I'm Still Living, People. Call Off the Search Party!!!

This post is long overdue, but you know how these things go.  You get busy/lazy and put off these arduous tasks.  I’m one week short of being here in Mukumu, Kenya for 11 months and things have definitely taken a turn for the better.  I realize that my last post left many of you praying for my sanity, and I think God has heard those prayers and answered them.  So much has happened since the last time I posted, so I don’t even know how to begin writing them, but just know that I’m doing well.

A friend of mine recently sent me a card telling me to write two lists: One of things I will miss about Kenya and One of people I want to see when I get back (Shout out to Asha Poepping).  I decided to modify this idea and use it for my next blog post.  I have come up with two lists here: Things I have Learned in Kenya and Things I miss about Home.  I hope you enjoy them.  Also note that these lists are not completely complete, but I lacked the time or the gumption to continue thinking of witty responses.

Things I have learned in Kenya:

1.       A rubber is an eraser, not that other thing.

2.       “Stoney” is the best ginger ale ever.  This may sound slightly blasphemous to some Michiganders out there, but it’s even better than Vernor’s.

3.       When you ask someone if they’d like some chocolate here, they think that you mean hot chocolate.

4.       That stick that those children are chewing on, is actually sugar cane, not a stick.

5.       Don’t piss off the village people and especially don’t steal from them because be assured that they will strike back with a vengeance.

6.       Tomatoes and onions make any cuisine just a little bit tastier (or in Kenyan terms “So Sweet”).

7.       Always check your shoes before donning them.  For that matter, check your glasses, cups, bowls, and sugar container before using.  (Definitely are learned this one the hard way—many times.)

8.       If you haven’t eaten Ugali, you haven’t eaten all day.  Additionally, noodles are not food, they are merely an appetizer for Ugali. (Words from my Kenyan Baba, but not the opinion of EVERY Kenyan here)

9.       Sleeping with a giant mwiko (ugali cooking stick) in your hand probably won’t save you if a robber comes knocking on your door (he probably has an enormous knife), but it sure makes you feel damn powerful.

10.   If you think you saw a rat, you probably saw a rat.  Those beasts are frighteningly speedy.

11.   Matatus are surprisingly a rather sophisticated way to get around—in a primitive sort of way.

12.   I don’t completely abhor running, only slightly.

13.   Don’t swim in the lakes; you just may find yourself with some amoeba ravaging your body or a hippopotamus up your ass.

14.   Failing to watch where you walk/run can be detrimental to your shoes, knees, and overall ego.

15.   Rats eat soap…and candles.  Also, I’m pretty sure rats intentionally aim their poop pellets at the most inconvenient places, such as your coffee cup, or the clean pot you just washed. (honestly, they’re pretty talented, in that respect).  Legitimately, I was holding a freshly washed plate in my hand and a poop pellet came flying out of nowhere and landed right in the middle of that plate.  Damn you, Blackie!  You may have won the battle, but you haven’t won the WAR!

16.   When you hear thunder rumbling you better you like hell because you have about 2 minutes to take all of your laundry inside before your drying clothes are caught in a hurricane.  If you don’t get to them in time, you may find a pair of your underpants in the middle of the road instead of hanging on the line.

17.   Opposed to popular belief, not every area in Africa is springing with exotic wildlife.  In fact, many Kenyans have never seen an elephant or lion.

18.   The world seems a little brighter with a generous scoop of peanut butter (if it doesn’t taste like dirty socks).

19.   Make friends with everyone: Young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated.  You will gain a wealth of knowledge from each individual you meet, if you listen well.

