as many this time because I came home so soon but I do plan on taking more in September and will continue adding to my blog when I return, so keep checking in.

After walking, the boda boda is the way to get around town. it costs 15 cents to go anywhere. there are about 2000 of these guys in Kakamega and competition for business is stiff

8/10/2006

Bob and I returned to Chico about 2 weeks ago. After I got sick the second time, we made hasty arrangements to come back and have my health checked out by my doctors. It was an especially long trip because we had to fly standby. On Wednesday, it took the entire day to ride the bus from Kakamega to Nairobi, where we had to spend another day before we could get a flight to London. In London, we spent the night and then got a flight to San Francisco where we arrived at 9:00 pm. Being too tired to drive to Chico, we spent the night, and then drove home the next day. In total it the trip took 5 days!

It has been a reverse culture shock adjustment. Besides being in my own home, with my husband and being able to talk to all my family any time I want, one of the things I have enjoyed having again the most is the FOOD. African food is very filling and healthy, but it is bland bland bland and everything tastes the same. The food here tastes so great and I have been eating everything from pizza to enchiladas to steak.

However, aside from those things, there are actually many things I am missing about Kenya. The biggest one is the socializing with the community during my day. It feels like I am much less connected with people here and that the community is actually just a big collection of strangers. I think that is because as Americans we don’t really interact with strangers as we go about our daily business and as a result, in spite of the fact that there are people around us, we are still somewhat isolated from them. Whereas in Kenya, as in many other countries, it is expected that you interact with people you come in contact with and that generates constant socializing with people all day and really strengthens the sense of belonging to the community.

Also, in spite of the fact that that Kakamega, like many towns in third world countries, is very poor and has a lot of uncollected garbage, crumbling buildings, dirt streets and very basic, rural houses, I found that after living there, I was looking past all that and instead, I only saw the people. It always amazed me that the people were so happy living in what we would consider appalling living conditions as long as they had their families and food to eat. Now that I am home in California, everything seems sanitized, glossed over and homogenous, like it is a movie set or pictures of a town in a book, where real people don’t actually live.

Now that I have resolved my health issues, I have made arrangements to go back to Kakamega for about a month. I really want to finish the business training materials that I had been working on and feel very committed to accomplishing my goals. I know my work is just a tiny drop of water in the ocean, but having left something tangible there is very important to me.

7/24/06


Damn, damn, damn I got sick again last week. One day last week I went to a village outside of Kakamega called Labao to visit a polytechnic school and to take pictures for writing a possible grant program. While I was there I started to feel very sick again. So after getting back into Kakamega, Bob from the office took me directly to aga kahn hospital in Kisumu. When I got there I was feeling pretty seriously bad again. it turned out to be e coli in my kidney. The first night in the hospital I was in the maternity ward because there were no private rooms available. in the morning, I could hear a woman next door in labor and then shortly thereafter I could hear the baby cry. it was a wonderful sound. that night, after being transferred to the honeymoon suite in the private ward, someone died in the ward and then I could hear grief filled wailing, followed by the Muslim call for prayer from outside my window. Man, what a powerful reminder of the cycle of life.