Jen's Journey to Kenya

Home Sweet Home

2007-11-23T02:06:00.001-08:00

I made it!! After 34 hours of traveling, I finally arrived in Nashville at 5:30 PM last night. We flew from Nairobi to London (9 hrs), London to New York (7.5 hrs), New York to Cincinnati (2.5 hours) and Cincinnati to Nashville (1 hr). Plus, we had layovers in between. And only one of my bags didn’t make it all the way through. It got left in Cincinnati and took the next flight to Nashville, and it was dropped off at my mom’s house later that night.

Andrew, my mom, my sister, my brother-n-law and my four nieces and nephews were all at the airport waiting for me. Words can’t explain how happy I was to see them all. We’re celebrating Thanksgiving today (Friday) because we were scared I wouldn’t make it in time. So instead of turkey, we had lasagna and a big Greek salad for dinner. And my friends, Elizabeth and Jake, stopped by to see me.

After taking a shower and now just using the Internet, I’ve realized how much I’ve missed strong water pressure in the shower and high speed Internet! Unforunately, I’m dealing with a bit of jetlag. It’s 4 AM (Nashville time) in the morning and I’m wide awake because my body thinks it’s 1 PM (Nairobi time). But hopefully I’ll adjust soon.

I intend to write several stories from my trip and freelance them to several different publications. Once something is published, I’ll update my blog with a link to the story.

Thank you all for reading my blog these past two months. This trip changed my life. I’ll never look at the world in the way I used to. I’ve learned so much about myself, Kenya, HIV/AIDS and the world. And I hope I’ve been able to open your eyes about a few of those things through my blog.

Remembering Father D’Agostino and Going Home!

2007-11-20T23:12:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, we met Shashank, who works for McClatchy here in Nairobi, for lunch at The Swahili Corner downtown. I got chicken marinated in Swahili spices, kale and jipati, which are all traditional Kenyan and Swahili food.

Then we went to Nyumbani to say goodbye to Donna and Bernard. They just received good news. Their first court date is December 7th.

I hung out with Winnie, who is the little girl I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. I gave her a stuffed animal I had brought to Kenya with me, and she loved it!

When it was finally time to go to Father D’Agostino’s memorial service and I had to put her down, she wouldn’t let go of me. My heart about melted at that point.

I REALLY want someone to adopt her. I’ve already checked, and I can’t because I’m not old enough. In order to adopt a child in Kenya, you have to be more than 21 years older than the child among other things. Winnie is 3, and I’m 23 so I’m not eligible.

The papal nuncio, who is the pope’s representative in Kenya, led the memorial mass for Father D’Agostino, who was the founder of Nyumbani.

The children sang and danced.

Priests, children, volunteers, board members and staff members all said different prayers.

And Sister Mary, who is now the executive director of Nyumbani, said while she and everyone at Nyumbani missed Father D’Ag’s inspiration, courage and compassion, they would not mourn today because Father D’Ag instead would have wanted everyone to persevere in Nyumbani’s mission-- helping HIV-positive orphans throughout Kenya-- instead of mourning his death.

After the ceremony, we visited the gravesite of Father D’Ag where the Nyumbani nuns and children spread flowers and water over his grave and had a moment of silence.

Attending Father D’Ag’s memorial service was the perfect way to spend our last night in Kenya because pretty much everything we’ve done in Kenya has revolved around Nyumbani and none of that would have been possible without Father D’Ag.

We begin our journey home tonight (Wednesday) at 11:20 PM. We fly from Nairobi to London, London to New York, New York to Cincinnati, and Cincinnati to Nashville. We finally arrive in Nashville at 5:30 PM on Thursday.

I can’t believe my trip is over. In some ways I feel like I just got here yesterday and in some ways, I feel like I’ve been here for a long time. But nonetheless, I’m so excited to be going home!

The next time I update this blog, I’ll be on U.S. soil!!!!

Things I’ve Learned

2007-11-19T03:33:00.000-08:00

Since my stay in Kenya is coming to an end, I thought I’d let everyone know a few things I’ve learned.

1) Nairobi and Kenya are not as scary as I made them out to be or other people made them out to be.
2) I can actually handle living in Nairobi and Kenya. It’s just like any other big city. You just have to be smart.
3) HIV is also not as scary as it’s made out to be.
4) HIV-positive kids are just like any other kids.
5) Swahili culture is much more conservative than U.S. or European cultures.
6) There is hardly any public display of affection between a man and a woman. And women have hardly any say in the
bedroom.
7) Men, who are not homosexual, will hold hands when they’re hanging out together.
8) Everyone no matter if you’re rich or poor dresses nicely. T-shirts and jeans are hardly ever worn.
9) I’ve learned how much I miss a fountain Diet Coke.
10) In Kenya, there is such a large taboo around sex and such a large discrimination against HIV-positive people.
11) There is pretty much no middle class. It’s the haves and the have-nots. There is poverty like I’ve never seen before.
12) There are days where I love Kenya and days where I hate Kenya.
13) I’ve learned how much I miss a good salad or fruit that I can’t peel like grapes and strawberries.
14) Everything takes three times longer here than it does in the U.S.
12) In order to keep your sanity, you have to learn to go with the flow and be patient. You have no control over when a
matatu will arrive, or if the electricity will go off, or if the interview you set up with someone will suddenly be cancelled
for no good reason or if the police decide to randomly stop traffic.
13) I’ve learned how helpless you can feel when you see poverty like I’ve seen in Kibera.
14) When you’re a thousand miles away, an email, a card and a phone call from the people you love makes all the
difference in the world.
15) When you’re in Nairobi and are white, you absolutely cannot walk at night or risk having a pretty good chance of being
mugged.
16) There is much less freedom of the press in Kenya than there is in U.S.
17) It doesn’t matter how much money you have, if you’re white and are in Kenya, the locals will think you are the richest
person in the world and have “ATM” written on your forehead.
18) International aide does not always solve all the problems because it causes people to be dependent on that aide and
never strive for self-sustainability.
19) The roads in Kenya are some of the worst roads I’ve ever seen.
20) When you travel to a developing country, you need to find ways to escape. In my case, watching Grey’s Anatomy DVD’s
was my escape.
21) For people who get car sick, Dramamine is essential when you come to Kenya.
22) Without checks and balances, those in power can cause detrimental effects to their country.
23) You can meet good people everywhere.
24) When something doesn’t turn out the way you plan, keep your eyes open to other possibilities. Michael and I originally
were coming to Kenya to follow a Lost Boy on his quest to be reunited with his family. But that plan didn’t work out,
and I almost decided to cancel the trip. But if I had, I would have missed out on all the things I’ve learned, all the great
people I’ve met and the stories I’m telling about how people are responding to the rising number of orphans affected
and infected by HIV.
25) When you travel to a place unknown and truly step out of your comfort zone, that’s when you grow the most and learn
the most about yourself.

But most of all, I’ve learned how lucky I am. I feel like it’s very fitting that I’m returning on Thanksgiving Day because this year, more than ever before, I really know what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that I got the opportunity to go on this trip, for the challenges it’s given me, for how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown. I’m thankful that I was born in the U.S. and was given so many opportunities that children in Kenya would kill for. And I’m thankful for my friends, family and boyfriend who I’ve missed so much but will see so soon!

An Escape to Paradise

2007-11-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

Thursday, Michael and I flew to Lamu to escape Nairobi for a few days, get a little sun (or in my case too much sun) and relax before we head home to the U.S. next week.

When we had been in the air for about 30 minutes, the pilot announced that there was a problem with the oil and we needed to return to the Nairobi airport to change planes. Honestly, it didn’t surprise me that much. Things are never on time or go as planned here.

We landed at Lamu’s airpot, which actually isn’t on Lamu island itself. It’s on the mainland right across from the island. It has one single landing strip and the terminal consists of several benches covered by a grass-thatched roof.

Lamu is an island off of the northeastern coast of Kenya near the Somalia border.

It’s old and rich in its Swahili culture. It is said that there was a settlement in Lamu 500 years before Christ. Lamu has 25 mosques since everyone from Lamu is Muslim. There are two churches for foreigners to use.

There are only four cars on the entire island that is home to 16,000 people. One belongs to the hospital, one belongs to the police, and the other two belong to the local government.

Everyone walks or rides a donkey to get around or takes a dhow.

There are only two streets that are wide enough for cars to drive on them. Instead, the roads are at times only wide enough for two people to pass each other.

Few of the streets are paved. They’re mostly sand and dirt roads and most people walk around barefoot.

Donkeys roam the streets and the seashore.

I asked a local how people keep track of their donkeys since they seem to just roam around by themselves. He told me that some donkeys have a branding on their legs that identifies them but for the most part, people can just tell by the look of the donkey who it belongs to!

It was dramatically different than Nairobi in terms of safety. Michael and I were able to walk around at night without fear of being robbed. We left our passports, money and my laptop in the room. And anytime we got turned around trying to find our way back through the maze-like village, any of the locals were happy to escort us to our guesthouse.

We stayed in The Banana House, which is named after the owner whose name is actually Banana! It was a quaint, unique place that made you feel right at home.

You take off your shoes when you walk through the doors, rinse your feet into the basin of water, and pop into the kitchen if you’re hungry or thirsty.

Someone is ready to lead you in a yoga class, give you a massage or any other cosmetic treatment.

The Banana House is in a village called Shella, which is about a 40-minute walk from Lamu town. It's a place where everyone knows everyone.
We took a dhow to and from Lamu town whenever we wanted to make a visit there.

Friday, we toured Lamu town, which is a World Heritage City. We saw traditional Muslim homes, ornate carvings on the doors, several mosques, the Lamu fort, and the popular fish, vegetable and fruit, and meat market.

As we walked through the meat market, my stomach got a bit queasy at the sight of chopped off goat heads with their eyes still open.

It poured during our tour of Lamu town. And for the Lamu natives, it was a gift since it hadn’t rained in almost two months.

Saturday, we went on an all-day snorkeling trip with our new friends Steve, Julia and Elizabeth. Steve is from England and Julia and Elizabeth are from Germany, and they’re all working at the German school in Nairobi.

We went to a nearby island and fed the fish jipati, which is basically their version of tortillas and got them to come really close to us.

We saw all different kinds of fish in all different sizes and colors. We also got some beautiful shells to take home with us.

The locals who took us on their boat caught several yellowtails that they cooked for us for lunch. I had never been served a fish with its head and tail still on so it was a new experience picking the meat away from the head and bones.

As we were sailing back to Lamu, we watched the start of a dhow race where the winning boat received 50,000 Kenyan shillings, which is $750!

Later that night, we went to Ali Hippy’s house.

He is an older Lamu man who has been bringing travelers to his home for the last 34 years to have a traditional Swahili dinner and listen to Swahili entertainment. We entered his traditional Muslim home, took off our shoes, and walked into his candle-lit dining room since there was no electricity. We sat in a half-circle on the floor.

His wife poured water on all of our hands so we could wash our hands. There is no soap used, just water. Then his wife and children served us tuna, lobster, coconut rice, vegetables, jipati and desert. The family, which consisted of 18 people, sang traditional Swahili songs while playing drums, a keyboard, and a tambourine.

