Meru

Hi All-
I just got back from "upcountry", we visited Meru. Meru is a small village on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. It was stunning, the mountain is covered in tropical vegetation. (Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the scenery, if I find one as I'm going through my photos I'll post it.) It is surreal to see banana trees and bugambilia in the mountains.
We traveled with a team from Bayside Church, although the interns stayed an extra day.
I stayed at the pastor's house along with two other interns and two Bayside team members. I shared a bed with Katelyn, a fellow intern. The conditions were rustic; water is scarce. Today was my first shower in three days! We cleaned up with baby wipes every night. It was so dusty that a wipe was completely brown just from cleaning my face.
Pastor Joshua and his wife Unis fed us very well. We had chapati pancakes, oranges, bananas, hard boiled eggs, and chai for breakfast. Chapati and chai are both staples, chapati is like a tortilla, but it is fried and more moist. Dinner consisted of rice, potato and goat stew, kale, chapati, and chai. The food was delicious.
We participated in several projects while we we in Meru. We opened a Kids for School office, had a Freedom for Girls workshop, did health education for the children, and played with the kids. It was intense. Many of the children had never seen, let alone interacted with, a white person before. The kids kept running up to us, they wanted to touch our skin and hair. I felt constant little tugs throughout the day from kids pulling my hair. Some of the kids were shy and I would catch them looking at me if I turned around; but with coaxing they would usually approach us.
The children all spoke English well, some of the adults were not as proficient. The kids kept asking us to sing to them; I will be dreaming the song Bananas. (Grow bananas, grow grow bananas / peel bananas, peel peel bananas, eat bananas etc..)The Hokey Pokey was also popular.
The workshops went well. The children probably know more about HIV/ AIDS than I do, although I'm sure a reminder didn't hurt. We also did a hand washing demonstration, they knew far more about HIV than they do about basic sanitation. Culturally simply rinsing your hands is considered sufficient. To compound the problem, water is very scarce. Last year there was a drought and HEART launched a feeding program just to keep people alive.
The Freedom for Girls workshop is basically sex education. Through the FFG program girls receive health education and a year's supply of feminine hygiene products. This program has been especially effective; girls often drop out of school because they have no way to deal with their periods. The intern coordinator, Katie, did the presentation and Lydia, a HEART staff member, translated. They did a basic health education, showed how to use sanitary napkins, and took questions. The girls wrote their questions down on little slips of paper because many of them are embarassed to ask the questions in front of the group. Most of the questions were fairly routine, "how long will my period last?", "can I get pregnant on my period?", etc. The questions at this seminar were pretty tame, but at other presentations they have gotten pretty intense. One girl once asked an intern if she could get pregnant even though she had been raped seven times.
We also opened a HEART office in the town. The office is designed so that local HEART representatives can collect and communicate data and information to the main HEART office in Nairobi. The office is an 8 by 12 cube, it has a concrete floor and wood walls. There are two desks and a computer. Both the opening of the office and the presentations were big deals. The local chieftain came to both events, each event was opened with a long period of introductions. The first day we spent a little over an hour doing introductions, the HEART staff, the teachers, the HEART team, the HEART interns, and the local officials, were all introduced. It wasn't just a presentation, it was a ceremony.
The students also performed for us. Eleven schools came to the HEART seminars, each school prepared a performance for us. The performances were moving, many schools presented poems (all of the poems were about AIDS. One poem was called "AIDS the Destroyer"; I was impressed with how open the children were about AIDS. The children were not ashamed or bashful to talk about AIDS. Other schools performed songs, dances, and skits.
Tomorrow we are just hanging around the compound, I plan on doing laundry! We go to the Massai land on Tuesday, I'll post pictures and an account.
Best,
Margaret