Swahili lesson

My affinity for languages continues.

I'm not going to pretend I've absorbed a whole lot of Swahili since I've been here, but my twice-a-week lessons are definitely helping and I've gained an appreciation for the general structure of the language.

• First, compared with Chinese: No tones, no characters = so much easier! But somehow this does make the language lose a bit of its personality. Example: The word for "tomorrow" in Swahili is "kesho." I'm pretty sure it has a nice history - rooted in Bantu? - but aside from that it means exactly the same thing as "tomorrow". In Chinese, tomorrow is 明天, or míngtiān in pinyin. The character 明 is actually made up of two characters, sun and moon, and by itself it means "bright." 天 means "day" but can also mean "heaven" and "sky" a slew of other things. So yes, the day after today is a pretty simple translation, but in Chinese the character component gives it additional underlying implications. Tomorrow is a bright day.

• Names are quite formulaic here. I'm not exactly clear on how it works, but a portion of each name is a time word indicating when the person was born. One of our field staff gave me the name "Nafula" (which gets a good laugh when I introduce myself, as it's a standard Bukusu name and I am not a standard Bukusu) which is the name given to girls born in the rainy season. Apparently it also means "fertile". Makes sense?

• Greetings here are not for the impatient. (Or maybe Africa is just not a good place for the impatient...?) Conversations generally begin with a handshake and "habari"? (How are you?) The response is "mzuri" (good) - even if you are bad; you can address that later. Swahili books will tell you "nzuri" but apparently Western Kenya does its own thing. From there, you ask "habari za..." followed by any noun. (How are the kids? How is work? How is the morning? How is the day?) These greetings are often translated directly into English for conversations with mzungu, which is actually quite charming. It's pretty rare to get such interest in your well-being from strangers in the US!
  

Side: This also explains why in China, people yell "HALLO" at foreigners, while here it's "HOW-ARE-YOU!" - sometimes strung directly in as "How-are-you-I'm-fine!" Just a direct translation of what they'd be yelling in their native tongues.

• Grammar. Woo hoo! This part will be brief. Subject clauses are sort of jammed all together into one word. For example, "I am going" is ninaenda: ni is the prefix for first person speech, na indicates present tense, and enda is the verb root that means "to go". You will go, similarly, is utaenda. Can you guess what "u" and "ta" mean....? Nouns are pluralized by changing the prefix, also. Mzungu is what people yell when I run alone; wazungu is the shout when I'm running with the (white) guys.
  

Well now that I've gotten the language post out of my system: if you want more, I'll be more than happy to give you lessons at home. And for those of you who can't believe you just voluntarily took a mini Swahili lesson, I promise to make my next entry about something a little less school-like.

more of the same

Farm photos taken by Shravan, a professional photographer who visited last Thurs-Sat:

Side: Shravan photographed the Real World characters in NYC and kept raving about what a great documentary OAF life would be - sort of like a Real World set, but in rural Kenya and with a great underlying purpose. I'm pretty sure he meant that as a compliment...

Plowing.
Calling for rain.
Dancing with the kids at the orphanage.
Boy at the orphanage with undoubtedly the coolest glasses I've ever seen.

I've passed the one-month mark, and all the things that kept me blogging every couple days have become normal. Yet it occurs to me that the backdrop of my life now is what sets it apart from life at home, and although it is easy to see the Kenyan countryside as farmland, workspace, residences, it is still worth taking notes to preserve these memories.