20.   It only takes one act of evil to demolish a building, but it takes many good acts to reconstruct what was lost.

21.   You can only accomplish things if you have a willing and able team to assist.  In fact, no matter how strenuously you work, if you don’t ask for help, you won’t get anywhere

22.   If you make one person smile every day, you’ve done your job.

23.   Nursing is not a popularity contest; inevitably it isn’t about me, it’s about the patients I serve.

24.   Nurses (and other medical professionals) treat, God heals.

25.    “What we do in this world is only a drop in the ocean, but if we fail to do it, that drop will be missing forever.” ~Mother Theresa

26.   Children aren’t the only people who squirm with delight when they get a sticker.

27.   A little kindness goes a long way.

28.   Prayer is an incredible weapon.

29.   Believe in yourself and if God opens an opportunity for you, even if you think you aren’t qualified, don’t turn it down.  Obviously, God has a reason for why he is choosing you for the task and not your neighbor.  Overall, you learn so much more about your own abilities and you feel good knowing that you’ve done something for Him.

30.   We as citizens from a developed country have the ability to really help people from countries like this, but we need to be cautious about which organizations we support.  We should be supporting organizations that focus on teaching locals about how to stand on their own two feet.

11 Things I Miss About Home

11.       Good Meat.  Buying meat here is definitely a new experience from mine of pre-packaged, supermarket meat.  I go to a butcher in the dusty market place, a fleshy carcass hang by a hook in the ‘window’ of his shop.  As I watch swarms of greedy flies encircling my soon-to-be dinner, I try to disregard my nursing instinct to assess the cleanliness of the area (and my natural instinct to gag).  Buying steak is too expensive for my budget, so I settle for what they call ‘mixed meat’.  I’m not really sure what makes it mixed, but it is of lower quality than steak and much cheaper.  The cows here live a very hard life struggling to find an adequate amount of food (I won’t start ranting about emaciated cows again, I promise) and this is definitely evinced by the gamey taste of the meat.  Plus, the type of beef I wish I could see more of would be in the form of a patty slathered with cheese and other unhealthy condiments, and slapped between a sesame seed bun.

22.       Pets.  People in America tend to be pretty ridiculous with their pets, treating them like humans; some extremists even taking their cat or dog to a pet psychologist.  However, I find myself missing being able to talk to people about how much I love my cat and people understanding.  People tend to hate cats here and most definitely don’t give their pets the royal treatment.  I used to tell people that I wanted a cat to get rid of my rat problem, but it’s rather apparent that I have always had alternate motives: I really want to have a fuzzy friend to keep me company at night and talk to when I’m alone in the house.  I also really miss how cheap cat food can is in America.  I practically spend more of my stipend on Totes’ cat food than my human food here.  It’s ridiculous.

33.       Going out to eat.  I miss this.  Period!  Lord knows that when I get back to the US, I’ll gain 20 pounds in the first month just because I’m going to want to get together with long lost friends and what will we do?  Well, of course, go out to eat.  More than this, I miss going to a restaurant and ordering something that I know is available.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a restaurant here, find something tantalizing on the menu, and order it from the waiter who is confident that it is available, only to find out 20 minutes later that by the way the restaurant is out of everything but sukuma, cabbage, rice, and ugali.  Ugh!

44.       Washing Machine and Dryer.  Picture this Option 1: take a pile of clothes, stuff them into a large metal cylinder (and when I say stuff, I mean STUFF), toss in some laundry detergent, then figure you should add a little extra since you’ve stuff so many clothes inside, and press start.30 minutes elapse *BEEEEEEP* Take clothes out, do a sniff check (yup, they smell clean), shove them into the dryer, and press start.  It’s kind of like that one cooker that used to be advertised on TV “Set it and FORGET IT” (Please tell me that some of you remember this infomercial).  Now picture this; Option 2: fill a bucket with water throw in some clothes and some detergent, then with your fingers just healing from the last time, take a piece of soap and scrub the crap out of EVERY part of each piece of clothing.  Then, fill another bucket with water and rinse, taking time to scrub out the soap—3 times!  3 hours elapse.  After the clothes are thoroughly washed a rinsed, squeeze out the water with your now bleeding fingers and throw all the clothes quickly on the clothes line before you head to work.  During work, a sudden, familiar rumble makes your stomach lurch, and you swallow the profanity threatening to jump off your tongue as the water pitter patters on the window and you realize that you left our clothes on the line…outside…in the torrential downpour…and you’re smack in the middle of giving an NG tube feeding to a child.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I choose Option 2!!!