Ali Hippy is a joyful old man who is the only fat man on the entire island! He said he brings travelers to his home as often as every night of the week. Since he was born in Lamu and has not been anywhere else in the world other than Nairobi for a few weeks, he said he sees the world through the travelers he meets.

Lamu is really unlike any other place on Earth. It’s the definition of relaxing.

And since I have quickly approaching deadlines, it served as a great place to concentrate and write. Other than getting an unbelievable sunburn and getting 31 (yes I counted) mosquito bites, it was a wonderful experience.

A Celebration of Life

2007-11-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

Today, we went to the Nyumbani Children’s Home for mass. Instead of gathering in a church or cathedral, we gathered in a schoolhouse.

Instead of sitting in pews, we sat in rows of plastic chairs. And instead of listening to an organ or a piano, we listened to the voices of 100 children singing their praises to God. It was one of the most joyous melodies I’ve ever heard.

As the singing started, about 10 children filed in to the center of the room and began dancing.

A Bible verse was read and then Father Rodrigues began reading the story of Moses. Once he was finished, Protus Lumiti, the center’s administrative manager, asked the children what they learned from the sermon. The children shouted out “trust and obey God”, “be patient”, “depend on God”, “don’t be afraid” and “for God, everything is possible”.

Then Father Rodrigues, Protus and Sister Mary, Nyumbani’s executive director, announced that today’s mass was dedicated to Mia, who was a volunteer at Nyumbani in 2002 for three months. Towards the end of her volunteering, Mia, who was from Baltimore, went on a safari in Masai Mara National Park for a few days. Once she returned to Nyumbani Children’s Home, she began to have symptoms of malaria, which she had contracted in Masai Mara.

She went to the nearby pharmacy to pick up some medicine for malaria. In Kenya, a person does not have to have a prescription to get any type of medicine. All anyone has to do is tell the pharmacist his or her symptoms and the pharmacist will then give them medicine. Mia returned to Nyumbani and took the medicine for malaria that was given to her. A few hours later, she knew something was not right. She told a fellow volunteer that she did not feel well and needed to be taken to the hospital. Her friend drove her to the hospital, but it was too late. Mia had already gone into cardiac arrest and died at the hospital.

Mia had been taking a daily preventive malaria medicine, such as Malarone, like every Westerner who visits Africa. And what happened was the preventive malaria medicine counteracted with the medicine she received from the pharmacist to treat the malaria. The pharmacist didn’t know all of the ingredients for the two different medicines and didn’t know they would counteract.

Mia’s family waited for her body to be sent to the U.S. and did not come to Kenya in 2002. They wanted to visit Nyumbani for years but weren’t sure if they would be able to emotionally handle it. But today, five years after Mia died, her family finally made it to Nyumbani.

Two teenage girls who were close to Mia when she was at Nyumbani sang a song for Mia’s family. As they sang the lyrics, “She’s in her place where there is no ending. There’s happiness with her without pretending”, tears rolled down the faces of the family, the children and the Nyumbani staff.

After the song, everyone followed the family in silence out to the cemetery behind the schoolhouse.

There are about ten graves in this small cemetery from the first children that died at Nyumbani. Eventually, the Kenyan government would not allow Nyumbani to bury the children on their own property anymore. Instead, the children began being buried at a nearby cemetery. But when Mia died, Nyumbani planted a tree in her honor. And today, they rededicated the tree to her.

It was one of the most powerful sights I’ve ever seen. It was a struggle for me to fight back my own tears. As the family gathered in front of the tree, the 100 Nyumbani children circled around them as they all remembered Mia.

You could tell that losing someone is something all to common for the children at Nyumbani.

Protus explained that at Nyumbani life is celebrated no matter if someone has past on because it was a life and that life is to be celebrated. He said Mia’s life might have been a short life but it was a powerful one.

Mia’s mother thanked all of the Nyumbani children for giving Mia the greatest life a mother could ever hope for.

She told the children that Mia was the happiest she had ever been when she was at Nyumbani, and now Mia’s family was so grateful to be able to witness first-hand the special place where she spent her last days on Earth.

Celebrating life is truly the feeling you get when you walk into the gates of Nyumbani. The staff members have this particular focus because there’s always the chance that a child could die from complications of AIDS so while they’re alive, they want their life to be celebrated. And even if they die, they still want to celebrate the life that they had. And as an outsider just visiting Nyumbani, I feel like celebrating life whenever I walk into Nyumbani. The children are just absolutely amazing and fill you up with so much joy that there’s nothing else you really want to do but just celebrate the opportunity you’ve gotten to meet these kids.

There's no better feeling than to be walking down Nyumbani's driveway and have Adelle (pictured above) run out to meet me yelling "Jennifer, Jennifer" and jump in my arms.

And while all of the children are incredible, I have fallen absolutely in love with one little three year-old girl named Winnie.

She’s so cute and willing to give anyone a piece of her heart.

If someone is looking to adopt, PLEASE think about Winnie.

She needs a home and more importantly a family.

Feeding, Hugging and Kissing a Giraffe

2007-11-10T10:17:00.001-08:00

Today, we went to the Giraffe Center, which is a center where Rothschild’s giraffes are taken out of the wild and placed here until they are three years old. At that point, they are released back into the wild.

The reason they are taken out of the wild for a temporary period of time is because the Rothschild’s giraffe is endangered, and the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife runs the center.

There are three different types of giraffes. Reticulated giraffes have rectangular spots and are seen mostly in northern Kenya. Rothschild’s giraffes look similar to reticulated giraffes except their spots are lighter and there are no spots on their legs. Instead, there’s just white hair on their legs so it almost looks like they are wearing socks. Rothschild’s giraffes are only seen near Lake Nakuru. And lastly, the Masai giraffes have dark jagged spots and are commonly seen southwest of Nairobi, particularly in the Masai Mara National Park.

At the center, you can observe, hand-feed and even kiss Rothschild’s giraffes from a raised circular wooden structure.

The Rothschild’s giraffe has the longest tongue I’ve ever seen and it’s gray, not pink like ours.

One of the center’s staff members warned me to not get too close to the giraffes when I don’t have food in my hand because they will head butt you if you don’t have food!

Once I got comfortable feeding the giraffe, I gave the giraffe a hug.

And then the staff member encouraged me to kiss the giraffe. So I took a piece of food in between my teeth and leaned in towards the giraffe. I pulled back the first few times because the giraffe’s huge tongue shooting straight towards me was a bit intimidating.

But eventually I got up enough courage and let the giraffe take the piece of food out of my mouth. In other words, I let it kiss me.

I got giraffe slobber all over my chin but it was still worth it. It was so freaking cool to be that close to a giraffe, which by the way is my favorite African animal.

A Birthday In The Middle Of Nowhere

2007-11-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

Michael and I needed to make another visit to the Nyumbani Village near Kitui, Kenya, which is 3 hours west of Nairobi, and the only time we could make arrangements was over my birthday. We had organized a ride with Nyumbani but at the last minute, that fell through so we had no other option but to take public transportation. So Wednesday afternoon, we met George, who is in charge of the sustainability project at the village, and found a matatu that was headed towards Kitui.

Since matatus drive pretty fast, we actually made it to Kitui in three hours despite getting a flat tire. Once we arrived in Kitui, we waited for an hour for someone from the Village to pick us up. Like I’ve said before, you get really good at waiting around in Kenya. Nothing happens on time. Pretty soon after we arrived, we went to bed because when there is no electricity, there’s not much else to do after dark.

Thursday morning (my birthday) we were greeted by the familiar faces of the volunteers we met last time we visited the village and joined them for tea and bread and butter. Michael and I had a really busy day, interviewing five different people, attending the library opening, and interacting with the grandmothers.

Just to give you a quick reminder- the village was started by Nyumbani as a response to the rising number of AIDS orphans and elders left behind without anyone to care for them. By 2010, it is estimated that there will be 25-30 million orphans in sub-Sahara Africa. The village, which consists of makeshift blended families of grandmothers and children, has a goal of being self-sustainable in 5-10 years.

The grandmothers showed us how they weave their baskets.

It can take 3-4 days to weave just one basket. Once the grandmothers finish the baskets, they’re sold at local markets.

Susan Gold, the Fulbright scholar from Wisconsin that created the sexual education program, organized the donation of 4,000 books in order to make the village’s library.

Susan and Sister Mary, the executive director of Nyumbani, traveled to Kitui on Thursday for the library’s official opening.

About 20 children sang and danced before thanking Susan for her generosity.

Nicholas, the program director of the Village, explained the meaning behind the song and dance.

Susan told the children that the greatest thing she ever learned was how to read because every time you open a book, you can be anywhere in the world. Then she presented the children with a map of the world and told them that their job is to grow up strong, study hard and take their place in the world.

She pointed to the U.S. on the map and told the children that while she lived there, a big part of her heart is always here.

Later that afternoon once the children got out of school, Susan unpacked several boxes of donated clothes from a sorority at the University of Wisconsin.

As the children filed in to gaze at their new clothes, Susan and I helped them find clothes that fit them best.

It was so amazing to watch the children’s faces light up as they tried on their new sweatshirt or pants.

I followed some of the children back to their cottages and hung out with them as they washed their school uniform by hand.

Fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders go to school from 7 AM to 5 PM and then return to the school building from 7 PM to 9 PM for what they call Preps, which is basically a study hall/tutoring session. A 15 year-old girl named Alice, who was in 7th grade, invited me into her cottage. She said she wanted to practice her English and asked if I would help her until she had to go to Preps. This was my favorite moment of the day.

As we sat down to eat rice and lentils for dinner, one of the volunteers turned to me and said, “I bet this is the birthday meal you’ve always dreamed of.” But actually spending my birthday in the village where there was no electricity, no running water and only a pit latrine for a toilet wasn’t that bad. It was actually a birthday I’ll never forget. Every birthday I’ve ever had has been about me: my party, my birthday cake, my birthday presents. But this year it wasn’t about me at all. It was about the children who got a library filled with 4,000 books. It was about the children who got a bunch of new clothes. And it was about how Alice was so proud to practice her English on me.

After dinner, I spent some time outside by myself gazing up at the stars. There’s no way I can possibly explain the beauty of the sky that night. It was breathtaking and I know it will be a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

I got up early Friday morning to watch the sun rise and write in my journal. It's nice to be away from all the noise, pollution and people in Nairobi.

After breakfast, Michael, Susan (the Fulbright scholar) and I began our journey back to Nairobi.

We were supposed to get a ride to Kitui town at 8 AM but we didn’t leave until about 8:30 and instead of going straight to town, we made several stops along the way.

Like I said, everything takes longer (about 3 times longer) in Kenya. While we were waiting for the correct matatu to come, we ran into a man wearing a Nashville t-shirt. Michael told the man that he was from Nashville, and the man said he didn’t know Nashville was a place.