So here is a now-unexciting list of what I've been up to since my last post:

1. Work

• Radio advertising: I trained survey officers in a couple of new districts. I also visited the ones in Kakamega to collect their surveys, make sure we are getting the desired results, and troubleshoot during a couple farmer visits. Next Thursday evening I'm giving a "Fireside" - a weekly informal hour-long talk on any OAF-related topic, given by one of the expat staff - to see what kind of ideas and connections we can generate as a group to move the project forward.
• Cost cutting: This project has been moving unexpectedly quickly, as I'm approaching the $100,000 goal of budget cuts in one month rather than four. I've been in touch with about five Kenyan staff members to get data since the beginning of our passion fruit program in order to analyze which farmers and sites are, or have the potential to be, profitable. I've also been looking at other unprofitable segments of our organization; for example, visiting to our nursery to see if we can silo off that part of OAF into a profitable enterprise, and standardizing airtime (phone) and transport expenses for all staff. Andrew Youn, OAF's founder, led a meeting with field managers yesterday to institute some of the changes we've been discussing. He did a great job - pretty much a textbook example of "how to implement change in your organization" - and I am hopeful that our less-than-positive changes will not create too much resistance.
  
• I'm slowing finishing up - or hitting a lull - on my other two projects and have requested another. I've already been informed of three potential projects and can more or less choose the most interesting. More to come on that!
  

2. Everything else

• We threw a huge party in our compound on Saturday night, and pretty much all the wazungu who know in a 100 mile radius came. (Okay, so that isn't actually that many people...) We spent the evening at Good Friends, the only passable nightclub in Bungoma, which was - as always - a surprisingly fun time.
• Frisbee. After a 4 am Saturday night return to the compound, the alarm sounded at 8 am for a frisbee game. We've been playing twice a week for an hour or two at a time and I'm actually starting to learn strategy and (*gasp*) really look forward to our games.
• Sickness. I've been feeling intermittently sick lately, and two weeks ago - the night of the farmer homestay - went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with malaria, which is the standard diagnosis for white people who test negative for everything else. Since I don't feel that badly I'm not going to get treated. Almost everyone here has had malaria, and judging by my conversations with them, I don't. -- On that note, sicknesses here are very common - we actually have a scoreboard with point values assigned to typhoid, burscellosis, malaria, etc. where we keep tracking of who is "winning" in the disease race.
  
• The stars. After a month here, the night sky is still totally remarkable. You would never believe there are so many stars, or so many shades of light, woven into the night sky. I understand why there are so many stories to explain them. Once you look up at night it is hard to look back down.
  

orphanage visit

An especially picturesque farm from this week's survey training.

This week :

• Lukas, Matt, and I have arranged to begin Swahili lessons twice a week. We had our first lesson on Tuesday and will have another tonight. I'm glad we're doing it, but questionable of our tutor's methods: he insists that we should learn all words with "a" in them before moving onto "e", "i", "o" - and by the time we get to "u", we will know so much Swahili! Good idea, but how about first we learn "My name is..."?
  
• My housemate Anushka requested that I call our plumber, Oliver, to get our shower fixed. He stopped by later the same afternoon and I accompanied him to get a cost estimate to hook up the water line to our already-installed shower head. He turned the first knob, and water came pouring out of the lower spout. I was surprised - I have been carrying water in from outside every day and had no idea the spout worked. Oliver turned two other knobs, and water came out of the showerhead. He looked at me questioningly, and I started laughing and couldn't stop. It turns out we have always had a working shower. I was just told that we didn't, and so I never tried to turn it on. (Maybe there is a moral in this story somewhere...?)
• One of my best "Obama runs" so far. I was coming down the hill toward our compound and picked up a huge group of kids. One started chanting, "O-BA-MA!" and the rest joined in. For the next ten minutes, I ran in a group of fist-pumping kids to the cheer of the US President, as the farmers on the side of the road looked on and laughed.
• To contrast the joy of this experience was an exploratory run with Matt, where we ended up going farther than intended and didn't get back until after dark. A group of kids followed us this time too, but they were bigger and more aggressive - pulling on my arms and hair as I ran by. I didn't blame them; if I had never seen straight blonde hair I would probably pull it too. But the experience was a bit alarming and reminded me it's probably best to keep runs to daylight hours.
• Finally: I did another radio survey training in a new district - Webuye - and added to the usual joy of seeing farmers' homes and being warmly welcomed, I left the day with several long sticks of sugarcane, four eggs, and a free Swahili lesson from my survey officer.

