ATragedy, and Market Day

It is 1:08p.m. of an otherwise uneventful day. Otherwise uneventful, because the three male teachers and Matron just walked by supporting one of the girls. She was crying, so loudly that at first I thought she’d been hurt, but as they drew closer I saw that it wasn’t because of that. Nupur and I were outside under the shade of the tree. As the procession went by our building and behind the teachers’ block, we asked Lucy, who was following behind, what had happened.

It turned out that Diana had just found out that her father had passed away. That is also why there is the sound of wailing coming from the direction of the main road, a horrible, chilling sound that has lasted for a good half an hour or more. I’d thought it for the piki driver who had been buried yesterday, but I was wrong.

Diana has just walked back down, still crying but quietly now, holding hands with Lucy. Matron and Anne go to comfort her, and she seems somewhat calmer. Joy has come to sit beside me, and Sadhna has returned with Kennedy, and gone to talk with Anne. Diana’s in no position to do her exams. I hope they will let her go home.

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In the afternoon several of us went to Customs. Sadhna and Reese ran, and Frank and I followed in Kennedy’s car, giving the District Education Officer a ride, about half an hour later. We caught up with them a little way into Customs, and curiously found Leonard in the soda store opposite Memorial as well. We must have been quite a spectacle—a whole group of musungu kids in the middle of Customs, on market day, at the busiest hour!

Because Tuesday is market day, the market was far more crowded—and well-stocked—than usual. Sadhna and Reese started walking back after we bought some mahindi chouma (roasted maize) to munch on. Frank and I continued to shop, but we kept stopping because we ran into a lot of familiar faces. I saw Mourine from Senye (one of the few Senye students whom I can recognise!), James from Lisori, and another Senye boy who was at his father’s stall. Frank stopped to talk with several of his students from Nyangwayo as well. We spent a good forty minutes in that little square going around all the stalls, checking out the goods, and bargaining with stall-keepers. Frank was absolutely hilarious. He wanted to buy everything there was on sale, and ended up with 20 tomatoes, 11 large bananas, a bottle of honey, a mango, a pineapple, and six avocadoes, as well as debating over fish and bo, a leafy vegetable that resembles la jiao ye back home. He also tried to turn the negotiations into maths problems for the kids. For my own part, I bought a stack of sweet potatoes, three mangoes, four tomatoes, some cabbage and four pineapples (three of which were for Reese). So we brought the market a lot of business today.

It was getting rather late and so we drove back, picking up Leonard three-quarters of the way back to the WISER campus and Sadhna and Reese near the bend. We drove to Tagache with Reese sitting on Frank (of course), me on Sadhna, and Leonard behind the wheel. Not the most comfortable ride I’ve ever had, even by Kenyan standards; thankfully it was only a five-minute journey.

Bill

I was expecting a visit from the three Lisori kids today, so I didn’t make any other plans. Unfortunately, they never called, and the number they'd used yesterday was out of service. I’m a little disappointed but not upset at them—I don’t really know anything about the dynamics of that family, and for all I know they could be mistreated. I really hope they were studying for their exams tomorrow though.

Instead, I worked on my blog entries all day, ate a lot, and went to look at Joy’s phoenix mural in the computer lab. It is absolutely stunning. I’m actually jealous. I have not painted for so long, I don’t think I could do it anymore!

At a little after 3p.m., two of the WISER girls, Faith and Florence, came into the dining room where I was working. I spent the rest of the afternoon talking with them, showing them my photos, and teaching them to use e-mail and Facebook. Faith is from Lwanda. She asked me to greet them when I go to see them at the WISERBridge exams. I’m looking forward to going in the next three days—I want to see the kids again, and cheer them on. It’s the least I can do to let them know I’m still thinking of them. Also, it feels quite awesome to go to an exam when I’m not the one who needs to sit the papers. :D

I went down to the market at Tagache at five to get some vegetables and fruits. When I got back to WISER, Joy was just leaving with Bill and Caston, the two Shining Star kids she is close to, to “go see the German musungu girls” who were teaching at Shining Star. They'd just arrived a week ago and were staying with the director of the school. Of course, once I heard that I felt compelled to go as well—gotta check out the new blood and all that, you know. We walked down and turned off the main road by Shining Star to go to the compound where the girls were living. The director was building a new house for himself right by the school building, and as we walked past Bill excused himself and said he needed to speak quickly with his uncle. It turned out that his uncle is the director himself. I don’t know Bill very well, and I’ve become so accustomed to hearing about these extended family relationships that I wasn’t really surprised at the news, but Joy seemed shocked. The director came out to greet us and invited us to tour his unfinished house, quite a grand one too. He is currently still living at his mother’s compound, which is why Bill is with them too.