Once the correct matatu did arrive, we started to walk towards it but were dumbfounded when we saw a goat jump out of it! The conductor told us the matatu was going all the way to Nairobi so we jumped in. There should only be 15 people in a matatu at one time but on this day, the conductor allowed 20 people in at one point! It was crazy! Susan turned to me and said, “Well at least it’s all people and no goats!” Once we got about halfway to Nairobi, the matatu stopped and said it was not going on to Nairobi. I’m realizing that this is all too common in Kenya. Bus and matatu conductors will often lie to you just so they can get you on their vehicle and get your money. So we jumped on a bus bound for Nairobi. Onboard was a man who decided to start preaching to everyone in Swahili for about 30 minutes. And at one point, I looked out the window and saw live chickens strapped to the top of a bus. I thought to myself, only in Africa.

The ride to Nairobi was complete hell. While the ride to Kitui on Wednesday was not that bad on the matatu, riding on a bus is worse because you’re higher up and feel more bumps. And since I have extremely long legs, lengthy bus and matatus rides can be miserable. And while Susan, Michael and I were all sweating and burning up, the Kenyans sitting around us kept closing the windows because they think 85 degree weather is cold!

Once we finally arrived in Nairobi six hours later, we rewarded ourselves with lunch at Java House where I got a salad and a chocolate milkshake. I’m craving salads left and right because we can only order them at really nice places because the lettuce isn’t safe.

After a hot shower, Michael and I went to a really nice Italian restaurant for my birthday dinner, a day late. We had lasagna, pizza, vegetables, red wine and tiramisu. It was absolutely wonderful!

Thank you to everyone who called, emailed or facebooked me for my birthday. When you’re a thousand miles away, it’s really nice to hear from family and friends, especially when you’re a thousand miles away on your birthday.

Learning How To Love Again

2007-11-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

Most 58 year-old American women are starting to think about retiring. They’re taking advantage of their AARP memberships, joining bridge groups and enjoying the fact that their children are fully independent. Most of all, they’re happy that their grandchildren only come for visits, not indefinitely.

Donna Denelli-Hess is not like most women.

At 58 and a widow, Donna is adopting a 10 year-old HIV-positive boy from Kenya.

But Donna didn’t always think she would be learning about cowboys and Indians at her age. She and her husband, John, were never able to have their own children. They thought about adopting but once Donna completed graduate school and they finished doing certain things they wanted to do with each other, adoption just never happened. Since John was 20 years older than Donna, they had planned to retire in the Southwest where they owned property.

All that changed during Christmas 1999 when John suddenly died. Donna was devastated, empty and lost. She thought she would never be able to love again.

A few years later, Donna decided to take a vacation in 2004 to Kenya with her best friend, Deb. Donna, who is a health educator at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, visited a Williams student who was originally from Kenya. During her six-week vacation, Donna visited the Nyumbani Children’s Home, which is an orphanage for about 100 HIV-positive children. She was only at the orphanage for a few hours but while she was visiting the schoolhouse, she noticed a little boy standing off in the corner not engaged with the rest of his peers. Donna was told that this little boy, Bernard, was one of the sickest children at Nyumbani at the time. For one reason or another, the image of Bernard stuck with Donna until she decided to return the following year to volunteer.

Donna said she came back to Kenya in the summer of 2005 not looking to adopt but rather to do a good deed and give back to the world by volunteering. Donna decided that for 50 years, she had all she needed and wanted, but now it was time to stop being selfish. Now, it was time to be about somebody else.

When Donna arrived at Nyumbani, she was relieved to learn that Bernard was still alive. Nyumbani assigned the widow to volunteer in Bernard’s cottage, and as the weeks went on, Donna and Bernard began gravitating towards one another. They did homework together, played together and went on fieldtrips together. Donna said at that point, Bernard needed her as much as she needed him.

After a few weeks of volunteering, Donna said she just knew that Bernard was going to be in her life somehow. But she had no sense that it would be more than her financially supporting him and coming back year after year to volunteer and spend time with him because she hadn’t realized at the time that adoption at Nyumbani of a HIV-positive child was at all possible. Up until then, no HIV-positive child had ever been adopted out of Nyumbani. Only children who eventually tested HIV-negative at two years old once their mother’s antibodies were out of their system were adopted. But usually people don’t chose to adopt HIV-positive children to begin with. If a potential parent has the option of a healthy child and a HIV-positive child and they don’t have a prior relationship to any child, they’re probably going to choose the healthy child.

In 2005, private adoptions were still possible in Kenya so when Donna returned to the U.S. she began the private adoption process. But the laws later changed in Kenya making private adoptions no longer possible. However, Donna was unaware that the laws changed and ended up wasting time on a useless private adoption before having to start all over again with a public adoption.

She returned to Nyumbani the following summer on a professional development leave for four months to volunteer. After learning about the new, extensive, lengthy process of adoption in Kenya, Donna returned again in December 2006 to begin the procedure. She also began talking to Bernard, who was seven at the time, about the possibility of adoption. Bernard told Donna that he wanted to be her son and come to the U.S.

Bernard first came to Nyumbani when he was three from Naivasha. His mother died when he was two from complications of AIDS. He was left with his grandmother, who took care of him as long as she could before bringing him to Nyumbani.

Donna traveled to Naivasha to meet Bernard’s grandmother because she wanted to know that she would have his grandmother’s permission before she started the adoption process. Bernard’s grandmother could not understand why Donna would want this burden or why she chose Bernard when there were much cuter kids at Nyumbani than Bernard. Donna explained to her that having Bernard be her son would not be a burden. It would be a gift.

To say that the adoption process is complicated is an understatement. First, Donna had to find a Kenyan adoption agency that would accept her as a client. Her age and her current marital status were seen as red flags. She also had to find a U.S. agency that was licensed to conduct Kenyan adoptions and when she began the process, there was only one licensed agency in the states. Little Angels, the Kenyan agency that accepted her as a client, required her to provide them with financial documents, insurance documents, reference letters, pictures of her house back in Williamstown, MA, health documents and a letter from Nyumbani confirming they thought she would make a good parent for Bernard.

Next, the Kenyan adoption agency represented Donna at the National Adoption Committee, which is the first deciding body on whether or not you’ll be able to adopt in Kenya. The committee approved Donna and told her she could begin a three-month fostering period with Bernard in Kenya in August 2007. Little Angels, Donna’s Kenya adoption agency, had to approve the house where Bernard and Donna live and send social workers once a month to visit the pair. Donna just recently finished the fostering period and is now awaiting a court date where the court will appoint a court appointed guardian who will only look out for Bernard’s best interest as well as a representative from Kenya’s Child Services to conduct further interviews with Donna and Bernard. Once Child Services interviews and approves the adoption, Donna will have a second court date where if all goes well she will be given the official adoption document and be allowed to leave for the states.

But it won’t be over then. Before they can go to the states, Bernard has to apply for a U.S. visa, which will take 3-6 weeks. And the U.S. embassy has already told Donna that he will be denied the visa at first based on his HIV-positive status. Donna will then have to appeal the denial, which will take another 6 weeks, requesting a waiver for his HIV status. She’ll be required to prove that her medical insurance will be able to pay for his medical expenses, that he’s already been accepted as a patient at her town’s pediatric infectious disease clinic, that she’s notified the public health administrator for the state of Massachusetts and for her town. All of this information will be sent to Atlanta to the Centers for Disease Control where it will be decided if Bernard will be granted a waiver. If he’s granted the waiver, he’ll be given a U.S. visa and allowed to leave Kenya.

But then it’s still not over. Donna will then have to readopt Bernard in the U.S. so he can have U.S. citizenship. This will take another year and a half.

Unfortunately because this process is so long, Donna thinks it’s going to be very difficult for a lot of people to give up 6 months of jobs and life and family. So that’s going to cut down on the number of kids that get adopted out of Kenya.

If for some reason Donna is not granted the adoption, she will stay in Kenya and just be a part of Bernard’s life. But Donna realizes that if they can’t go to the U.S., she won’t be able to keep him alive for as long as she would if they were in the states. HIV patients that are on antiretroviral drugs eventually develop a resistance to the drugs and have to go on a different line of drugs. Only three different lines are available in Kenya, and Bernard is on the third, or last line. However, in the states there are many lines of antiretroviral drugs available. When Donna first met Bernard, Nyumbani told her he would not get out of his teen years. But now if Bernard gets adopted, Donna knows he will outlive her.

Not only has it been a lengthy process, there have been hiccups along the way. The other Nyumbani children don’t understand why Bernard is being adopted and they’re not. It puts Donna in a difficult position but she said she tries to explain to them that somebody had to be first and that somebody just happened to be Bernard. But once he’s adopted, hopefully they’re will be other people who want to adopt the children at Nyumbani. Every other weekend, Donna and Bernard invite one child from Nyumbani to come have a sleepover.

While Donna’s friends and siblings have been supportive, her stepson and daughter-n-law are not in favor of this adoption because of Bernard’s HIV status. Kevin and Deborah Hess, Donna’s stepson and daughter-n-law, think their daughter, Donna’s granddaughter, might become infected, and they can’t understand why Donna would put their daughter at risk. Kevin and Deborah are both PhD. Chemists and Donna said they know better or at least ought to know better. Donna said she has tried to assure them that she loves their daughter, Kayla, and would never put her at risk. She’s also sent them information on HIV, asked them to talk to their pediatrician and to do their own research. However, Kevin and Deborah currently have not decided if Bernard will have the chance to meet Kayla.

I asked Donna if she would still visit Kayla if Kevin and Deborah don’t allow Bernard to meet Kayla. Donna told me that as much as she loves Kayla, she would not leave Bernard behind. She said they were a package.

And on top of all that, the longer the adoption process takes, the less likely Donna will have a job when she gets back to the states. Her employer, Williams College, granted her an unpaid leave of absence for the past year, but if she’s not back in the states at work by the first of January 2008, she’ll lose her job. And there’s no way Donna and Bernard will be back to the states by the first of the year. Instead, they’re hoping for February or March at the earliest. Donna has been supporting herself and Bernard through her husband’s pension while they’ve been in Kenya, but the pension won’t be able to support them back in the states with Bernard’s medical costs and the U.S. cost of living.

But even with all the hurdles Donna has faced, she said it’s all been worth it. Bernard has allowed her heart to open up again. He’s reminded her how to laugh, how to start over, and how to love something again as much as she loved her husband.

I asked Donna how Bernard’s future will be different in the U.S. then it would be in Kenya. She said as tears rolled down her face, he’s going to live. He’s going to have the best medical care he can have. He’s going to have a good education. And best of all, he’s going to have opportunities.

Donna said she would encourage people looking to adopt to not rule out the possibility of adopting a HIV-positive child. If you look past your ignorance and realize HIV is simply a medical condition, they’re no different than any other child, Donna said.

Donna is truly an inspiration that you’re never too old to make a difference. She may only make a difference in Bernard’s life but that’s all that matters. On the other hand, if people see that Bernard is not a burden and decide they will adopt an HIV-positive child too, then maybe Donna will make a difference for thousands of AIDS orphans scattered across the world hoping to find a family and to be given a second chance.