Mercyline, the Webuye survey officer, surveys one of the area farmers about her radio listening habits.

And the highlight of my week so far: An visit to the orphanage where our German friends Felix and Hannes work (all the wazungu in town sort of become acquainted by default).

Melissa, me (with Kevin, in his pink "Princess" tee), and Veronica - feeling maternal

What started as a small excursion ended up as nearly the entire OAF group visiting a local orphanage, home to 34 kids between the ages of 8 months and 20 years - although we didn't meet the eldest, as she's currently away at university but comes home to the orphanage during breaks.

The orphanage seemed amazingly well-run and accommodating: although some kids must share beds because there aren't enough, local groceries provide free food (bread, milk, meat, etc) every day and German sponsors even pay school fees, including university tuition for those who choose to further their education. One great success story: the child health manager for One Acre Fund (sort of a free side program run by OAF for its farmers), named Margaret, grew up the orphanage, attended university, and now works in the community and continues regular visits her childhood home.

A few of our new friends. On the right is sleeping baby John. Clothing gender rules are a bit less strict when the supply is limited.

Evidently the kids were pretty excited about our presence, but I think we were equally happy to be there. They were bursting with positive energy - teaching us new dances, wrestling, singing songs - and we all left still glowing with the experience. ("Glowing" here refers to both our happy aura and our sweatiness after playing with kids for a few hours.) By the time we got home, it was so late that we didn't have dinner until 10:30 pm. Definitely worth it.

on the farm

So far, during my three weekends in Kenya, I have spent exactly one night in my bed at home. I kept with the trend this weekend: Friday night at a farmer's house in Muyekhe, an OAF site outside of Bungoma; and Saturday night in Kisumu, the third biggest city in Kenya located on beautiful Lake Victoria.

Saturday was great - a total of 8 hours spent eating/drinking during the day, including a baked-fish lunch overlooking the hippopotamuses of Lake Victoria; an almost-American-style supermarket where I got Nutella and shampoo and conditioner for mzungu hair; a club where we spent the evening dancing - but the stories pale in comparison to my farmer homestay. So although Kisumu is a terrific, exciting, blogworthy, I'll save it for later. It's only 2 hours away and I'm sure I will return.

Friday night farm life.

Hut, surrounding farms, and beautiful views of my overnight adventure. And Robinson and chickens: my roommates for the evening.

Spending a night in a totally foreign environment is bound to be an adventure. Mine had even a bit of extra spice.

On Friday evening, I was dropped at a site with my backpack and a bag of sugar as a thank-you gift for my host farmer. A farmer named George Wafula came and introduced himself and shook my hand. I responded as best I could in Swahili, and he replied in rapid-fire Swahili of which I understood virtually nothing. "Sawa sawa," ("okay") I replied, without knowing at all what I was agreeing to.

As we wandered down the path to his farmhouse, it became apparent that not only did George not speak any English, he was also completely drunk. He introduced me - sort of - to his six children in the yard. His wife was nowhere to be seen. Awkwardly, we sat down at his kitchen table together. It was already starting to get dark, and with the flicker of the candle (photo right) I began to think worried and sinister thoughts.

It was obvious that George and I were going to have some trouble communicating, and in a stroke of brilliance he went and fetched the couple who lived at a nearby farm - also One Acre Fund farmers - who spoke perfect English. The farmer first acted as a translator for George's ridiculous comments directed toward me ("You cannot leave until we slaughter the cow." "When?" "Next year.") and eventually ceased translation. In the ensuing silence, I explained to the new farmer that I was supposed to spend the night at George's farmhouse. He looked at me in surprise, and then explained to George, who also looked at me in surprise. Suddenly all three of the farmers were laughing, and hard. I wasn't really sure what was going on, so I excused myself and - thank God for cell phones! - stepped outside to call Andrew.