55.       Going out to eat.  I miss this.  Period!  Lord knows that when I get back to the US, I’ll gain 20 pounds in the first month just because I’m going to want to get together with long lost friends and what will we do?  Well, of course, go out to eat.  More than this, I miss going to a restaurant and ordering something that I know is available.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a restaurant here, find something tantalizing on the menu, and order it from the waiter who is confident that it is available, only to find out 20 minutes later that by the way the restaurant is out of everything but sukuma, cabbage, rice, and ugali.  Ugh!

66.       Cable TV.  It’s so funny because we don’t have cable television in our house at home, but I used to have it in college and so I feel like I’m going through withdrawal.  Episodes from shows like “What not to Wear”, “Say Yes to the Dress”, “19 Kids and Counting”, “The Little Couple”, “Dr. G Medical Examiner”, etc. etc. have been flashing through my mind lately and I feel like I need a fix.  Also, I REALLLLLLLLLY miss watching reruns of “Friends” (shout out to Holly Reinking.  Girl, you know what I be talkin’ about.  How YOU Doin?).

77.       Driving.  In the US, I was never worried about getting to a new place, because I knew I’d be behind the wheel and moreover I had directions from googlemaps or Mapquest at my fingertips.  Here, if I’m going to a new place, I get a little nervous that because I don’t speak the language well, I may end up going in the opposite direction that I need to go and moreover there aren’t decent maps to help me confirm which direction I should be going.  Here, I’m at the mercy of the matatu driver and the conductor who is collecting the money.

88.       Nursing with an Endless amount of supplies.  It has become a norm that when I’m fixing IV lines, I don’t use gloves.  In fact, we don’t use gloves from most procedures here that would normally require gloves in the U.S.  We preserve all of our supplies here because we know that one day soon, we won’t have any we can use and who knows when that particular item will be back in stock in the hospital.  We take that for granted in America for sure, using gloves for EVERY little thing.  I worry that when I get back, I’m going to forget to use gloves at some point or cut a corner that I’m used to cutting in Kenya and get in trouble.

99.       Hot shower.  On my recent trip to the coast, I had my first hot shower in 10 months.  Best experience ever.  I didn’t want to get out.  Unfortunately, that event has sparked an itch in my body to feel the pitter-patter of fresh, warm water slipping down my hair, tapping my back, and splashing my toes.  I have been lucky enough to have a water heater here, so if I feel like heating water, I bathe with warm water, but as of late, I’ve been too lazy to heat the water so I just use cold.  Not fun in the early morning!

110.   Swimming.  Again, on my recent trip to the coast, I was spoiled and was able to swim in the Indian Ocean.  I miss swimming so much.  Also, I miss going to Kohl’s or another department store and seeing a large array of swim suits 50 or more.  When I went to the coast, I had to buy myself a swimsuit, and that was a very painful experience.  In the first store, of the 4 suits I found, all of which would make even Pamela Anderson look like a fatty, 3 had legs down to the knees.  The other was just indescribable, and not in a ‘oh the bride was simply indescribable’ kind of way.  I finally did find a suit at the next store, but it was again a painful experience and I ended up picking the swimsuit that was LEAST hideous.  I mean, most of us full figured women know that swimsuit shopping in general is a painful experience (one after which you go home and have a hot date with Ben and Jerry and swear that you’ll start working out tomorrow), but going swimsuit shopping in Kenya is definitely Tusker worthy.

111.   All of YOU.  I miss you all so much.  YOU and YOU alone are making my heart cry out for America.  I can live without fly-less meat, a washing machine, private transportation, and hot showers, but I can’t live without you.  Every time I think of each of you and laugh at the silliness that we’ve shared together, the fire in my heart burns for home.  Love you guys.

In Other news, I may be extending my stay here one month.  I was originally planning on coming home in early November, but due to some extenuating circumstances, if I leave then, I won’t be able to see my Kenyan sister before I leave.  For her sake (and mine), I’d really like to stay an extra month, but we will see if that dream comes into a reality later on.  Stay strong people!  In God’s Peace.  <3