The walk to Bill’s compound was very scenic and cool, because the path was bordered on both sides by some of the tallest trees I’d seen here in Muhuru Bay. The compound itself was very comfortable too, with a large, open space surrounded by trees and several mud huts—I don’t know if they were well-off, but it was clearly a large family. Bill introduced us to his aunts but there were just too many children running around. The German girls were somewhat of a disappointment—they didn’t seem very eager to become acquainted, and only one of them came to talk to us. They are only here for one more week, and then they leave for safari in Nairobi and fly back from Mombasa. I was surprised that she had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her how they felt about being called musungu; it makes me think that they haven't been out in the community much by themselves.

It was only when we were back at WISER that Joy told me about Bill’s family. His mother left when he was younger, and his father has too many other wives and children to look after him. He lives with his uncle, who is also polygamous, and is treated like the Cinderella of the family—made to do the dishes, clean up, finish manual jobs. Joy said that he had so much work to do that often by the time he is done in the morning, school is half over, and it is a wonder that Bill manages to stay at the top of the class with the amount of school that he misses. I realised that this was why Joy had seemed so surprised to hear that Bill’s uncle is the director; it means that he knows how often Bill is absent from class.

Bill wants to be an accountant. His favourite subject is Mathematics, which is also his best friend Caston’s favourite subject, and the two of them help each other in classes. He is also very, very humble. He wouldn’t admit himself that he was the top student in Shining Star and told us to ask Castor instead. When Joy asked him how he managed to do so well in the exams, he said, “God helps me, I think.” But Bill won’t be able to go to secondary school if he has to pay anything for it. His uncle won’t give him the money, and he would have to find some measly-paying manual work around Muhuru Bay, and probably be chained here for the rest of his life. And those wonderful qualities of his—they would all go to waste.

There are only three WISERBridge boys’ scholarships, and it’s pretty certain that Derek from Winjo is going to get one of them. As much as she hopes that Bill can get one, we know that there are many more than three needy, intelligent boys in Muhuru Bay, all of whom could do so much with a full-ride scholarship. I completely agree that as a whole the girls here are far more in need of financial incentive than the boys are, but kids are kids—they deserve an education, regardless of what their genders are, regardless of how wealthy their family is. Why must so many conditions be met, so many things be considered, before a child is allowed to go to school?

A Long and Relatively Productive Day!

It is always like this: I leave for school nervous and apprehensive in the morning, and come out of class buzzing and high. It’s because of the kids; they do this to me. When they respond to my antics, it makes me so, so happy, and that gives me the energy to continue. Ironic, but the more I teach, the more I want to teach; yet as soon as I stop, I feel absolutely knackered, and I fear that I wouldn’t be able to go for another day. Just those moments when I’m in the classroom, talking to each student, when I feel like I can answer their questions—cheesy as it is—that is when I feel most alive.

And I think Lwanda is finally warming up to me. The kids will actually laugh at my jokes sometimes now, and they will ask me questions and talk to me informally. They really are great kids. All twelve of them showed up today, probably because of the promise of food I made yesterday. I brought them biscuits, and that seemed to cheer them up considerably. We did some more constructions, continued with “Adventure in Mombasa”, and talked about Health Education (STIs, especially HIV/AIDS) after lunch. A good day, I think.

I also met the director of Lwanda today during second period, when Class Eight was being taken for Social Studies. His name is Renard Okoko. He works in Nairobi, and is not often here in Muhuru Bay, so his cousin Lule takes care of the school. Mr. Okoko told me he paid for the construction of the buildings, including the ones which are currently being erected, from whatever money he gets. It was an intriguing conversation. Lwanda was apparently first started back in 1999, but went through many ups and downs because of finances. It is a private school, which means that it does not receive any funding whatsoever from the government. “The government thinks that their citizens are private,” Mr. Okoko said, with a smile of frustration, waving his hands. “But how can people become private citizens?” The students pay sh200 per term, but this all goes towards the books and teachers’ salaries. He wants to expand the school, build another structure for more classrooms, and start a library—he told me he knows the publishers in Nairobi who will donate books if they send an official letter. Once Lwanda is registered as a proper school, that is. But the publishers will only sponsor private schools, because the public ones get help from the government.

