Cochrane in Kenya: November Update

November 10, 2014

Its crazy to think it is already November! I have been in Kenya and Nyumbani Village now over 4 months. Time is flying by and I can’t believe it will soon be December. The first couple weeks have flown by.

We have only two volunteers now in the Village, so it is pretty quiet in the guesthouse, but all the kids will be done with exams/school at the end of this week, so the Village won’t remain quiet for long.

These past couple weeks have also brought the arrival of the rainy season. As I am typing this, I am sitting trapped in my office listening to the raucous downpour outside. It has been raining hard all day, creating lots of mud and flooding. I am currently crossing my fingers that the water does not enter by room (which opens directly outside). Below is a picture of the rain from the main office building. I know rain doesn’t seem like that exciting a thing, but when you have been in a scorching dry season for almost 4 months, rain is a big deal! Along with the rain come the bugs. The cicadas are out in full force as well as mosquitoes and other crawlers.

Last week I spent the weekend in Nairobi celebrating Halloween with fellow PiAf fellows and friends. It was really nice to get into the city and indulge in some good food and activities. I went to the movie theater twice that weekend (I enjoyed and recommend both Gone Girl and The Judge) and ate too many meals out haha. After celebrating Halloween on Friday and Saturday nights, I capped the weekend with a relaxing Dia de los Muertos lunch/tea party hosted by another PiAf fellow. It was a good mini-vacation and great opportunity to catch up with friends.

Work-wise, I have been trucking away on a few projects. This week I am beginning to give hand washing/oral hygiene presentations to the schools. Recently, some Spanish volunteers collected over 1,000 toothbrushes to send to the Village. Before we distribute them to the children we must do a presentation on the basics of oral hygiene. In conjunction with this presentation (to be given to each class at all 3 schools) will be a hand washing review. Hand washing and sanitation was a large project undertaken by the PiAf fellow before me, and now I am continuing her project by doing educational presentations and subsequent knowledge surveys. In addition to the presentations, I have designed multiple posters to be distributed across the Village and schools to improve health and sanitation knowledge.

On another note, this Thursday I head to Zanzibar for our East Africa PiAf retreat. I am super excited to spend the weekend relaxing on the beach, swimming in the Indian Ocean and laughing with my fellow fellows. I will make sure to include some pictures in my next post!

I have also included some random pictures from weekly food distribution, where each grandmother receives her houses food for the week.