The internet has decided to be my friend:)

February 17, 2009
After class a few of the students decided to go into Kimana town. It’s always nice to get out of the compound every now and then. Isobel and Catherine, two girls from my group, and I ventured into the crowded market and braved the ever-insistent Mamas to find 4 perfectly ripe mangos. They were delicious!!!!!! Tomorrow we go to Amboseli National Park for our first large mammal count so I hopefully I’ll have lots of fun stories!

February 16, 2009
Today was our second rainy day! Yay! I decided to go for a walk around the running trail while it was still drizzling and saw some vervet monkeys. They were so cute until they started throwing berries at me…thank goodness it wasn’t their poop. Also I saw my first AFRICAN TOAD!!!!!!! I was starting to think I wouldn’t see any reptiles or amphibians while I was here, but he just hopped my way :)

February 15, 2009
Today was our second non-program day!!!!!!! We started the day off going to church for a little over 3 hours. It was a great experience. We got there and everybody was singing and dancing. The sermon was spoken in Kiswahili, but one of our staff, he is a member of the church, translated for us. The lecture focused on looking past people’s differences and accepting them for who they are. At about 12:30 we left for Oliotokitok to go to the VCT clinic. The VCT clinic offers free testing, education, and medicine for those who have contracted AIDS. We were privileged to hear the life stories of the men and women who started the support group. We also met the woman who founded VCT. She was a little 80-year-old nun from Pennsylvania who had been living in Kenya since the 1970s. At the end of our visit, they showed us to their shop where they make different crafts to help raise money to buy food for their family.

February 14, 2009
Well today was pretty much the best Valentine’s day ever! We woke up this morning and had a bird watching class. I got to see an up close and personal view of my favorite bird the Hadada Ibis. Most people actually hate this bird because it has a very annoying call (HHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAAA). I, however, think this bird is hilarious! Sometimes we’ll just be sitting outside having class and the next thing you know these birds are bursting into laughter…I like to think one of them just told a funny joke.

After class we packed some lunches and headed towards Rombo, a teeny tiny town, for our community service project. From there we took a road, I think we were actually driving in a dried up riverbed, to this school way out in the middle of nowhere. When we got there the Mamas and the children welcomed us with singing and dancing. Our group decided to teach the kids the Hokey Pokey (they all pointed and laughed) while the doctors set up different stations: diagnosis, prescriptions, baby weighing, de-worming, vitamin dispersal. Then my group split up and went to different stations. I was at the prescription area. My job consisted of filling a bag with whatever the doctor told me to fill it with…pretty simple.

I hope that my Kiswahili gets better so I can communicate with the children more:)