I don’t understand why the government completely refuses to fund private schools. I guess privatising education is still a debatable topic, but a little subsidising can go so far here. It would give the teachers much more incentive to teach properly, since now at the public schools they are paid the same amount no matter how badly their students do. That just seems like a downright stupid system. But as Mr. Owiti had said, making policies in the governmental offices and implementing them in Muhuru Bay are two entirely different matters.

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I’d promised to tutor Michael’s daughter after school in maths, so I waited for her at WISER after we got back (the trip back in the car took forever: first we agreed to give Mr. Romanus a ride, then we went to George’s house to pick up his wife and meet his children, then we went to Obolo to pick up Leonard and Sadhna and the soda bottles, and then there was a lot of greeting and talking and shuffling and whatnot and Leonard ended up driving with George randomly taking a piki and Diana walking. They got there before our car did). Tracey Kate showed up a little after 4:30, and I tried to show her how to solve for x for an hour or so. She is clearly an intelligent girl, and very hardworking. To walk all the way from her house to WISER and back! Thank goodness I felt awake enough today to help her as well after teaching all day, or I would have felt terrible for letting her down.

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George and Kennedy were the guests for tonight's dinner. Abigail, Frank and Elizabeth were in charge, although to be honest everyone ends up helping out anyways, so the original three are elected mainly to pick the menu and buy the ingredients.  The theme was “Breakfast for Dinner.” Matron made mendazi and Abigail made French toast, and there were also scrambled eggs and yogurt with fresh fruit and honey. Eneka and Elizabeth ingeniously made their own granola “cookies” in the frying pan, using some leftover packets of Amy’s instant oatmeal, Blue Band, honey and brown sugar. And of course there was guacamole, because none of our Thursday Night Dinners can be complete without guacamole.

We’d arranged with the drivers for them to come at seven, and Kennedy showed up only a few minutes past. George, though, did not come, and we waited for twenty minutes before Kennedy told us that George had said he would not be coming. Even though he’d confirmed with Sadhna at lunch that he would be here. So we dug in, because everyone was hungry; then at 7:40 Abigail received a text from George saying that he was on his way.

He arrived fifteen or so minutes later, in a very jovial mood. He wouldn’t answer when asked where he had been, kept on suggesting that we hold a farewell “bash” under the tree in Tagache, and said he wanted to dance together. It was only after he and Kennedy had gone that Sadhna burst out laughing and I realised that he’d been totally drunk all the while. And then everything made much more sense. George had been calling out to the teachers seated around the tree at Lwanda as we pulled out this afternoon, and he’d explained to me that he had been joking about Mr. Okoko owing him a drink now that he was back in Muhuru Bay. The director had apparently replied that he was a member of the Church, which meant that he wasn't allowed to drink or to buy other people drinks. Which confuses me. How can the people here be so pious, and yet comfortably ignore fundamental Christian tenets, like abstinence and monogamy?

I’m rather glad I hadn’t known when George was still here. Now that I think back on it, it could have turned out so much worse than it did—at least he was sane enough not to start dancing!

Strangely Returning Home

I went back to see my Lisori kids today. I took a piki, because George went to Migori and Kennedy was out waiting for the other WISERBridge people, and I wanted to leave at 9:30a.m. Samson was the driver who took me, and we went by the back way through the fields. When I arrived, the gates were pulled close and there was nobody in sight except a small girl, not in school uniform. But I spotted a figure near the building, thanked Samson and weaved my way into the campus.

It all seemed so familiar, so strangely habitual for me to walk in the yard. A few steps in, I heard a voice call: “Lisa!” It was Eunice Akoth. I called back, and gave her her photograph. Cheryl Faith came out as well, and we walked together to the Class 5 classroom where the others were.