Michael and I are going to Kitui to visit the Nyumbani Village, which will be a self-sustaining community to serve orphans and elders who have been left behind by the “lost generation” of the AIDS epidemic. So I’ll be spending my birthday there and returning to Nairobi on Friday. Until then…….

The Mzungu (Swahili for white person) Sex Nurse Of Kenya Making a Difference One Banana At A Time

2007-11-05T08:23:00.000-08:00

Susan Gold is a living example that it’s never too late to go after your dream.

The Chicago native always knew she wanted to be an international nurse but she didn’t have enough money to go to college—only enough for two years at a community college, got married at 24 and ended up raising three children in Madison, Wisconsin.

But at 34, she wanted to go back out in the world and thought she had too much energy to stay home with her children for the rest of her life. So she enrolled in the University of Wisconsin’s nursing program part-time and graduated the weekend before she turned 40. In high school, she graduated in the bottom third of her class, but in college, she graduated first.

Susan worked as a nurse at the UW Children Hospital in the pediatric oncology department for nine years. Next she worked at the UW General Pediatric and Adolescent Clinic, which provided the medical care at the juvenile detention center, and later worked at the Pediatric Infectious Disease Clinic.

After running eight marathons and climbing several mountains, Susan and her husband, Tim, traveled to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. As they were driving to the trailhead to begin the climb, Susan caught sight of a clinic crowded with women and children and wished she could be the nurse at that clinic. Once she returned back home, she couldn’t stop thinking about international nursing and decided to either actually do it or stop wanting to do it.

Susan applied to the Catholic Medical Mission Board to get an international nursing position and was assigned in 2003 to Kenya for two months at Nyumbani Children’s Home, which houses about 100 HIV-positive children. And from the day she left, she started thinking about how she could get back.

Susan first applied for a Fulbright scholarship in 2005 but was only named an alternate. She reapplied the following year proposing to create a health education program for HIV-positive adolescents and won. As Susan was putting together the curriculum, she realized that she couldn’t talk to HIV-positive children about having safe sex if she didn’t first talk about what sex is. So she created a five-part class focusing on sexuality education (your body, sex and pregnancy), the immune system and HV, HIV and AIDS, STD transmission prevention including condom use, and contraception.

Currently, the Catholic Church still does not support condom use. However, several bishops including Nyumbani’s founder Father D’Agostino spoke out about the condom being acceptable for HIV-positive individuals.

Susan planned on teaching her class to the children at the Nyumbani’s Children Home, the children at the Lea Toto community-outreach program and the Nyumbani Village. What Susan didn’t know was that there would be an entire country waiting to hear her class. She’s taken her class to orphanages, parents’ groups, schools, slums, coffee houses, office buildings, the streets and hotels. Basically anywhere people find out what Susan does, they want her to conduct a class. Her class is so in demand because sexual education doesn’t really exist in Kenya. In the schools, there is a class where they touch on some sex education, but it’s mostly bogged down with religion and politics and often times not even the truth. What Susan found was that children had the most questions about their bodies and sex. And parents also wanted to know how to teach their kids about sex as well as teachers wanting to know how to teach their students. There is such a strong taboo around sex here that it’s simply not talked about. Parents and teachers don’t feel comfortable talking about it, and children end up getting most of their information from their peers, which is almost never accurate. Susan designed the class for HIV-positive adolescents but has easily tweaked the curriculum to apply to HIV-negative adolescents, adults and young children.

Susan admits that talking to adolescents about sex is difficult. She remembers how she did a terrible job with her own kids, but reassures adults taking her class that the hardest part is knowing how to say it and getting past those awkward moments.

In Kenya, sexual politics is still very much under the control of men leaving women, and by extension children, having little say in prevention and protection. That’s why Susan said her program needs to be more focused on the boys because nothing is going to change for women, until the men start changing. A Kenyan man told Susan that sex in Kenya is like riding a bike. You get on, ride and get off. And the bike can’t say it doesn’t want to be ridden either. Even if Kenyan women know about the safety in a condom, she won’t ask to use one for fear of her husband or boyfriend beating her or even worse leaving her. In a country that is generations away from gender equality, women mostly depend on men for economic support.

While Susan’s program is opening people’s minds, behavior change is one of the most difficult areas to combat. And in Kenya, we’re talking about traditions that are centuries old. Most people back in the states (including myself) often ask why they (Africans) are not using condoms. But what Susan made me realize is that the phenomenon of using a condom in Kenya is fairly recent and the average Kenyan doesn’t have the same access to education and the exposure that we do back in the states. And how can an American judge a Kenyan for not wearing a condom and for not changing their behavior when we all know that smoking will kill you yet 25% of Americans still smoke. We all know drinking and driving will kill you, and how many of us still do it. And we all know that obesity can kill you yet 64% of us are obese!

Susan said what has to change for children is access to education and the economy. Then she put me on the spot. She asked me why I stayed out of trouble in high school and why I didn’t get pregnant. I told her it was because I wanted to go to college and become a journalist. But what’s different between me and most children in Kenya, Susan said, is having a future. Kids here don’t have the connection of what I do today is going to affect tomorrow because so many kids all throughout Africa don’t know if they’ll have a tomorrow. While 65 percent of girls finish primary school, only 35 percent finish secondary school in Kenya. For me, it was never an option that I wouldn’t go to college- let alone finish high school. Susan explained that children here have to know they have a future or nothing will change.

Susan’s program has been so successful that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a U.S. funded program founded by President Bush, is going to fund Susan to return to Kenya next year to continue and expand her program. Susan will direct the program while training a Kenyan nurse to take it over in 2009. The hope is that Susan’s program will become a part of core Kenyan educational curriculum.

Susan said what she misses most is her ignorance. Because when she was ignorant about AIDS in Africa, it was easy to say it’s over there, but she doesn’t have that luxury anymore. She has names and faces and kids’ bodies and babies she’s held and mothers she’s helped.

Clearly, Susan is not your typical 56 year-old woman. While she could be back in the states getting ready to retire, she’s in Kenya putting condoms on bananas and telling kids that “A” goes into “B” during sex! She’s definitely one of the coolest people I’ve ever met—not to mention a complete inspiration that no matter who you are, you can make a difference. Small things can make big changes. You don’t have to be Bill Gates or Mother Theresa or an ex-president to leave a mark. You can make a difference with who you are and what you have.

Sister Mary

2007-11-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

Last week, we had the privilege of meeting with Sister Mary, who since Father D’Agostino’s death last year has taken over as the director of Nyumbani.

I have been told that I missed out by not getting to meet the founder of Nyumbani, Father D’Agostino, but I considered myself lucky for getting to meet Sister Mary. I was so impressed by her poise, dedication, vast knowledge and enormous compassion for others.

Sister Mary came to Kenya in 1969 from Ireland as a missionary from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, popularly known as the Loreto Sisters. After arriving in Kenya, she served as the principal of one of the country’s public schools before undergoing training as a psychologist. Once she became accredited with the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, she partnered with Father D’Agostino, who at the time was a psychiatrist and Jesuit priest in Kenya.

Together, they founded Nyumbani in 1992, which was the first hospice center for HIV-positive children in Kenya. In those days, the children who came to Nyumbani would only live to about 10 years old so the approach was mainly palliative care. Father D’Agnostino and Sister Mary organized special occasions for the children such as an airplane tour around Nairobi and a visit to Masai Mara because they wanted to give the children extraordinary treats.

But now Nyumbani’s approach is very different because of the arrival of antiretroviral drugs. Thankfully with these drugs, there’s no known limit to a HIV-positive child’s lifespan.

Nyumbani began administering antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in 1999 to one girl, and in 2000, more children were put on the drugs. But at the time, the drugs were incredibly expensive and Nyumbani relied on private donors to fund the much-needed drugs. In 2005, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which President Bush started, began supplying ARVs to Nyumbani for free, which has allowed for even more children to go on the drugs.

Sister Mary said the Nyumbani staff had to have an attitude change in order to properly care for these children who were now on life-saving drugs. Instead of looking at them as terminally ill or sick children, they had to look at them as children who have a life and can dream into the future.

But in order to have a future, the children needed education and getting that message across to the children was difficult and at times continues to be difficult. The children had this idea embedded in their minds that they weren’t going to live long so why bother studying hard or having high goals to reach. Therefore, Nyumbani’s main focus became education because in every country in the world—particularly a developing country—education is the gateway to self-reliance.

Sister Mary explained to the children earlier this year that Nyumbani—like any parent—can feed them, clothe them, provide shelter for them, look after them medically, and send them to school. But Nyumbani cannot learn for them. Only they can do that.

Currently, Nyumbani has 78 children enrolled in primary school, 9 enrolled in high school, and 1 enrolled in college and living independently on his own.

Unfortunately, the Nyumbani children still face a lot of discrimination. In the developing world and particularly Kenya, there is a strong taboo around sex. And since HIV is linked with sex here, there is a large stigma surrounding HIV. As a result of the stigma and discrimination, HIV-positive individuals carry an enormous amount of shame—so much so that parents often times will not bring their children to get tested for fear of a positive result. According to Sister Mary, most of the deaths in Nyumbani’s community-outreach Lea Toto program are newly enrolled children because their mothers brought them too late because they were too ashamed to come forward earlier. A child is just too malnourished or their CD4 count is too low and there’s nothing more the Nyumbani staff can do.

I told Sister Mary I was keeping a blog during my visit in Kenya, and I asked her what would be her message for the people back in the states reading my blog.

Her first message was that HIV is simply a medical condition, like diabetes or epilepsy or some orthopedic challenge. That’s it. It’s simply a medical challenge. It is her hope (and mine) that people can become more educated about HIV and realize that HIV-positive individuals are just like any other human beings. That way, the stigmas surrounding HIV/AIDS and the discrimination HIV-positive people face can be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

Her second message was to encourage others to have compassion for the orphans of our world. But not a compassion that just simply feels bad for these orphans but a compassion that is practical such as donations or adoptions. In Kenya alone, there are 1.6 million orphans, and by 2010 there is expected to be 30 million orphans in sub-Sahara Africa.

As we were finishing up our conversation, Sister Mary told me a story about a girl in Ethiopia who after fainting in school recently, told the teacher “I’m sorry I fainted. It wasn’t my day to eat.”

I haven’t been able to forget that story or get those words “It wasn’t my day to eat” out of mind. I don’t understand how we live in a world that allows a child to only eat every other day. I don’t understand how we can all sit comfortably in our homes and know that there are situations like that in our world. I don’t understand how we can watch the six o’clock news tell us about the Darfur genocide, the millions of children starving in the developing world, and the horrific effects of the HIV pandemic and go back to eating our dinner.

Giving to Nyumbani

2007-11-04T05:23:00.001-08:00

If you’d like more information about Nyumbani you can visit their website at http://www.nyumbani.org

If you’d like to contact Nyumbani, you can email them at info@nyumbani.org or angelo@nyumbani.org or call them at (254-20) 882429 or (254-20) 883731. To contact someone in the U.S., call (202) 342-8488.

