Highs and Lows

Some days are just crazy…
Yesterday started off as a continuation of the bad mood I’ve been in for the past three days (due in parts to my malaria prophylaxis, my lack of anything to occupy my time at work, and not having friends around – it was so nice to see everyone at IST but being back at site now is lonely). Around 8 I got to work and hung around doing nothing aside from trying to convince myself it was going to be a good day (not very successfully). At 9 I left for a meeting that I had arranged the day before yesterday with the District Youth Officer (DYO). I got to his office and sat down at which point the following exchange took place:

ME: My name is Rachel, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer in Garissa working at SIMAHO, another volunteer is also working at NEP Tech and we are both really interested in working with youth, in and especially out of school youth.
DYO: (blank stare)
ME: I was wondering what the best way to access out of school youth and my director advised me to come talk to you. He said you would have a list of youth clubs in the area.
DYO: (silence)
ME: Do you have a list of clubs in Garissa?
DYO: … what groups are you interested in? If you tell me that then we can arrange a meeting with the officers and you can discuss how you might work with them.
ME: I’m not really sure what types of groups there are so I don’t know. What types of clubs are there in Garissa and what do they do?
DYO: (very short explanation and list, then more silence)
ME: Really I am interested in all of the groups, but especially the HIV Awareness groups because I am a health volunteer. (figured I better ask for as little as possible at this point to increase my chances of getting anything)
DYO: (half amused grin and silence)
ME: Could we set up a meeting, you said before that is the way to get in touch with them right?
DYO: I’m busy today…
ME: Anytime that works for you is fine with me since I don’t know how long it will take to contact the group leaders and arrange a meeting. I’m around anytime starting in January so whatever works for you is fine with me.

Ugh… it was like pulling teeth to get anything from this guy. I just don’t understand how this is supposed to work I guess because people just look at me like I’m crazy when I feel like I’m just asking them to do their job. Usually meetings make me feel better, mainly because I feel like I’m actually making progress towards something. Not so much. I came back to work feeling more frustrated than before.

Thankfully the afternoon was much better. After an unsuccessful talk with my supervisor the day before yesterday about using a manual I got at IST for training midwives/traditional birth attendants, I figured I would arrange to talk with another woman I work for who is generally more receptive of my ideas. During the conversation with my supervisor I got the feeling she wasn’t really paying attention so I stopped talking mid sentence… it took her 10 minutes at least to remember we had been talking and then when I told her my idea she just shrugged it off. The conversation yesterday went so much better. Zahra looked at the booklet while listening to my idea and was really excited about it. The project would be a training of the traditional birth attendants in a rural area near here with home-based life saving skills centered around identifying problems in pregnancy, delivery, and after birth with the mother and child. It teaches preparedness, prevention and how to deal with emergency situations. We are meeting next week to discuss it more. If this takes off it will be a big commitment on our part and those involved. It’s a training program that works in a pyramid with 4 lead trainers who train others who train others. It will require funding, planning, assessment, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and most of all time. I am really excited about the project! It has the potential to help so many women and would be a way for me to feel like I’ve helped with something. I’ve been emailing with a woman in the US who has done the project (in Kenya even) and she is helping me with the basic information so that I can start making a plan. I really hope this happens. So, needless to say, after my afternoon meeting I was in a MUCH better mood and once again excited about the prospect of having something to occupy my time.

Also, in addition to this project, Dan and I have been talking about a youth center and all the things we could use it for. One of the nice/sometimes annoying things about Garissa is that when you have an idea most likely, someone has already thought of it. In this case, the EDC is already moving on a youth center run out of the library and thankfully is open to help and input from Dan and I. We would really like to run seminars/forums/activities out of it relating to health, environment, art, sports, income-generation… etc. I am really excited about all the opportunities that would come out of this center, which is supposed to open in February, so I hope that everything continues as planned and that we can really have an active role in its structure. One thing I have realized about Garissa is that even though there are a million NGOs doing health work or community work, and a million projects going on, people don’t really like to share their projects. What I mean is that if someone is doing a project that I’m really interested in, and I volunteer to help them in any way they might need, they will not be interested in the extra help. People are generally protective of any work they are doing and maybe don’t want to share the credit or something… it’s very frustrating for a health volunteer to be surrounded by great projects she can’t work on. But, this is why I’m excited to start my own projects hopefully.

Once I got home I had a phone date with Lizzie, my woman-love, (if boys can have bro-mances, we figure women can have woman-loves). It was so nice just having a friend to talk to. Then I watched a seriously amazing lightning storm out my window. The sky flashed almost every second for over an hour! It was strange to watch because there was almost no thunder and it wasn’t raining, but the sky was lighting up like the fourth of July. Every so often it wouldn’t just be the clouds lighting up either, there would be a clear streak of lightning all across the sky!! I sat on my bed in the dark (under my mosquito net) watching it for at least an hour. My roommates thought I was crazy since one hates lightning and the other couldn’t have cared less. Eventually it moved to the back of our house and I stood on the hill watching it (the most perfect panoramic view of the western sky). If it wasn’t for my fear of scorpions and my growing annoyance with mosquitoes I might have stayed out there forever watching the sky light up. It was truly a magnificent thing to watch.

SIDE NOTE: At work I let one of my coworkers sons use paint on my computer (with the finger pad mouse) while sitting on my lap. I doubt he has ever used a computer before so I was trying to teach him how to control the paint feature and change the color… etc. What I didn’t notice was how hard he was pushing on the mouse pad. Unfortunately, there is a pressure limit or something because now it is not working. Luckily there is an extra mouse at work so I’ll just have to use that and get my dad to bring my mouse when he comes. I don’t know why I’m not more upset about this… It must be a Kenyan thing.
UPDATE: it is now working again... thank god.