They were almost all there—seventeen of them, out of twenty. I was so happy, and they seemed very excited to see me as well. I gave them my phone numbers and email address, and gave them another pep talk about their KCPE. I told them to study hard, visit me in WISER, and go to Margaret for more books to read. And I warned them again that if they didn’t do well in the exams, I would hear from Margaret.

They were there for the WISERBridge Kiswahili lesson, so I left them to Teacher Joan whilst I waited for Teacher Owiti to come. I needed to get a signature for Sadhna, to obtain permission for the research she’d already conducted. We talked for a while about education and culture. I called Samson again at about 10:45, and he drove me back to WISER.

I went to Lwanda in the afternoon, after preparing extensively (and rather nervously) for a second lesson on The Reproductive System. For an hour I attempted to talk about fetal development and they looked asleep until it came to the time for questions. I reiterate my thought from last week: teaching Sex Ed to a bunch of adolescents is an experience every person should try. To put it in perspective, I came back and read an article entitled “Everything you need to know about sex during pregnancy”—I kid you not. Then I taught Impromptu English, attempting to make them come up with “Not only…but also…” sentences till Kennedy showed up at 4p.m. I was quite amazed that he had managed to drive his vehicle, a hefty SUV-type, all the way to Lwanda through that gulley. He told me that he used to go this route when he was a matatu driver. I was so, so glad that we were still able to carry on a conversation without awkwardness; I don’t know how the others talk to the drivers now, having gone through what they did. Maybe they’re just used to it, maybe they have no problem reconciling the Friday-night face with the daylight one, but I can’t do it. I need to keep my relationships pure.

A Day of Many Beans and Kuku

Sadhna made a very apt remark just now, as a few of us were standing outside discussing tonight’s plans: “Everybody looks so unhappy!”

Blunt, but at least partly true. I think all of us (apart from Leonard) are ready to go home. It isn’t that we’re unhappy necessarily, but it has been a long time to live in a place which—whilst not unpleasant—isn’t exactly supremely comfortable either. The last couple of days and nights were also quite rough, and several people have fallen ill again. I think it fair to say that we’re all tired.

We went to Kennedy’s home for lunch today. He lives about half an hour’s walk away in the direction of Tagache, very close to Baraka’s compound, so a group of us set off a little after noon and the others arrived about 40 minutes later. He introduced us to his daughters, Viola and Ivone, who are six and seven respectively. Ivone is in Class Two at Lwanda; she was the one George pointed out to me last Thursday from the car. They were wearing matching skirts and blouses and are absolutely, absolutely precious. Kennedy’s wife, George’s sister, also came to greet us. She is very pretty, which explains why her girls are too, and very young.

Of course, lunch didn’t start until 2:30. But it was worth the wait: the womenfolk had been preparing since 8a.m., and it was a feast! We had tea and rice and beans and (very beautifully presented) chapatti and kuku and hard-boiled eggs and avocadoes and tomatoes and onions and orange-limes. It was clearly quite an extortionate meal, by Muhuru Bay standards. It was also delicious. We ate ourselves into a stupor, and still there was plenty left over.

Kennedy ate with us, but none of the rest of his family did. That made me slightly uncomfortable (although the room was pretty crowded already), that the women and children might have had to wait until we were finished to eat themselves, especially since they were the ones who had made the food. The conversation also turned pretty exclusionary. Abigail was great at asking Kennedy questions so he had an opportunity to speak, but apart from that the topics were rather restricted to American life (and food). I was just as bad as anyone else. We all miss home, and it is just so easy to slip into a what-I-wish-I-could-have-now or I-remember-that-time-when discussion.

Kennedy apparently coaches an under-15 football team, the Pathfinders. After lunch they performed a marching-and-saluting routine for us. I wish I’d brought a camera, although I’d have felt very uncomfortable taking pictures with them so close, and with it clearly being a show for our sakes. There were 13 Pathfinders, but there must have been several dozen children in Kennedy’s compound. Probably somebody had told them that the wasungu were here. We’d brought Jolly Ranchers and Kennedy gave them out to the kids. Most of them were very young and didn’t know how to untwist the wrapper.