Andrew said that he wasn't surprised; his farmer also had no idea he was coming, but it was okay - in African cultures, guests are seen as good omens and it was an honor for them to host us. Unless of course, I was feeling uncomfortable? I said no, I was okay - not wanting to explain the situation at hand - but added that I would call back if things took a bad turn.

Shortly after I returned, the two men started an argument, and then headed outside to discuss. The mud hut walls aren't exactly soundproof, so I heard every bit of them yelling at each other. Eventually they returned, at which point the sober, English-speaking farmer explained to me: "This is our village elder, and we cannot disrepect him. But tonight, he has had too much beer, so you will stay with me and my family." (Right: The family I stayed with.)

The evening shaped up from there - leaving the introduction a laughable memory instead of a serious threat. The family didn't have food for me, as they normally do not eat after lunch, but the woman roasted some ground nuts and served tea. She apologized repeatedly for the lack of milk, which is a scarce commodity, but I assured here that I didn't mind; to prove this, I ended up drinking half a pot and losing quite a bit of sleep.

We sat at the kitchen table in the dark for about three hours just talking. Considering the extreme poverty of the family, who in March was already beginning the several-month-long hunger season, they appeared quite well-educated and articulate. The father in particular offered great insight into Kenyan and American cultures.

A few of the highlights of conversation:

• They had only one child, Robinson, an adorable boy of 1 year and 8 months. I asked if they would have more - most farmers have around 10 - and the man said no, explaining "family size is a serious problem in rural Kenya. It creates overpopulation and hunger and it is bad for the Kenyan economy." Wow.
• The only wall hanging in their hut: an Obama calendar. What else?!

• I guess this would classify as a lowlight: The man explained to me that without the income from One Acre Fund's passion fruit program, they would be so hungry already. Ironically, since our passion fruit program has proven to be very expensive and unsustainable, I had spent the morning calculating the margin where farmers would be cut from the program - essentially identifying those who did not produce enough to make it worth the cost of fertilizing and spraying. I asked how many kgs he had harvested last year, and quickly did the math: he was "inefficient," and in just a couple weeks he would no longer have his passion fruit stems. I am still hurting over this realization and am struggling to find ways to improve productivity without increasing costs. But in the end it's an economic reality: where you do not have the comparative advantage, you cannot compete. Maybe we could transfer the subsidies to the US auto industry to my Kenyan passion fruit farmers...?
• My headlamp and flashlight: they could not believe that something so bright would not be too hot to touch.
• Learning about schools. They were astounded that I was only 22, since that is the age when those who finish secondary school (high school) in Kenya usually graduate. It takes longer here to complete the same grades, because with an average enrollment of 120 students/class, teachers simply cannot reach kids who are falling behind. This means that many students end up repeating grades - sometimes several times - before they move on to the next level.
  
• Talking about corruption. The couple agreed that corruption of people in power was the major block keeping poor people from advancing out of poverty. "You have no access to good education, no good jobs. They can take everything from you. And how can you win a case when you do not have money to pay a lawyer? The rich will always win." (They actually knew about my law school plans when they addressed this; I'm sure they hoped I was listening. I was.) But the man also said that corruption is not only in Africa; in the US there is plenty of corruption and now that is hurting our economy.
• The wife staring at me in disbelief after I told her that in America, Swahili is not a compulsory subject.
• The man repeatedly referring to "Canada" when asking questions about my background. After I clarified that I was actually from the United States, he asked, "Isn't Canada in the US? No? How about Argentina?"
• Robinson. I was the first white person he had ever seen, and at first would cry and run away at the sight of me. However, gradually he took an interest in my fingernails, hands, face, and hair, and soon enough he was sitting on my lap and "greeting" me - shaking my hand over and over, calling me "auntie."
  

Robinson taking a bath. He actually just sort of fell into the tub and his parents decided to bathe him. Thus the failure to remove clothing...

