I hope this blog finds you all doing well. I feel very out of touch with canada, as access to global news is not easy.
but I hope and pray that you are all continuing to grow in the Lord and praying for his blessings on you all!
for us here in kenya, we have a referendum coming up soon, for which there's some potential for tension. it would change the constitution completely if it passed, which in most respects would be a very good thing. however, there is some controversy, and the last election in 2007 did not go smoothly. so we are praying that this referendum goes much better. would love your prayers for this country as well, as it is saturated in corruption!
for our projects, things are going quite well, altough I wanted to share some humorous and amazing and embarassing stories from the last few days!
thursday - we had set up a meeting with an ngo here called APHIA II NYANZA, in hopes that they would be able to boost the services of the health center Ober Kamoth especially in HIV services. we had a contatct number for a frazier from aphia, and had called him several times and finally agreed on a time to meet at their headquarters in kisumu. ther were a few strange things, because he worked out of another district and had never been to his own headquarters in kisumu. but stranger things have happened in the course of our summer, so we thought nothing of it. also, in the last phone call, he had alerted us to his nickname by which he called himself - chief chief. we arrived on time at aphia and were let in. the staff didn't know that this fellow frazier was coming to meet us, but again, that's not too uncommon. finally frazier, or chief chief arrived with his "team" of 3 (was supposed to be 6 initially - we weren't sure why...). We were still waiting for the others to come, and were chatting in the alcove at the front of the offices, when the receptionist called me over. she had the phone in her hand, and said - can you take the phone? frazier wants to speak wtih you. I thought - this is a little strange, considering he's on the other side of the room from me! I gestured to beth, my colleague who had been the primary contact with frazier. she spoke wtih him and clearly frazier was not in the room, and was not able to meet with us that day. he was not in town but could meet us on monday next.
she turned around and essentially said, 'then who are you??' to the man sitting wtih us. we were all extremely confused, but gradually discerned what had happened. we were speaking wiht the chief of our community in kanyawegi! (he is the chief of 3 sublocations, of which kanyawegi is one!) we had not had a chance to meet iwth him yet that summer, which was too bad, but we didn't mean to meet under these circumstnces! on our contact list, his phone number had been paired with the aphia contact we had! and with the added confusion of establishing identities over the phone and 2 different "dialects" of english, we thought we were speaking wtih fraziere, otherwise known as chief chief, and he thought he was being invited to a meeting wtih GIVE and aphia! what now???
that's when aphia came to the rescue, and invited us in to one of their conference rooms, offering us tea. we hope that we salvaged the relationship with the cheif, considering that he and his 3 assistant cheifs had given up their entire day to meet wtih us!
however, the rest of our day was great! as we potentially found 2 other sources of support! one for bed nets, and one for HIV services! For the HIV services ngo, we went to their hospital 30 minutes away from our home, and met wtih one of the clinical officers there. i just about cried as she shared all the services that they offered! and they would be willing to take on Ober Kamoth as a satellite site! just need to get the ok from higher ups, so we're pushing for that this week.
friday was the presentation of the community health committee and the community health workers to the community! it was to be held at baraza (a forum for the assistant chief to meet with members of the community and discuss important matters). baraza is held in a hut out in the middle of a field. it was supposed to start at 10, so everyone was told 9 so they would be there at 10. being the canadians that we are, we made sure we were there by 9:15 just in case it actually started on time. we arrived, after miraculously finding it, and it was deserted. not a soul was present. finally the assistant chief arrived at about 10:00, and we chatted for some time. we then decided to walk up to the nearby market, obambo market, because we knew that if we didn't go then, we wouldn't get lunch! so we enjoyed a couple chapatis and chai, all of which was lovely!
made our way back to baraza, and found a few more people having scattered in. finally at 12:00, we started our presentation of certificates to the chcs. The municipal medical officer of health who was supposed to officiate never showed, nor did any of her team. I got roped into helping officiate. my camera documented the whole ceremony, with the low battery light flashing ominously. it gave out just after the very last CHC received her certificate! I had been praying!!! and God had been working!
we then migrated to the nearby church for the CHCs to work on their action plan for the next month, and sorted out all sorts of confusions there. however, all finished smoothly at 4:00, just in time for us to race over to obambo market again for a meeting wtih the deputy mayor in his office there. however, we called to confirm just before we left, and after 2 confusing phone calls, confirmed that he was still in kisumu and would not be in obambo till 5:00. so we wandered over to kisumu and enjoyed yet another chapati and chai, then wandered around to look at fabric, then got some "chips" (fries) - so good! then found a young girl who had a terrible burn on her leg! established that the local quack doctor was helping her, then found out that the deputy mayor was still in his meeting at 5, at which point we decided to head home. on the way, we purchased some sikumu wiki (in between spinach and kale) to make supper with, as we had sent our cooks home early becaseu they had had a long day. so then we went home and tried our hand at cooking, which turned out marvelously! topped the evening off with a pineapple!
anyway, that's life here, and my latest update. must run as beth is waiting for me.
love you all! thanks or bearing with me as I share my life here! it's fun to share it with you, although i hope you don't get bored as it's very long!!!!!
love, esther
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