Nupur, Eneka, Reese and Sadhna then walked back to WISER. The rest of us diverged from the road to visit Kennedy’s father’s house and then his grandparents’ house. We didn’t stay long at either. His grandfather was probably the oldest man I’d seen here in Muhuru Bay. He was sitting outside one of the huts in their compound, and shook our hands one by one. I think Kennedy just wanted to have all of us wasungu visit his family. He said that nobody in this community had ever managed to invite so many white people as guests before, and everyone asked him how he had done it. The local people seem to consider it an honour to have guests visit them at home, especially, it seems, guests with a different skin colour.

The real highlight of my day, though, was when we were on the way back to WISER. We took a detour and ended up on the main road again, and as we were walking I happened to look up into one of the compounds on the left that led down to the road. There was a small, rather familiar figure walking towards us, and as he came closer I realised with great joy that it was, indeed, Justus! I told Abigail to continue walking and strode over quickly to greet him, because I really was very, very happy to see him. Mark came out as well, and my first impulse was to hug the two of them, but I settled for a hearty double-hand shake instead. Our conversation didn’t last long—something along the lines of “Is this your house? (Yes, obviously) Where is Madam Esther? (In Mombasa, curiously enough) Oh, so who are you living with now? (Justus’ father) Now I can come and visit you! I’ll see you on Monday, right? Okay, gotta go, ciao!”—but boy oh boy did it boost my spirits. Two of Kennedy’s cousins/brothers had waited for me, and I was a very lively talker for the rest of the walk back.

The older boy was called Peter, and he was one of Leonard’s students at Obolo. He told me that he wanted to go to Migori Boys’ High School, the one next to St. Joseph’s Hospital. He wants to be a doctor so he could come back to Muhuru Bay and help people. I was glad for his company, and even more so that he did not ask for any favours. He walked me back to the junction and I came back to WISER, and spent the rest of the afternoon asleep.

Billy was supposed to have his birthday party at the caves tonight, but because everyone was so exhausted and stuffed from Kennedy’s lunch, he decided to bring the food back to WISER instead. It was really good food—a bucket of beans, one of kuku and one of chapatti—and on any other day I would have been delighted to eat it, but it was just a little much after that lunch. Billy was sick and so he seemed a little depressed as well, but then after dinner he, Sadhna and Leonard went on a boat ride to see lanterns in the lake and apparently he cheered up. His Facebook status update at 2:14am the next morning was: “Just turned 20 on a boat in the middle of Lake Victoria surrounded by floating lanterns beneath more stars than I've ever seen. I've already been in 3 countries today.” Now that’s the way to go! I wish that my 20^th birthday will be every bit as memorable!

The Games, a Reunion and a Storm

They’d planned to watch the sunrise this morning from the water tower, so I woke Sadhna up at 6:30 and she woke up the rest of the dorm. A few got up and headed towards the water tower. By the time I finished breakfast, though, they were all back in bed. It turned out that not only was the water tower wet, and also the sun had already risen quite a bit by 6:40.

I came back after my run to work on the Games. It was just the Maths Relay which still needed to be finished, and the other WISERBridge people were working as well. The morning flew by. The kids started arriving at 1:30, and Sadhna let them in. At first I was a little worried, because there weren’t very many schools and I didn’t recognise any of the students; but I was still running up and down trying to photocopy questions for the relay. Just before 2 p.m. I ran down to the dining hall, as Frank gave the opening speeches and explained the instructions for the first round of activities.

Team Lwanda had arrived by then, and that made me happy, because I had at least one team to root for. I couldn't see Mark, Cheryl or Justus though, and I really did feel quite disappointed, since I’d been so looking forward to seeing them again. Senye wasn’t there either, but I didn’t feel anywhere near the same disappointment at that. Yes, so I totally play favourites.

The teams were split up into individuals for these activities. There was a Maths scavenger hunt, a Science Jeopardy game, and a Spelling Bee, which I was in charge of. As we started I could tell that not all the teams were there, but that was to be expected. A few players in, I sensed someone walking into the dining hall. I looked up – and standing there were none other than Mark, Justus and Cheryl! I was delighted— I guess I hadn’t realised until then just how much I’d missed them.  I stood up to greet them and they quickly settled in, with Mark staying for the Bee and Margaret leading the other two to their respective sites.