At 11 pm, when we finally headed to bed, the couple insisted that I take their only bed while they slept on the floor. I protested, even showing them the sheet I had brought so I would be comfortable. Eventually I gave in, and when I awoke with the roosters at 5 am, the family was already rising to go get water (2 km to the nearest well!) and begin other morning chores.

I headed back to my place later in the morning, smelling like the chickens that shared the house with us, my mouth still burning with chai tea, my stomach feeling empty after eating only peanuts and a little bread for dinner and breakfast. Now, two days later, I'm showered and clean and full, but the memory hasn't faded a bit. I have the sense that it never will.

behind the scenes

In Bungoma: the rainy season is beginning. Yesterday was the first long afternoon rain, meaning that if it continues, planting will begin next week. Apparently the planting season used to commence during late February or early March; last year the rains did not begin until late March. Now it is already mid-March and the farmers are still anxiously anticipating the rains. As Matt commented when we were discussing this during a run, "I hope we are all picturing Al Gore gesturing toward a chart right now." The expansion of the Sahara in action...

Tonight the One Acre Fund staff is going to split up individually and spend the night with various OAF farmers. We each get assigned a family and will be there for dinner, overnight, and the following morning. I will bring my camera (and bugspray); prepare yourself for upcoming tales and photos!

In Amber: I have finally resolved a long internal battle over whether or not to defer law school for a second year. I emailed the law school dean about it back in November, when I was thinking about extending my stay in China to a full year and following that with a year in Kenya. Clearly those tentative plans were never realized, yet even after I packed up and moved onto Kenya I still had an itch to push back school for another year.

It does seem a bit ironic that after all my work to gain acceptance, I would feel inclined to defer for two years before entering. But, as always, what I have learned has forced me to reconsider options I had counted out and think twice about decisions I had previously made with great certainty.

I guess in a sense it brings me back to my initial deferral decision: I was sitting in a conference at Harvard Law School - during admit weekend, but related to an international human rights forum they were hosting during the same time period - where each of the panelists was asked to give advice. There were four panelists, but I only recall the closing message from 2 of them. One said, "Get a degree in economics" (check!) and the other said, "Defer. I don't care who you are or where you are in your career. If you are thinking about law school, defer. If you are midway through law school, take a year off. If you are deeply involved in your career, pull back for awhile and do something else."

So that was when the economy was a bit better, and jobs were still available to those who might take a leave of absence. But still - I had never even realized that deferral was an option, and while I left the weekend excited about law school and what opportunities a law degree would open to me, I also began seriously considering the advice I was hearing everywhere during my visits to both Harvard and Yale: defer.

Evidently, given my year of travels, I took the advice to heart and - with only a vague sense of what I would do during my deferral year (travel? teach English?) - I pushed back my entrance to the fall of 2009 and started researching and filling out applications. I stumbled upon Tsinghua Experimental School in Shenzhen online, applied, had a phone interview, and signed on. Then, 20+ emails to various NGOs in Kenya/Ethiopia later, I connected with the founder of One Acre Fund. He happend to be in Minneapolis on a fundraising mission the day before I left for China, so I interviewed with him then, and from Shenzhen organized my second half of the year.

So now, only 10 months after my initial decision to defer, I feel like quite a different, more patient, happier person than the one who listened to advice and decided to push back the "real world" in favor of seeing a bit more first. Of course, this is a huge luxury I have had - a year in which the sole purpose was to travel, to learn, to experience, to grow (yes, I realized I used "purpose" in the singular sense; I do consider all of these to be under the same umbrella of intentions!) and during which I did not really need to earn money or be concerned with debt, payments, or other obligations at home. But it has become difficult to imagine what my life would be like - what I would be like - if I had headed to Yale last fall instead of China.

However, even with the fulfillment left by this year of exploration, I decided at last that another year was not merited at this point. First, because once I enter Yale I will have a legal background and more skills to apply to future positions. Second, because any position I take next year will be limited to a one-year time frame. Third, because more funding will be available for me to do something similar after I enter Yale and have access to its deep pockets. Fourth, because it is simply what I decided at the last moment, and I am notoriously better at making peace with outcomes than making decisions themselves.