If you’d like to make a contribution to Nyumbani, you can send a check or a donation to Children of God Relief Institute
P.O. Box 24970-00502 Nairobi, Kenya

Tax-deductible donations in the form of checks or money orders should be sent to:

Children of God Relief Fund, Inc.
c/o Kelley Drye Collier Shannon
3050 K Street, N.W., Suite 400
Washington, DC 20007-5108
USA

If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to Nyumbani with a credit card (Visa, Master Card, and American Express), use their secure server by following this link; https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/ChildrenofGodReliefFund/OnlineDonation.html

You can also support the Nyumbani children through the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area by designating #47471 on your CFC pledge form (www.cfcnca.org).

You can find Nyumbani’s wish lists for the Children’s Home, the Laboratory, the Lea Toto program and the Nyumbani village at http://www.nyumbani.org/help_donate.htm

It All Started With Father D’Ag

2007-11-04T04:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve been writing about Nyumbani for over a month now and have hardly mentioned the man who is responsible for creating all of Nyumbani, the first orphanage and hospice center for HIV-positive abandoned children in Kenya. And that man is Father Angelo D’Agostino.

Father D’Agostino (or Father D’Ag as many like to call him) was a physician, psychiatrist and Jesuit priest who fought tirelessly for HIV-positive children in Kenya. He died on November 20, 2006, of cardiac arrest following surgery after he was hospitalized for abdominal pain from diverticulitis.

Standing at about 5 feet tall, Father D’Ag (shown in several pictures below) was a fearless defender for “his” kids. What he lacked in height, he made up for in persistence, compassion and dedication.

He practiced and taught psychiatry in Washington during the 1970s and 1980s before getting called to Kenya. He witnessed first-hand the needs of HIV-positive abandoned children while serving on the board of governors for a large orphanage in Nairobi in 1991. When the orphanage began receiving large numbers of HIV-positive children, Father D’Ag suggested setting up a facility for them so they would have the needed medical infrastructure to care for them. The board refused, so Father D’Ag at 66 years old said “I’ll do it”.

On September 8, 1992, the doors opened at Nyumbani with three HIV-positive children.

But the challenges weren’t over. It was difficult to raise the needed funds to get off the ground because the general response he received was “they’re going to die anyway so why bother”. But that wasn’t Father D’Ag’s vision or his approach to life. He believed that a human life is precious even if they did die early and when life is there, it’s a life to be treasured.

In the early years of Nyumbani’s existence, the facility was very much a hospice center because the children had no access to antiretroviral drugs. But Father D’Ag, an American who knew how easy it was to get antiretroviral drugs back in his homeland, decided his children didn’t deserve to die anymore just because of national regulations and international drug patents. It wasn’t fair that the drugs had not been made available to the continent where they were most needed. So Father D’Ag decided to do something about it. In 2001, Nyumbani became the first place in Africa to import deeply discounted antiretroviral drugs under an Indian pharmaceutical company’s program to make the drugs more affordable.

I’ve been told by many people who knew him here in Kenya that he was someone you just couldn’t say no to because the things he asked of you were the things that would keep you awake at night if you said no—giving a dying child their last wish, putting a child on antiretroviral drugs, or giving a child enough to eat.

I’ve also been told he would back down to no one and when someone told him they wouldn’t help his children, he would not take no as an answer whether that be a U.S. congressman, wealthy international donors or even the Kenyan government. In 2004, he sued the Kenyan government for their policy on banning HIV-positive children from the free primary education system. After bringing all of “his” children to court in order to put a face with the children who were being denied an education, he won the suit allowing for more than 100,000 children throughout Kenya to finally be able to go to school.

The Jesuit priest also created one of the most advanced blood diagnostic laboratories in Kenya at Nyumbani so his children’s health could be monitored. Children with HIV need routine checkups so their CD4 count and viral loads can be taken. A child’s specific dose of antiretroviral drugs changes frequently during their childhood years because the drug make-up is based on their height and weight.

In addition to the orphanage which houses around 100 children at one time, Father D’Ag created in 1998 the Lea Toto program, which is a community-outreach program that provides services to HIV-positive children and their families in several of Kenya’s largest slums. Unable to cope with the increasing number of referrals for admission to his orphanage, he realized how great the need was for proper medical care for children with HIV in these slums. Today, about 2,000 HIV-positive children are enrolled in the Lea Toto program, which provides testing, counseling, nutritional support, antiretroviral drugs, medical care and proper training for caregivers.

And seven months before Father D’Ag died at 80 years old, he opened the Nyumbani Village, which is a self-sustaining community to serve the orphans and elderly left behind by the “lost generation” of the AIDS pandemic.

Aren’t impressed yet?

Father D’Ag, one of six children born to Italian immigrants in Providence, RI, received his undergraduate degree in chemistry and philosophy from St. Michael’s College in 1945, his medical degree from Tufts University in 1949, and a master of science degree in surgery from Tufts in 1953.

He served in the Air Force as chief of urology at Bolling Air Force Base from 1953 to 1955. He completed a psychiatric residency at Georgetown from 1959 to 1965 and received more extensive training at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute from 1962 to 1967.

Father D’Ag decided to enter the priesthood in 1954 and was later ordained in 1966. He taught psychiatry at Georgetown University and George Washington University and from 1983 to 1987 he worked in his private practice in the nation’s capital. Combining his two passions he founded the Center for Religion and Psychiatry at the Washington Theological Union.

Before permanently moving to Kenya, he helped manage refugee camps in Thailand and East Africa in the 1980s. But it was Kenya’s HIV-positive children that he was called to spend the rest of his life fighting for.

Susan Gold, the Fulbright scholar at Nyumbani who I’ve come to know very well, told me she feels sorry for people who didn’t get a chance to meet Father D’Ag.

I certainly wish I had.

"When A Crocodile Eats The Sun"

2007-11-03T23:40:00.001-07:00

I found this memoir a few weeks ago and decided to share it with you all. Not only is the writing beautiful, but it speaks the truth. The children that I've seen at Nyumbani Children's Home and in Kibera do live in constant proximity to death every day. The younger children don't necessarily understand what they have or why they're sick, but they do understand death. They understand that their friend who was with them last week, is now buried under the ground. But the older children understand the disease. They understand that unless they take their antiretroviral drugs every day, there's a big chance they will die some day. They understand that their parents and possibly their siblings died as a result of this virus and they could be next. So you can understand why maintaining the illusion of control is difficult in a world where children don't know if they'll have a tomorrow. They don't know if they'll have a future.

Would you feel in control of if you didn't know you were going to have a tomorrow or if you didn't have a future?

"I feel too that the gap between my new life in NY and the situation at home in Africa is stretching into a gulf, as Zimbabwe spirals downward into a violent dictatorship. My head bulges with the effort to contain both worlds. When I am back in NY Africa immediately seems fantastical, a wildly plumaged bird as exotic as it is unlikely.
Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.
In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With most Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.
Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That’s what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of its tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life’s alibi in the face of death.
For me the illusion of control is much easier to maintain in England or in America. In this temperate world, I feel more secure, as if change will only happen incrementally, in manageable, finely calibrated, bite size portions. There is a sense of continuity threaded through it all: the anchor of history, the tangible presence of antiquity, of buildings, of institutions. You live in the expectation of reaching old age.
At least you used to."

When A Crocodile Eats The Sun
A Memoir of Africa

Peter Godwin

Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance

2007-11-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Michael and I went to the Nyumbani Children’s Home at noon and rode the school bus to two public primary schools in Karen, which is a suburb of Nairobi. The Nyumbani staff brings lunch to the older children who stay for a full-day and pick up the children who only stay for a half-day.

First, we visited St. Mary’s Karen Primary School that had murals covering the outside walls of their school buildings. One read “AIDS KILLS PEOPLE DEAD”. Another read “Avoid Pornography”. And another read “DON’T HAVE SEX WITH A STRANGER.

Next, we visited Karen C Primary School. Painted in red, stripped across the main school building in big capital letters reads, “AIDS HAS NO CURE! AIDS KILLS!”

My jaw literally dropped. I couldn’t believe it. At a primary school where children as young as seven years old are going to school lies the definition of discrimination. A school is supposed to be a place for educating and for the truth. I’ve always thought that ignorance breeds from not being educated. I never thought that a school would breed ignorance.

I couldn’t believe that these children from Nyumbani who are HIV positive go to school everyday with “AIDS HAS NO CURE! AIDS KILLS!” greeting them. It’s horrible. It’s unfair. It’s ignorant. It’s disturbing.

These children have already faced so much stigma and discrimination in the Kenya school system. Before 2004, HIV positive children were not admitted to any public school and most private schools in Kenya. The Nyumbani children all went to an expensive private school in Karen that fortunately enrolled them. When President Kibaki came into power in 2003 in Kenya, primary school became free. However, public schools were still refusing to accept not only Nyumbani children but also all HIV positive children saying they “simply didn’t have any vacancies”. The founder and former director of Nyumbani, Father Angelo D’Agostino decided enough was enough and sued the Kenyan government for their policy on banning HIV positive children from the education system. Father D’Agostino won the case in 2004, which allowed for more than 100,000 children to finally be able to go to school.

But still almost four years later, the children still face an enormous stigma against them.

While AIDS does not have a cure, it doesn’t necessarily always kill anymore. Thanks to antiretroviral drugs, HIV positive individuals can live long, healthy and normal lives. Antiretrovirals (ARVs) are the drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS. They work by stopping HIV from replicating in the CD4 cells, which are the cells that are responsible for helping the body to fight off infections. ARVs reduce the amount of the virus in a patient’s bloodstream, allowing the CD4 cells to be replenished and restores immune function. ARVs have significantly cut down the AIDS death rates in many countries and has dramatically enhanced the quality of life for those lucky enough to be on these life-saving drugs.

Most of the Nyumbani children are on ARVs and therefore will live long healthy lives. But unfortunately until our world can become more accepting, they will still face enormous discrimination and in the immediate future they will still read “AIDS HAS NO CURE! AIDS KILLS!” everyday.

Plumpynut

2007-11-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

Not sure if everyone has heard about Plumpynut yet but I thought it deserved a blog post. My mother sent me this CBS News article last week and I was fascinated. CNN’s Anderson Cooper first reported this on 60 Minutes.

What is Plumpynut? Well, it might just be the thing that saves the millions of children suffering from malnutrition across the world. Created by Doctors Without Borders, Plumpynut is a cheap, ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched creation.

Malnutrition kills five million children annually, which is one child every six seconds. And malnutrition is most seen throughout the developing world. Children are deprived of the necessary vitamins and minerals because their parents are too poor to purchase milk and nutritious food. And people living on less than $1 a day can’t afford electricity and thus they can’t store anything because there is no refrigeration—not to mention no access to clean water.

However, Plumpynut can get around those hurdles.

Plumpynut is made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and lots of vitamins and minerals. And the best part—kids love it because it’s sweet and takes like peanut butter.

This life-saving concoction doesn’t need water, cooking or refrigeration. It simply needs to be squeezed out of its container and given to a severe malnourished child. Each serving of Plumpynut is the equivalent of a glass of milk and a multivitamin. And Plumpynut works pretty fast. A severely malnourished child that looks like they are on the brink of death can be cured in about three weeks.