I really should have prepared more for the Bee; we had to make up the rules on the spot, since I hadn’t thought it through properly. Thank goodness for Joy and Abigail! Joy read out the words, timed and checked their spellings, whilst I looked up the definitions for the words and read those. Sometimes not in time. It was so impromptu it was embarrassing, but it was too late to change anything. It also didn’t take long for us to realise that the words we’d selected were far, far too difficult for the students’ abilities. Out of three rounds, the 13 students got a total of 4 questions correct (I was very proud of Mark for being one of them). The boy from Memorial—I think his name was Phelix—was very, very good, scoring 2 out of 3. Muhuru Junior and Shining Star each answered one correctly as well.

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INTERMISSION: It’s 9:25 p.m. As I am typing this, it is absolutely raging outside. I think this is the heaviest storm we have had since being here yet. It is raining so hard, there are drops of water spraying down on me through the tin roof, and the racket is so deafening that I can’t hear the music from my laptop even though it is at full volume. At least we’ll have water, though it won’t help if the pump doesn’t get fixed. I don’t dare step outside even though I kind of would like to brush my teeth and go to the choo. Joy is in the bunk room; all the others have just gone out to the pub. I don’t know how they’re faring, as George’s car left just before it started to thunder. I hope they’re safe. Though I’m pretty sure the drivers know what they’re doing, I can’t imagine what the dirt roads will be like in this kind of weather. At least they’re on their way to get drunk, not on the way back.

Sitting here, with the storm crashing down around me, I feel so isolated from the rest of the world. I have just realised that this is probably the most alone I have been in months; it is even a little strange, not unpleasant, though I am rather scared by the awful din that is going on outside. It doesn’t seem to be subsiding, unfortunately, and I can’t go to bed until it does. I am glad that it has finally rained though; it has been hanging in the atmosphere for several days now, with that cloudy, windy sky, and in the mornings the air smells like rain and humidity. It is cooler when it rains, though that has only ever been at night, and of course the rainwater tanks are also refilled, which is always good. I will keep writing for a little while longer and hope that I will be able to step out soon.

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The second round of activities was the stations. There were seven, lasting 15 minutes each, with (supposedly) two teams at each station at a time. Banagrams, Unjumble, Maths Flashcards, the Science Crossword, and Word Unscramble were all in the dining hall, whilst the Social Studies ‘fly-swatting quiz’ (I can’t remember the proper name!) was in the chalkboard (wall-less) “room” and Science XXX was in the library. Luckily Elizabeth had already worked out the schedule and prepared a list for each one of the schools, so they knew which game they were supposed to be at for each set.

I was monitoring Unjumble, along with Joy again. The phrase was “The man sold me a jar of oil, which makes a very bright paint.” Their job was to make as many new words as they could in the time limit, using the letters available from the sentence. It took a little time to explain and I found it prudent to keep an eye on them so they didn’t restrict themselves too much (some thought that the letter limits were for all the words they made, not each individual word), but for the most it went well. Better than I’d anticipated, to be honest. We did manage to mess up the order when Lwanda came for a round ahead of schedule and Leonard’s Maths Flashcards couldn’t host all three teams for the next round, but somehow it worked out fine.

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It is finally not raining as hard, so I think I will head off to brush my teeth.  I am very tired!

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We only got through the first three questions of the Maths Relay, and it didn’t help that the answer we’d used for the second question was wrong (it was the only one I hadn’t worked through multiple times. Frank had too much on his mind when he gave me the numbers and I was too lazy to think them through! He got a telling-off). We were running late, as expected, really, so at 5:15p.m. we quickly hustled them off to have their sodas and biscuits. Everybody gathered in the map-room-cum-reception and Frank announced the top three teams: Shining Star, followed by Memorial and Muhuru Junior. Lisori came fifth, and I walked around like a proud parent for the rest of the afternoon. Before they left I gave the three Lisori kids my numbers and email address, and promised to visit them on Monday in the school.

I don’t know where it will go from here. I have two weeks left in Muhuru Bay; after that, I don’t think I will ever be back. Yet for some reason I can’t imagine never seeing these kids again. Even though it was only for two weeks that I taught them, they are so dear to me now, and I will say this even though I don’t know if the sentiments are returned. I rarely admit to this much affection lest it is unrequited; but this time, for these kids, I do admit it. Even though I don’t know why I feel so attached. Will I ever see them again, after I leave Muhuru Bay? Will we be able to keep in touch? Will they even mean as much as they do now to me, a month, two months, a year from now, when I’m back in my First World environment with all of my First World problems?