* * *

It is ironic to me that tonight I will be in such a different place - the home of Kenyan farmers, where the thoughts that have been playing on repeat in my brain are as foreign to them as their everyday concerns must be to me. It is also eye-opening and humbling to be constantly aware of this juxtaposition of cultures. This has perhaps been the most enriching aspect of my travels.

my new home

Photos of my new home in Bungoma: (I told you, we are not exactly living the hard life...)

After traveling in China I decided the key to establishing a sense of "home" was simply to travel away for awhile, so what was initially unfamiliar becomes a place of comfort to which you can return. Your belongings are there, your bed is there, your life is there. Now I'm going to add to that the establishment of a routine: a daily schedule that fits you into life in your new home, where the patterns of your life align you with the lives of those around you.

Our pet pigs. So cute now, and so delicious later.

So my everyday life in Bungoma begins.

This week, I spent a fair chunk of time behind a computer screen, gathering and analyzing financial data to identify areas to be scaled back. I also have been on the phone quite a bit and had face-to-face interviews with staff, lawyers, and others to discuss our passion fruit program and work visas.

All important things, but on a blogworthiness scale, Tuesday stands out as the most interesting. After a short run, bucket shower, and breakfast, I got into a van at 8:30 headed to Kakamega, one of One Acre Fund's other districts of operation. Most of the OAF staff drives our vehicles themselves, but I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the hour-long journey over extremely bumpy and crowded roads, driving-on-the-left deal so I asked our driver, Ibrahim, to take me.

At 10 am I met with our two survey officers (SOs) for Kakamega, armed with a 50-farmer random sample and stack of 55 surveys. Since one of the SOs was late I got a chance to talk to the other one, Absolom, for awhile while we waited. Absolom is one of our most enthusiastic and dedicated staff members, and he praised the work of OAF and the impact it has had on shortening the regional hunger season. In fact, he named his most recent child after us. Literally: his daughter's name is Charlotte One Acre Fund.

After SO#2, David, arrived, I explained the premise of the survey - to determine our farmers' radio-listening habits in order to best reach new farmers and staff through radio appearances - and then gave Absolom a demo survey and had him survey David. The entire process took over an hour, and afterwards we headed to the fields together so I could monitor them surveying a few farmers.

The surveying process was pretty awesome to take part it. First, because it involves entering farmers' homes, which is always interesting. They have a strong affinity for wall calendars, even (especially?) those that are several years out of date, and pictures/messages about Jesus and God. They are generally welcoming and friendly and seem very appreciative of my super-limited Swahili/Bukusu vocabulary.

Inevitably, I also learned a bit about Kenya during the journey. I asked, for example, about the huge rocks that cover much of the countryside of western Kenya. Neither of the SOs knew the history, but were both excited to share legends about an angry King and weeping Queen who somehow caused an explosion of rocks. So I told them about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, and they seemed to think my story to be totally ludicruous although theirs had been presented quite differently.

We also got delayed when Ibrahim decided to purchase a huge clay pot being sold by the side of the road. I learned from the artist about the process of making them: clay from the ground formed into coils, smoothed and fired in a giant wood fire, then smeared with bananas and fired again as a sealant. The pot, which was too big for me to carry, cost 150 shillings - less than $2.

One other interesting note is the lack of lunch during our 5 hour day. I have never seen a Kenyan field staff eating anything - although if I offer something they always gladly accept. I asked about it ("is it rude to eat in front of people here?") and was told that it is just a different mindset about eating; they often go an entire day in the fields with no food. By way of explanation I was told they are accustomed to hunger, which is so strange considering I get pangs in my stomach after just a couple hours, and take "bathroom breaks" to scarf down granola bars.