Unfortunately, malnutrition and HIV usually run hand in hand. Malnutrition worsens a child’s HIV while at the same time a child’s HIV worsens their malnutrition. Nutrition is so critical for a child that is HIV positive but for millions of children in the developing world, it’s something that is unattainable or something that comes too late. You see when a child reaches a certain point in their malnutrition, it’s hard to turn back. Even if a child is getting nutritious food, there comes a point where a child will lose the ability to digest food properly because it’s just too late. However, Plumpynut might be the thing that gives these children a second chance.

It could have been the thing that gave Ken or Margaret a second chance.

Ken was abandoned by his family last year in Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital. Ken was not only HIV positive but severely malnourished—so malnourished that he wasn’t able to digest food properly. He was referred to Nyumbani and came to live there in January of this year. As much as the Nyumbani staff did everything possible to rehabilitate him—antiretroviral drugs, nutritious food, love and support—his system had just been too compromised. The effect over the years of malnourishment combined with his HIV positive status killed him. At 12 years old, he was 23 pounds when he died this past September.

Margaret came to Nyumbani sadly to die. She was 11 years old and only weighed 25 pounds. Both of her parents died after battling AIDS, and Margaret was left to be cared for by her two aunts. She lived with one of her aunts and spent the days with her other aunt. The aunt she lived with abused her. While the aunt she spent the days with didn’t abuse her, her uncle would not allow her to live in his house. Since neither of her aunts would commit to administering the antiretroviral drugs for Margaret, she could not go on the life-saving drugs. She came to Nyumbani abused, broken, near death and severely malnourished. Susan Gold, the woman who is a Fulbright scholar at Nyumbani, told me it was difficult for her to find a place on Margaret’s body where an injection could go in because she was mostly just skin and bones. The night before Margaret died, she looked at Susan and said “Everyone has left me”. And that was the last words she ever spoke. She died the next day.

Susan said she was so angry when Margaret died because Margaret's last words had so much truth to them.

“It’s like she's right. Her family left her, her country left her, and the world left her. Everyone left her and she’s an 11 year-old child! I will never understand that—how a world, a country and families will do that to a child. Where is President Kibaki and why is he not saying we don’t do that to our children, we take care of our own, this is not allowed, there is no reason for it. And it’s being done everyday and I will never understand that,” Susan said.

We’ll never know for sure but Plumpynut could have helped Ken and Margaret. Maybe not indefinitely but it may have given them another week, another month or another year.

Sister Mary, the director of Nyumbani, said she recently signed an agreement with Concern International, a non-governmental organization that aims to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Now, Nyumbani will have access to Plumpynut. Hopefully, it will benefit the many malnourished children the Nyumbani staff come into contact with in their many community-outreach programs in places like Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa.

Doctors Without Borders is asking for more of this type of food so they can save more children's lives. If the U.S. and the EU would spend some of their food aid on this, more companies would start making Plumpynut allowing more children to have access to this life-saving concoction.

To read more about Plumpynut, go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/60minutes/main3386661_page3.shtml

Barbed Wire Fence Is Not Something You Want to Be Pushed Up Against

2007-11-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

Since The Nation is hosting me while I’m here in Kenya and giving me a place to work, I’ve spent the last few days working from there. Yesterday (Thursday) I worked until 5 PM and Michael met me outside of The Nation’s building. We’ve been mostly taking city buses and matatus because we can’t afford to take cabs everywhere we need to go all the time. So we walked to the place where we catch the bus back to our apartment. Since it was 5 PM, everyone was on the streets trying to go home. It was insane how many people were maneuvering on the sidewalks to find their matatu or city bus number. Our bus is #46. The first couple 46 buses we came to were full so we started walking down the street towards oncoming traffic with the rest of the crowd searching for an empty bus. We were in a bit of a hurry because we were chasing the sun and had to be home before the sun set. It's not safe for us to be walking outside in the dark.

After some time, we came upon a 46 bus that had some open seats. There were about 10 people in front of us waiting to get on the bus. But since this wasn’t technically a place you get on the bus (traffic just wasn’t moving so conductors were allowing people to get onboard), a policeman made the bus driver move the bus up since traffic had started moving. So instead of turning around and calmly walking the few steps needed to catch up with the bus, the 10 people in front of us trampled me.

Not more than 10 minutes before this, I had taken my backpack off my pack and moved it to my front because since we were in such a huge crowd of people, I didn’t want to take a chance on someone unzipping my backpack without me knowing and stealing something. But if I had known I was going to be pushed into barbed wire, I would have kept my backpack on my back for protection!

As those 10 people were running towards the bus, they pushed me back into the barbed wire fence that conveniently lined the side of the road. The barbed wire tore into my back. I started screaming but it was no use. I continued to be smashed into the barbed wire. Finally once they all made it to the bus, I was released. I totally freaked out, primarily because of the instant extreme pain I was in but also because it was so frightening. I reached to my back and felt a tear in my shirt.

And I didn’t have to see the blood to know that my back was bleeding. I could feel the wetness on my back from the blood trickling down my skin. At that moment, the only place I really wanted to go was home (and not our apartment in Nairobi home but USA home). But I didn’t have that option.

We jumped into a cab and tried to get back to our apartment as quickly as possible but of course traffic was horrible. The stinging on my back and the pain wouldn’t stop. I was so unbelievably angry at those 10 people who trampled me, who heard me screaming, who saw my face, and who couldn’t be bothered to make sure I was okay because they would rather not miss their bus.

Once we got into our apartment and I took off my shirt, I freaked out again at the site of my back. But Michael was nice enough to nurse me up: cleaned the cut, put Neosporin on it and poured me a glass of Coke.

And then to put the icing on the cake, our Internet didn’t work for the rest of the night.

I think I'm going to take cabs from now on when I'm leaving The Nation at rush hour.

Hopefully today will be a better day.

All HIV is, is a virus

2007-10-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Michael and I spent Saturday at a life skills class for children enrolled in Nyumbani’s Lea Toto program in Kibera. Children of all ages come once a month to learn about HIV and receive support.

Usually, it’s conducted by Lea Toto staff like Daniel (pictured below) but today Susan Gold, a Fulbright scholar from the U.S., assisted in teaching the class.

Susan (pictured below) created a sexual education program for HIV positive children for her Fulbright scholarship and we were lucky to see her in action on Saturday.

Susan told the 15 HIV positive adolescents that all HIV is, is a virus. Having the virus doesn’t make you a bad person and anyone can get the virus. It has nothing to do with being a good or a bad person. It just means that when you have the virus, you have to take care of yourself and take medicine. She went on to explain that just because you have HIV does not mean you have AIDS.

A child asked Susan what she should say to her peers when they tease her and say mean things to her for her HIV status. Susan told the child that people say things because they’re afraid and people are afraid because they don’t know. People talk about HIV and AIDS in a bad way because they don’t know about it, Susan said. She told the child that when her peers tell her she has AIDS, she can correct them and say no I don’t and I won’t get AIDS because I take my medicine.

“So the more you can teach people about what you have then the less afraid they are because there is nothing scary about people who are HIV positive,” Susan said.

As I was sitting there listening to Susan teach, it occurred to me that I’ve been talking about HIV and AIDS in my blog for over a month now. But I’ve never actually given a definition of what HIV is. And Susan’s right, HIV is simply a virus. But because of stigmas surrounding the virus, it’s treated like a personal defect. And the fear surrounding HIV stems from people’s ignorance about the virus.

By definition, HIV is a virus that attacks certain cells of the immune system called the “helper T-cells” or CD4 cells, which are responsible for helping the body to fight off infections. HIV invades CD4 cells, reproducing within the infected cells, and then bursting into the bloodstream. The immune system responds by producing antibodies to fight the virus and making more CD4 cells to replenish those killed. But this immune response is ultimately ineffective. In the late stages of infection, HIV destroys increasing numbers of CD4 cells until the body’s capacity to fight other viruses and bacteria gradually begins to decline. Eventually, the immune system stops functioning, leaving the body defenseless against other infectious agents.

And by definition, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is the medical designation for a set of symptoms, opportunistic infections, and laboratory markers indicating that a person is in an advanced stage of HIV infections, with an impaired immune system. Although some people may develops AIDS much sooner, it takes an average of 10 years from the time one is infected with HIV to develop clinical AIDS. As immune functions begin to decline, the body becomes prone to certain opportunistic infections, which vary in different regions of the world, depending upon the locally predominant infectious agents. Thus, it is not AIDS that actually kills a person. It is the opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis (TB), that kills a person because their immune system is too weak to fight the infection off.

So HIV and AIDS are not the same thing. While HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, a person can live there entire life with HIV and never have AIDS due to antiretroviral drugs. So there is nothing scary about people who are HIV positive. I can kiss, hug, sit on the same toilet seat, drink out of the same cup, eat off of the same plate, and get coughed on by a HIV positive person and not get HIV.

Susan explained to the children the different modes of HIV transmission.
- Mother to Child Transmission (through the birthing process and through breast feeding)
- Sexual intercourse
- Sharing of sharp objects
- Blood transfusion

She also explained the importance of taking antiretroviral drugs and not missing a dose. She told the children that the medicine was their gun against the virus. The antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) allow for children to live long healthy lives, get married, have children and possibly not pass the virus on to their child. Currently in Kenya, 35% of HIV positive mothers pass the virus on to their child. But if a mother has been taking ARVs for a significant period of time, the chances of passing on the virus are small.

I wish more people could take the time to learn about HIV and AIDS and spend time with HIV positive people and realize there’s nothing scary about it. Throughout history, ignorance has stemmed most kinds of discrimination and stigmas. People are scared of the unknown. They make assumptions about what they don’t know and create walls. But if people tore through their ignorance, we would have a more accepting world to live in.

The Most Powerful Person in the World

2007-10-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates? George Bush? Donald Trump? The Pope?

Nope, an adolescent girl.

Here’s some information I received from the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, which was founded by the United Nations Foundation and The Nike Foundation.

An adolescent girl can be the most powerful person in the world. She’s the key to ending generations of poverty. As a young woman and mother, she will make the decisions that determine the health and education of her family. She will shape the economic potential of her family, community and nation.

There are now more than 500 million adolescent girls in the developing world.

Today, adolescent girls are at a crossroads. From here they can prosper by continuing their schooling, remaining free of HIV, increasing their family’s income, deciding when to marry and raising healthy, educated children. Or they can live in poverty by being forced to abandon their education, be exposed to unsafe sex and HIV, marry early to an older man, be unable to feed their families and not afford to school their children.

A large resource gap exists in the development landscape for adolescent girls. Currently, in many cases 80-90 percent of youth program participants are boys due to the daily challenges girls face. Girl-specific resources will make the difference. They will give her one more year of school. An extra year before she’s married. A year to learn a trade.

These opportunities not only improve an adolescent girl’s life, they put everyone—her brothers, her sisters, her children and grandchildren—on a path towards progress. They create healthy, educated and economically stable communities and nations.