Will they remember me when they grow up in ten years’ time, and I, them?

Stomach Woes

So guess what. I’m missing school. Again. And on the one day that I actually made a lesson plan (for question tags—it does sound invigorating, doesn’t it?). I am honestly getting very sick and tired of being sick and tired all the time!

My throat is almost entirely better, but I went to the choo four times last night and three times this morning, and it wasn’t because I’d drunk too much water. I hate that I keep getting these annoying little symptoms successively, so that whilst I’m not totally debilitated I never feel well enough to actually do something. At this point I would actually prefer to fall really, really ill, as in can’t-move-from-my-bed ill, so that I’d at least feel like I have a legitimate excuse for not going to teach. But no; I just feel tired and sluggish and stomach-achey, and the thought of a six-hour, almost non-stop presentation in front of all those kids and teachers just seems too much of a task right now. If I were a better person I would probably be able to just suck it up and go, but I’m lazy and selfish and weak and totally defeated by a little pain. I also don’t want to take Cipro because I already feel like a pillbox, what with two antibiotics, the antihistamine, Doxy and Pepto-Bismo.

Although I actually don’t feel like eating, which is pretty serious for me. Hopefully if I’m empty by the afternoon I can go to Lwanda, because I feel really, really guilty for not going to see the kids.

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I didn’t end up going to school after all, because I took a nap that lasted for four hours. What is wrong with me? Why can’t six or seven hours of sleep be enough? Why do I always feel so tired all the time (and it’s NOT schisto!)?

Does It Feel Good to Talk Again!

I am feeling much better—made it to Customs and back this morning! Joy was up at 6 because she had agreed to go to church with a boy she met (Augustine?). I saw them on a piki on my way to Customs and Billy with Chacha on the way back. It turned out that they went to the same service and were asked to speak to the congregation.

It was a relaxing day. I read the news (which was actually rather disturbing—droughts in Somalia, shooting and bomb in Norway, derailed bullet train in China, and death of Amy Winehouse), refrained from Sporcling, drew Katy, and tried an ink drawing (fail) in the afternoon. I need much much more practice on that if I want to become even slightly unembarrassing.

Joy and I took a long walk before dinner. We talked about relationships, alcohol, yuanfen, kindred spirits and spontaneity/stability; she and I share many of the same sentiments regarding these topics. We differ though, on our opinions about relationships with the local people. I shy away, afraid of becoming too attached to someone who may see me only as a source of easy income, whereas she is willing to take the risk. I wish I could have her attitude and courage. Usually, though, I just feel too tired. Maybe I’m just too lazy to make an effort to know these people better.

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I started reading One Day (stolen from Caitlyn), by accident today. I was returning something to her bed and the book just happened to be lying there. So of course I pick it up just to thumb through, and an hour later Caitlyn comes in and finds me standing next to her bed, reading her book. I’m not weird, not at all.

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Caitlyn, Elizabeth, Sadhna and Leonard went for dinner at Mama Terrence’s. I went with them down to Tagache and to see the tailor, Zainabu, and then we parted ways. I saw Basil again, and he walked me back to WISER. He invited me to his house on Friday. I had met him once on my only run in the opposite direction to Customs, back towards Migori, when he had been cycling to school in Nyatike, and again in Tagache a few days ago on a trip with Joy. I will unashamedly admit that I was proud of myself (and glad!) for remembering his name. He seems genuine enough—I will try and not be so guarded. I must stop this paranoia that I have developed!

St. Joseph's Hospital

I took my second trip in a week to Migori. The purpose of this trip was quite different from the last, though; this time we headed straight for the hospital. Amy and Marta came with us in the car, and we dropped them off at Barclays. The ride was as bumpy as always but riding shotgun made it that much better.

The hospital, Saint Joseph’s, is Catholic-affiliated. It comprises of several one-story buildings, with separate quarters for the reception, pharmacies, patients’ wards and laboratories. The area in between the buildings is spacious and open, and full of greenery. Thankfully, too; it would have been very claustrophobic otherwise, and I was glad that I could get some fresh air.