So that was Tuesday - or at least, the first half. One morning of many in my new Kenyan home.

girls weekend in Kampala

By the end of last week, I finally started to settle into my role at One Acre Fund. It feels good to have a leadership role on a few projects, initiating/leading meetings and monitoring fieldwork. (Left: Passion fruit plant, an important part of the major budget overhaul. Right: Collecting, weighing, and sorting the passion fruit into Grade A vs Grade B.) In just a few days I have gone from seeing the Kenyan countryside as a beautiful and picturesque landscape to seeing it in more practical terms: how big is the plot? what are the farmers growing? Which is why it's nice that I have been continuing my near-daily runs, as they allow me to step back and continue to enjoy it for its natural beauty.

Group of OAF farmers on my Friday morning passion fruit collection. They actually requested that I photograph them and then lined up nicely (my mother's never-realized dream for annual Christmas photos).

However, since I'm sure I'll have a plethora of work stories coming up in the next few months, I'll focus this entry on my past weekend spent in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. In numerical terms: I got about 8 hours of sleep total, two paintings on cloth to decorate my room, one pound of delicious coffee (decent coffee is not available in Bungoma, since all of the good produce is packaged for export), two real showers, and one black eye.

The four female OAF employees - Veronica, Melissa (my housemate), Anushka, and me - left in a van for Busia, the border town I visited during my first week in Kenya, around 2 pm on Friday. In Busia we picked up two more girls, Katie and Jamie, and headed across the Ugandan border and toward the capital.

Just across the border into Uganda. Why did the baboon cross the road?

The Ugandan border patrol made all of the Southeast Asian country connections seem smooth and orderly. Crossing the border took an inordinate amount of time - insurance and registration for the van, $50 each for Ugandan visas that no one bothered to stick in our passports, a maze of hawkers, a long line. Well, for 5/6 of us it took a long time - Katie simply caught a boda and rode through a nearby hole in the fence. Apparently that's pretty common and easily done; there are rarely officers on duty and according to Katie they are usually playing cards and not paying attention anyway.

We didn't arrive in Kampala until about 9 o'clock, and then settled into a 5-bed house for the evening. And by "settled" I mean we threw our stuff down, changed and put on make-up (which felt strange and sort of uncomfortable after two weeks without), and went through four bottles of wine with loads of homemade bread, cheese, and Nutella. Why don't we do this every weekend?!

After a few hours, we headed to a recommended nightclub - the beginning of an evening that extended until 4:30 on Saturday morning, as the nightlife in Kampala is famous and appropriately so. We danced until about 2:30, met some locals, and headed to another bar for pizza. I had a lot of fun, with only a couple minor blips:

• One, security at all nightclubs is super-tight, and they wouldn't let me bring in my camera. I wasn't willing to leave it sitting out on a desk in the entrance (how many cameras does a girl need to lose?), so I went back outside, hid on the other side of a van, and put it into my underwear. Despite the extensive security pat-down, I was let in. This whole situation was rather un-noteworthy, except that a few hours later a guy approached me and mentioned me having put my camera into my pants. Perhaps I wasn't as discreet as I thought...
• Two, my black eye: actually not a good story at all, although the outcome was impressive. Jamie hit me in the face with a wild dance move... although we vowed to come up with a better story for the boys upon return.

Saturday during the day was spent at a country club, swimming in a pool and eating Western food; shopping at a market/mall; going out for sushi; and dancing/chatting until 2 am at a local Irish pub. We were up on Sunday morning in time to head to a market and look at fabrics - some of the girls have had skirts/dresses made here and I might have to jump on that bandwagon - as well as get sandwiches and coffee before departing at 2 pm.

Relaxing poolside at the country club. There is really nothing like this in Western Kenya... Good excuse to spoil ourselves.