A more prosperous future lies in the hands of one of the most powerful people in the world—an adolescent girl.

When girls are educated, healthy and financially literate, they will play a key role in ending generations of poverty.

Not too long ago I was an adolescent girl. And to think that at age 15 I was powerful seems ridiculous to me, but the more I think about it, I was powerful. I just didn’t realize it. I was powerful. I attended an all girls’ college preparatory school. I was smart. I was healthy. I knew I would go to college. I knew I would get a job. I knew when and how to say no to a man. And most of all, I wanted a future.

I look at adolescent girls here who have dropped out of school, who depend on men for financial security and who already are pregnant.

But I also look at adolescent girls here who tell me their dreams for the future—going to university, getting a job, getting married to a man who treats them well and loves them, and not passing on HIV to their children.

Rosealia is one of these adolescent girls who gives me hope.

Rosealia (pictured above) was born with a twin brother, Titus, to an HIV positive mother. Titus came first, Rosealia followed. After Titus was born, a lot of blood was left over, which infected Rosealia with HIV because it’s not sitting in the womb that causes the fetus to be infected with HIV. It’s the process of coming out of the mother’s vagina when the fetus can swallow or inhale some of the mother’s blood that causes the virus to be transmitted.

Today, Rosealia is positive but her brother, Titus, is HIV negative. Rosealia has been taking antiretroviral drugs for two years. Rosealia’s father died several years ago leaving her mother behind to care for her, Titus and her other siblings in Africa’s second largest slum, Kibera.

I noticed Rosealia before I even knew who she was. Michael and I were attending an adolescent training program for children enrolled in Nyumbani’s Lea Toto program in Kibera. The thirteen year-old kept raising her hand and confidently answering the questions correctly.

Her twin brother Titus is number one in their class. Rosealia is number two. Rosealia loves to read- especially Harry Potter, and she writes in her journal every night in English to improve her skills. Her hope is that one day she will become a dean of a university.

And then there’s Elizabeth, who lives at Nyumbani’s Children Home.

Elizabeth is 17 years old but looks like she’s no more than 10. Earlier this year, Elizabeth came very close to death. Her lifelong battle with HIV has permanently stunted her growth and put her behind in school.

She’s currently in sixth grade. She has a 15-year-old sister Joyce (pictured below in the middle) who is also HIV positive and lives at Nyumbani. But you would never guess that Elizabeth is older than Joyce.

But Elizabeth is one of the brightest young women I’ve met here. She dreams of going to university, becoming a manager of a large office, marrying for love and having several children.

You see, adolescent girls really do hold all the power. If they feel empowered enough to stay in school, practice safe sex, marry for love, earn their own income and learn how to raise their children so that they won’t become infected with HIV, then change would begin. A more prosperous future would not only unravel for that one adolescent girl but for her family, her friends who watch her lead by example and her own children.

Back in the USA- well not really but kind of

2007-10-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Today we visited the U.S. embassy. The embassy called a town hall meeting for all U.S. citizens living in Kenya to discuss foreign policy, terrorism and security concerns. After the 1998 bombing of the former U.S. embassy in the city centre of Nairobi, the embassy was moved to the outskirts of the city. The embassy sits on a huge compound back far from the road. I’m assuming this is to prevent another roadside bombing because that is how the former bombing occurred. While we have been around a few Americans since being here, it was a special treat to be around so many- even though they were complete strangers. And technically when you’re at the embassy, you’re on U.S. soil. Security is really tight here understandably so we had to wait in several lines to get through security checkpoints.

And even though I was technically on U.S. soil, I couldn't help feel a bit nervous because it was just earlier this year that two women were killed while leaving the embassy. They were the wife and the mother-in-law of one of the staff members. They were driving in an embassy vehicle on the highway back towards Nairobi. Their vehicle was carjacked. When the two women hesitated after being ordered to get out of the car, both were shot dead.

Once inside the embassy grounds, the meeting started. We were first greeted by the U.S. ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, and then later heard from a few security directors. As I’ve mentioned before, Kenya will be having a presidential election in December (actually the election date was just announced today for December 27th). Security concerns arise around election time here because there is almost always political violence. But Ambassador Ranneberger did reassure us that no matter if Kenya's current president, Mwai Kibaki, gets reelected or candidates Raila Odinga or Kalonza Musyoka get elected, American foreign policy towards Kenya should remain the same. And that Kibaki, Odinga, and Musyoka are all friends of the U.S. Some U.S. citizens raised concerns over the continued problem of Kenyan police demanding bribes at routine checkpoints. The ambassador reported that unfortunately there was little the embassy could do about that and it was unlikely it would be eliminated soon.

Here’s a few numbers about funding I learned while at the embassy:
* $500 million will be given to Kenya in 2008 through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) making Kenya the second largest PEPFAR recipient.
* $20 million will be given to Kenya in 2008 through the President’s Malaria Initiative.
* Despite the U.S. travel warning still in place for Kenya, American tourism to Kenya is booming. By the end of 2007, 100,000 American will have visited Kenya. Only the U.K. sends more of its citizens to Kenya than the U.S.
* And $1.5 billion comes from the U.S. (through official government donations, non-profits, private donors, etc.), which accounts for 16% of Kenya’s gross domestic product.

No matter what your political beliefs are- Republican or Democrat- the numbers don’t lie. The U.S. is making a difference in Kenya, particularly PEPFAR. It’s one thing to be in the states and read in a newspaper that PEPFAR is sending $500 million to Kenya to pay for antiretroviral drugs for HIV positive children. And it’s a totally different thing to see with your own two eyes the children that are benefiting from these drugs, that without PEPFAR’s funds wouldn’t be having another Christmas or living into their adolescent years or possibly even having a tomorrow. Seeing the beneficiaries of this money makes me proud to be an American.

Hope in Kibera

2007-10-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

I must admit that when we headed out for Kibera Thursday morning, I was a bit reluctant. Tuesday was so draining and depressing and I didn’t know if I was up for it again. We met an American woman named Andrea (pictured sitting next to me) who I was put into contact with through an organization based in Franklin, Tenn. called African Leadership. Andrea started coming to Kibera several years ago to volunteer and do mission work. It was through her work at Kibera that she met her husband who is a Kenyan man. Now Andrea is expecting her first child and works in Kibera a few days a week.

We met Andrea for a quick cup of coffee at a coffee shop called Dormans in the YaYa Center near our apartment. From there, we took a matatu into Kibera. Our first stop was a preschool named Jamii. You would have thought Michael and I were Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. The children totally freaked out, screaming, running to us trying to grab our hand. One little girl named Anna wouldn’t let go of my hand the entire time we were inside.

Our second stop was Little Rock preschool. This preschool was started by two Kenyan women, Christine (pictured below) and Lilly.

Most preschools in Kibera charge between 500-1000 shillings per month per child, which is the equivalent of U.S. $8-$16. That may not seem a lot to many of you, but trust me to the 1 million people struggling to survive in Kibera, it’s everything. When you have to come up with money to pay to use the toilet every time you need to do your business, when you need to come up with money to get a jug of water or buy some food or pay rent, there might not be 500 shillings to spare to send your toddler to preschool.

Lilly and Christine saw the enormous need for affordable preschool education in Kibera. So in 2003, they opened Little Rock Preschool only charging each child 100 shillings per month, which is about U.S. $1.50.

Four years later, Little Rock has 150 children enrolled in their preschool and it’s still growing. In a country where there is no Disability Act, children with disabilities often get shunned. Their parents don’t know how to care for them, the schools won’t accept them, and they get left behind. But Little Rock opens its doors to children with down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Deaf children also face similar obstacles in poverty stricken areas because their parents don’t know sign language. Several years ago, Little Rock opened a special deaf unit where three trained teachers (one pictured below) lead the program.

On Thursday, the children at Little Rock Preschool were practicing their Christmas performance and graduation ceremony, which will be performed on November 30th. They sang Christmas carols, acted out a play, and practiced getting their diplomas. I was smiling from ear to ear.

After the practice, Christine took us to the Little Rock Library. She explained that when children graduate from Little Rock and move on to primary school, some children can’t afford to buy their own books. While primary school is free in Kenya, children have to purchase uniforms and books- an expense that some families just can’t afford.

So Little Rock purchased several textbooks plus additional story books for Little Rock alumni to use in the library after school in order to do their homework. They’ve also organized a Football League (American soccer) for the boys to play in three days a week.

While what I saw on Thursday doesn’t erase what I saw on Tuesday, it does give me hope. It gives me hope to see the smiles on the children’s faces, the children’s eagerness to learn and most importantly it gives me hope to find good people like Christine and Lilly who haven’t given up on these children, who still believe that children in Kibera deserve an education, and that they can have a bright future ahead of them. At least, that’s my hope.

Kibera

2007-10-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting here in front of the computer screen for 30 minutes now trying to figure out how to explain what I saw yesterday. It's not just a case of writer's block. it's more than that. It's disbelief, it's shock, and it's a feeling of complete helplessness. The one question that keeps repeating itself in my head is How is this possible? How can people truly live like this and the government not do anything to help?

Trash is everywhere- pounded into the dirt, lying next to vegetable and fruit stands, piling up near the railroad tracks, burning into the air leaving an odor you can never forget. Mud and dirt line the streets. Flies swarm everywhere you turn. And the smell of flying toilets and trash truly tests your gag reflexes.

I've been on mission trips before to poor parts of the U.S. and poor parts of other countries. But I've never seen something like this. It looks like it should be scenes leftover from a natural disaster.

The only difference is there is no clean up teams in place. This is how it is all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Michael and I took a matatu to Kibera today. We got off a few blocks early and had to walk to Nyumbani's clinic. As a white American (especially a white American female) Kibera is not a place you want to be walking alone during the day or night. I tried to keep my cool as hundreds of eyes glued to Michael and I as we were trying to find our way. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

We arrived at Nyumbani's clinic in Kibera around 10 AM and we set out to follow a social worker, Sister Joyce, around to several home visits. Our first stop was to visit a 14 year-old girl who tested positive for HIV when she was born and now at age 14, it has escalated into full blown AIDS. Sara enrolled in the Nyumbani Lea Toto program just a few months ago. She started taking antiretroviral drugs two months ago- the same time she had to stop going to school because she was too weak. Just two weeks ago, she was admitted into a nearby hospital because she had TB and pneumonia. While in the hospital, her spirits dropped and she became very depressed. Once she regained enough strength, she came back home where she is cared for by her 16 year-old aunt pictured below. Sara's parents and siblings have all died from AIDS.

When we walked into Sara's house, I couldn't believe my eyes. Sara weighed 50 pounds. Her legs were smaller than the width of my wrist. She was completely skin and bones.

I've been in hospitals and nursing homes before but I've never seen someone look as sick as this child did. While she's taking ARVs, the likelihood that they will raise her CD4 count enough so she won't have full blown AIDS and instead just have HIV is not very high. It's just not fair. She was born with this horrible disease, the rest of her family has died from horrible disease, and now a teenager just two years older than her is responsible for her care. Sara told us how her favorite subject in school was science and that she wanted to become a doctor and she couldn't wait to get better and go back to school. Sadly, Sara may never get to go back.

