tulia, simba!: african diets

for the past 2 days, i was on the african diet. which ultimately means anything that goes in, immediately comes out. i skipped class and became very familiar with my top bunk. i watched some good movies (burn after reading), some mediocre ones (ghost town) and some bad ones (stealing beauty).

this past weekend we did loads. thursday we went to burnt forest, a rural area 45 minutes outside of town that was dramatically affected by the political violence in 1992 and 2008. the van got stuck in the mud (see video) and we had the best mbuzi in the country apparently--the goat is claimed to be the best, "because of the weather or something, the goats grow special muscles."

the group in burnt forest

friday we had out first "ladies-only" day at the street children center. and all things considered, it went well. i went out with the coordinator, andrew, at 9am to "mobilize." let me paint the picture for you: there is a big hill on the other side of the tracks. a river runs through it and there is piles of trash everywhere, ultimately the town's easily accessible dump. imagine there are small pockets of 3 to 4 teenagers sitting in circles, with small bottles of glue tucked up their sleeve and pressed to their nose. they are gambling with the equivalence of 4 cents or looking at pictures of decorated indian women in stolen calendars. we climbed through the water, trash and hopped over streams to gather up the girls. i've gotten quite good at the fist-pound and understanding enough swahili to know when they're talking about the mzungu (or! mgoso in sheng)--just enough to catch them off guard and participate in the joke.

one of the girls is 19 years old. she is beautiful and smart and curious and fluent in english. she says she was raped and the incident produced the baby she has been carrying for 7 months. she hasn't been to the hospital and doesn't know her HIV status. but she wants to know for her baby. these women are incredible. she asked me if i had a cell phone (my well-rehearsed, immediate response is "no."--otherwise people will call you 3x a day every day for 2 weeks) and she said "oh, well if you get one, i made this for you." she had made me a blue and white beaded case for my cell phone. it's beautiful, and needless to say i felt a bit foolish for having nothing in return for my new friend. another girl told me when she returns to her home in lodwar she will bring me. she will tell her grandfather and he will slaughter a goat in celebration. dad: you better become familiar with the local farm, because i told her if she ever makes it to boston we would slaughter a goat for her too, in the spirit of tradition of course.

the women are relatively content by being on the street. andrew and i had a long talk about the culture that exists around the girls and they are more or less taken care of. most of them have "boyfriends" or caretakers. they get to the street as girls and begin having sex--most get pregnant--but the boys take care of them, they provide them with glue, food and clothing. he was suggesting the intervention really needs to take place before they get a boyfriend, otherwise they have little incentive seek an education.

after returning to the center we introduced ourselves ("ninaitwa Lauren, ninatoka amerika, mji Washington, D.C. kwa Barack Obama. Unajua?" -- this introduction typically gets received with warm cheers and enthusiastic hand slaps), played games, made rules, washed clothes and just sat around. one of the permanent figures in the IU house has been visiting the center and taking pretty incredible photographs, so if you want to see how beautiful the children are check out her blog.

sitting around with the girls, making rules

puppy cuddle puddle!

my friend and i

friday night we hit the town and went dancing.

saturday morning we woke up and began the 5 hour journey to port victoria. the road was long and the sky was big and i spent most of my day listening to this song. port is a small town on lake victoria, that doesn't even have a wikipedia page! it's where we will do our field work for 3 weeks in april. it's small, and rural and the children yell "mzungu! how are you!" anywhere you go, but it's beautiful and we're all excited. i'll be working on the "safe motherhood" project--plenty more to come as it happens.

a big storm came in the evening we were there. first the sky opened and it poured rain then as we waited 2 hours for our dinner (we danced and played games) there was an impressive lightening storm. it looked like war out over the lake; mother nature had put on a show for us.

in order to pass time in class, i organized my itunes list my how many times i've played a song. i learned i have spent 37.525 hours listening to 'trapeze swinger'--that's a whole work week.