Needless to say, I slept very well last night. After a nice morning run, a staff meeting, and playing catch-up on my projects after a weekend away, I am already feeling back into the workweek swing of OAF.

running with bodyguards

Short entry, because "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is beginning shortly:

After a long day of work - about 3.5 hours of meetings alone - I headed out for a run around 5 pm. I ran yesterday with four of the guys, and when I say "ran" I mean it in direct opposition to the word "jog," which is not what I felt like we were doing. So today it felt good to take a bit slower pace, blasting my iPod to cover up the endless cries of "mzungu!!"

About a mile into my run I picked up a trailing group of Kenyan children. This is pretty common, but I have never had two running on either side; I would imagine it was similar to having a pair of bodyguards, with the exception of the fact that they each came up to my hip. I managed to teach them one English phrase - "I am running" - which they used repeatedly with great delight. It was quite entertaining, although once again I felt a bit silly: running along in all my official-looking gear, flanked by two small barefoot boys, one of whom was chomping on a stick of sugarcane the entire way.

Tonight I was assigned to be the sous-chef for Veronica, who took courses at the French Culinary Institute of NYC. Needless to say our meal was terrific. Pork stuffed with a mix of dates, raisins, apples, and wine; homemade French bread; salad with vinaigrette; and cooked/spiced carrots. So the few skills I might pick up in Kenya, which so far had an emphasis on Swahili greetings and ultimate frisbee, have expanded a bit to include cooking. Hooray for new life skills!

kenya meets norway

In the doghouse.

Saturday morning I went for my first run in Kenya, with my co-worker Matt. As we jogged by him, Hamasi, a neighborhood boy, decided to tag along (picture on the right, a photo taken for my housemate Melissa who is from Pittsburgh and enjoyed his jersey). If you ever start thinking you're a great runner and need a reality check, you should fly out to Bungoma and join us. Hamasi easily kept pace with us the entire time, hopping along the railroad track in flip flops. Still it was a fun run, encouraged by friendly waves and cheers of "Obama's people!"

We departed at around 5 pm for Busia, a town that spans the border between Kenya and Uganda. After about an hour and a half of an exciting ride (highlights included a capella singing of "Sweet Child of Mine") we arrived at the house of a group of girls who are staffed there for an a medical program that deals with the spread of AIDS.

We had a fabulous dinner. I can't remember the names for all the dishes - I struggled enough with the new people! - but there were chips (fries), chicken, lots of beans, a tomato/onion dish, some greens... Enough to induce a serious food coma. And my meal, including two beers, came to about 4 US dollars.

Afterward we continued the weekend streak with a night at a club in Busia. Again it was fun, although Kenyan men can be a bit aggressive and the music had to be turned way down at midnight due to complaints about the noise. We headed back to the girls' house, where I was one of the few who got a place in a bed; most of the group ended up sprawled across the floor until the next morning.

Sunday was a jam-packed day: 2 hours of ultimate frisbee in the morning in a nearby town called Kakamega, with a couple who had both played for Stanford (I'm going to be a pro when I return!); a trip to the supermarket to stock up for the evening potato-themed potluck; a tea and pie session with a Portuguese girl staffed in Bungoma and a couple OAF girls; and finally a several hour long preparation of my selected potato-themed dish, lefse.

From my memories of making it at home, lefse is already not the easiest dish to whip up even in the States. In Kenya it presented serious difficulties - nowhere cold to cool the dough, no running water to wash surfaces or rinse utensils, a single too-small frying pan, a wine bottle instead of a rolling pin. But I am happy and proud to say that I managed to get enough lefse pieces to turn out relatively well that everyone got a piece to try. Sure, it was a little crispy and too thick, but it looked and tasted about right otherwise and people complimented me (although it might have been my persistence that garnered the compliments more than the actual result).

Side note: While it can result in some tasty and creative dishes, if you are asked to choose a theme for a potluck, selecting a single starchy vegetable might not be the best idea. I think quite a few of us fell asleep feeling a bit ill, and even today when a group of us went out to lunch for goat and ugali (maize mush, sort of) our appetites were still at half-mast.