By the standards of a US hospital, Saint Joseph’s is poorly equipped. Given that I had just come out of Muhuru Bay, however, it was something of a shock to see the mercury sphygmomanometer and digital thermometers that the nurses were handling. After waiting in one of the open ‘rooms’ with a couple of other patients who were coughing rather disturbingly hard (TB?), we were admitted into the office, and the clinician had a proper computer with a database system. Albeit one that didn’t have the test he wanted me to take at the lab. We took the handwritten sheet down to the lab, where we were again told to wait.

This wait lasted a good hour and more. It turned out that they'd run out of some of the equipment they needed for my throat swab, so they had to go out to buy it. After the third time Abigail asked them about it, they finally let us into the tiny lab room—thank goodness both of us are small. Then the assistant disappeared without an explanation, so—of course—we had to wait, yet again. It turned out that they'd realised that they didn’t have the wooden stick either, so he had to go and get some from goodness knows where—after it was already our turn to take the test. Why they couldn't have prepared beforehand, I don’t know.

The lab assistant was not great with the swab, when it came. He kept telling me to “relax your tongue” whilst sticking a sharp rod with one end wrapped in a bit of suspiciously brown cotton wool down my throat. I wanted to yell at him, but of course I couldn't. Eventually I somehow managed to stop myself from gagging for long enough for him to put the swab in deep down, and then we were out of there as fast as I could persuade Abigail to go. She really is such a sport.

We came back forty-five minutes later (with me in a much better mood, having bought four very choice mangos) and were pleasantly surprised to learn that the test results were already out. It was strep-positive. I guess at that point it wasn’t really surprising anymore, because I knew it wasn’t just a normal sore throat, and to be honest I was glad to see that I hadn’t been making a fuss about nothing. We went back to the clinician (another brief wait), got the prescription, went to pay for the medication (another long wait), and then finally, finally went to the pharmacy section for the drugs (yet another wait). I’d been prescribed two antibiotics because the original one the clinician had wanted to use was out of stock, as well as an antihistamine. The worst of the strep was  already over and I probably would have gotten better on my own without taking the meds, but I wasn’t about to waste all that waiting!

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I hadn’t been planning on running today, but after we got back I felt so stiff and antsy that I decided to go for a short one, not pushing myself, after all. Thank goodness I did. It was probably the best run I’d had in a long, long time, despite the strep throat. The weather was cloudy and it was getting late, so it was relatively cool, and it wasn’t painful apart from a tingling in my throat. I felt so much better afterwards as well. That was when I knew that I would be recovered soon; I could run again, so everything was fine.

What a Really, Really Sore Throat Feels Like

I had a really, really terrible night last night. My throat got worse, and even though I went to bed at 9 out of exhaustion I couldn't sleep because I woke up every time I swallowed from the pain. They were also really loud in the dining room, so I had to get up several times and ask them to keep the noise down. Eventually, though, the pain got so unbearable that I had to ask Caitlin for a couple of ibuprofen, so I guess it was a good thing that they were still up. I think I slept for a total of three and a half hours, maximum. Needless to say I didn’t get up for my run this morning.

Actually, I didn’t run at all today, which should explain just how serious my throat is. It is really that bad. I don’t give up my run easily. But I did take a nap in the afternoon, a blessed four-hour nap. Thank goodness for that.

I can’t speak. It is uncomfortable and extremely annoying. Reese and Adria made dinner today, and Madam Dorcas was the guest. I couldn't do my brief introduction to her because of course I couldn't make a sound. The food was great—a tomato, avocado and corn salad with dressing, guacamole, chapatti and pineapples. Madam Dorcas was also a fantastic speaker, and her story was very interesting. She told us briefly about her education, her family, her journey to WISER, and she made us guess her age (54—I guess she must be around that age, but she is really very stately and energetic). She has two children, one in university and one who has just finished his Masters degree. Her husband owns a hotel, the Hillview, in Migori. She knows the headmaster of Starehe Boys’ Secondary School, where Leonard went. She is just an all-round amazing person.

Hopefully tonight will be better. I'm going to Migori tomorrow to visit the hospital. THANK GOODNESS I'm not teaching!