What we've been learning is that the subordination of women in Kenya fuels the HIV epidemic. Take Kathy's story for example. Kathy is a 20 year-old HIV positive woman that we visited yesterday.

Kathy is from a city called Kismu. She is the oldest of her four siblings- all of which are boys. Both of her parents died from natural causes when Kathy was 16 leaving her in charge of her 4 brothers. Kathy decided that she should marry so she could provide some economic stability for herself and her brothers. Kathy married a man who did not disclose to her that he was HIV positive. She did not learn that her husband was HIV positive until she learned of her own positive status when she was giving birth to her first child. Her husband moved the family to Nairobi so he could find work but was unsuccessful. Now Kathy lives in a one bedroom shack in Kibera with her 4 brothers, her HIV positive husband and her 2 HIV positive children. Kathy is the only family member who makes any kind of income. Her husband got frustrated at the difficulty of finding work and the realities of Kibera and has turned to drinking. This is a problem all too common. People move from the rural areas to find work in the urban areas only to find out that unemployment is high and Kibera is worse than where they came from.

Unfortunately women often suffer the most from HIV/AIDS. Women have no voice in the bedroom here in Kenya. They don't have a choice of whether or not they want to have sex or whether they want to use a condom. Women have to depend economically on men. Women still do not have equal rights to men. And women are the ones who usually care for those family members who become hill from HIV/AIDS.

I'm realizing more and more how complex HIV/AIDS is. Until some of the many structural inequalities- subordination of women and the huge percentage of poverty- surrounding HIV/AIDS in the developing world begin to change, HIV/AIDS will never be combated.

After completing the home visits, we spent some time in Nyumbani's daycare that specializes in nutritional rehabilitation for HIV positive children. Michael and I were there around lunch time and got to feed several infants. The children are admitted here until they regain their strength and can stay at home with their parents.

I asked Sister Joyce if there was ever a way out of Kibera. She said sadly for most people there isn't a way. It's difficult to find jobs. Men will walk two hours to the Industrial Area in Nairobi to find a day labor job that won't pay more than 100-200 shillings a day which is about $3 per day. Women can find odd jobs like cutting firewood, washing clothes, or walking 10-15 minutes to get water for others. These jobs only pay about 100 shillings which is about $1.50 per day. A typical one bedroom house in Kibera costs 500 shillings a month. To fill up a jug of water costs 5 shillings; however the water is still unsafe to drink so you have to boil the water first before drinking. And to use a toilet costs 3-5 shillings per use. And on top of all that, the government only provides a few free primary education schools, which are already too full leaving parents no choice but to send their children to private more expensive schools if they want their child to be educated.

As Michael and I walked out of Kibera to catch a matatu to go back towards our apartment, we were both speechless. We were both completely drained because seeing everything we saw is exhausting. In a way I miss my ignorance. I'll never be able to forget the mass poverty I saw, Sara's face, and the all encompassing smell of Kibera.

A Safari Adventure

2007-10-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

I never really understood what the big deal was about going on a safari to see animals because you can see most of the same animals in really good zoos in the U.S. But now I get it. There’s nothing better than seeing so many animals in their natural habitat. It’s beauty at its best.

We left Nairobi on Monday for our first destination: Amboseli National Reserve. But we had a few hick-ups while trying to get out of the city. We went to a shopping centre nearby our apartment so I could withdraw money from Barclays Bank, which is a partner of Bank of America. I withdrew money but the ATM gave me no money and my balance showed that the money had been withdrawn. This particular branch of Barclays could not help non-Barclays customers so we had to go to another location across the city so I could talk to someone up in card services.

In the end, nothing was resolved and I had to wait till later that day when I could call Bank of America in the states. After a few hours delay, we took off in our safari vehicle, which looks like a matatu just with an extendable roof. Muthoga, our friend who picked us up from the airport, was our safari guide. And we also had a driver and a cook.

We arrived in Amboseli National Reserve in time for an evening game drive. Game drives are usually best in the early morning or in the late afternoon before dusk hits.

That’s because most animals hunt at night when it’s cooler and find shade to sleep under during the day to escape the heat.

As we were driving into the park, about 10 giraffes galloped right in front of our van across the road. Right at that moment, I knew why safaris were better than any visit to the zoo.

In addition to the giraffes, we saw elephants, zebras, gazelles, warthogs, wildebeests, a cheetah, buffalo and ostriches. Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain in Africa, serves as a spectacular backdrop for the Amboseli National Reserve. The landscape at Amboseli provides limited cover for wildlife, which allows safaris with greater access to seeing more animals. This park was extremely dry and there was very little grass at all.

After the game drive, we arrived at our campsite and set up our tents. The night sky was absolutely breathtaking.

I heard that the sky seemed bigger in Africa and now I understand. The sky is so vast and once you get away from the city, the sky is speckled with more stars than you’ve ever seen.

Tuesday was spent in Amboseli again. We woke up at 6 AM for a morning game drive. We climbed out of our tent just in time to see a beautiful sunrise.

We saw most of all the animals we’d seen the night before but we also got to see 2 lions- a male and a female- sitting together. Muthoga, our safari guide, told us that meant that they were mating because males and females don’t usually sit together because the female is away hunting with other females.

Females hunt because males have large manes and can easily been seen by predators. Lions mate for one week and during that week, they only drink water but don’t bother eating. That’s why we knew they were mating because if they weren’t, the female would have been out finding food.

Young male lions are ousted from their pride at the age of two or three when they are forced to be nomadic until around five years old when they are able to take over their own pride.

After the game drive, we walked to a nearby Masai Village. The Masai are one of the 70 tribes in Kenya. For a Masai person, their whole life is revolved around the cow.

Their houses are made from a mixture of cow dung and mud and their mattress/blanket is made from cow skin. Cow’s blood and milk are the mainstay of the Masai diet. They also drink mursik, which is made from cow’s milk fermented with cow’s urine and ashes. And lastly, on occasion for a delicacy, they eat the cow’s meat. The Masai people at this particular village greeted us with a welcome dance.

I noticed that both the men and women had gigantic holes in their ear lobes.

It was explained to me that when they are young, a sword cuts a huge hole in the ear lobe and the hole is plugged with a stick so it doesn’t grow back. We stepped inside a Masai house and visited the village’s medicine man. He had a spread of different tree barks that are used to cure and prevent several diseases and pains.

For instance, he explained that the Masai do not believe that malaria is caused by an infected mosquito biting a human. Instead, the mosquito deposits its eggs into the water- the same water that the Masai drink. Thus to cure malaria, the medicine man will boil pieces of a certain tree bark and tell the sick person to drink it three times per week. They had other remedies for back pain, pregnant women and headaches. We watched two Masai men make a fire from two sticks.

Next, we visited the village’s store which was simply each family in the village forming a giant circle with their crafts displayed. We were bombarded to say the least to buy something. I picked out two bracelets and a necklace. I asked how much and John, the Masai man who was taking us around, told us that we would negotiate after we finished the store visit.

From there we were escorted to sit underneath this tree in the middle of their village and began negotiating with several Masai men. At first they wanted US$70, which I said thanks, but no thanks to. They ended up settling for US$4 for the two bracelets. Later that afternoon, we went on another game drive where we saw elephants swimming in the marshy area to cool off from the sun’s fierce heat.

Wednesday morning started out poopy- both literally and metaphorically. We were told to keep our belongings inside the van at night so I woke up, got out of the tent, and walked to the van to get a change of clothes. I returned to the tent to change and as I was leaning down to climb in, I felt a plop on my back. I assumed it was nothing, climbed in and began changing clothes. But then I smelled this foul odor. I looked down and there was a pile of poop on my shirt. A monkey had pooped on me. A vervet monkey in fact.

But it gets better, there were between 20-30 monkeys surrounding our campsite since they learn where easy pickings can be found around campsites and lodges. And they were pooping all over the place. Someone would walk by and down comes a pile of poop landing very close to them. It was almost as if they were purposefully trying to poop on us. Who knows….maybe they were. We left Amboseli reserve after breakfast and started the all day journey to Masai Mara National Reserve.

It took about 12 hours to get there traveling through the Great Rift Valley. I know I had previously posted on my blog that a road I took to get to Kitui (where the Nyumbani Village is) was the worst road I’ve ever been on but I take it back. The road to Masai Mara is by far the worst road and anyone that has experienced that road to Mara, I have no doubt would agree.

Most of the road wasn’t paved, potholes covered the road, dust was flying everywhere and construction signs were constantly rerouting you different directions. Our guide, Muthoga, explained that the decision to keep the road to Mara so terrible was political because the hope was that if the road was so bad, people will pay to fly to Masai Mara and then still have to pay for a driver to drive to Mara and drive you around the park. Apparently, construction has started to repair the roads. Time will tell. But after that hellish ride, I was exhausted both mentally and physically. Thankfully, we got a treat: a permanent tent with two twin beds! It was amazing not to mention the hot shower.

Thursday was spent all day in Masai Mara National Reserve, which is by far the most visited national park or reserve in Kenya.

It’s much more fertile than Amboseli providing more vegetation for the herbivores and thus more potential kills for the carnivores.

We saw zebra, wildebeest, elephants, warthogs, giraffes, bushbacks, eland antelopes, waterbucks, buffaloes, topies, Kirk’s dik-diks, impalas and gazelles.

I thought the impalas and the waterbucks were so graceful and beautiful. We visited the Mara River where we saw crockadiles and tons of hippos. I learned that a hippo can stay underwater for 10 minutes without taking a breath and at a weight of 1000-2000 kilograms, they are the second largest mammal after elephants.

Down by the river, we saw hundreds of dead rotting wildebeests. Our guide explained that each year during the migration they try to cross the river but end up getting killed by the crocodiles and wash up on the shore. The smell is something you will never forget.

Later, we saw a cheetah resting under a tree but couldn’t convince him to get up and run for us!

But thankfully we were lucky and saw lots of lions. We found a pack of about 10 lions (a mix of lionesses and their cubs) under a tree near a river. One of the lionesses and her cub were feasting on a wildebeest.

We were go close we could see the huge teeth crunching down on the flesh. We could hear skin being torn off, the bones crackling, and the muscle being pulled away from the bone.

It was a remarkable sight to see! Later that night after a delicious traditional African meal, I joined an American couple for a bottle of wine around a campfire. They were currently living in Yemen because Stewart, the husband, had been contracted to repair Yemen’s water pipes. His wife, Stephanie, was a fascinating person and had so many stories to tell me of the different places she’s lived in her life due to her husband’s traveling job.

Friday, we got up and drove to Lake Naivasha. Our campsite, Fish Eagle Inn, definitely had that friendly backpacker’s feeling to it- where people bring up casual conversation in the bathroom or wander over to neighboring campsites to say hello. That night our cook talked to us about how poverty was such a problem in Kenya. He complained how the price of a loaf of bread and the price of wheat flour had recently gone up and now times were harder for his family. I know that as a journalist I’m never going to make the big bucks but I’m almost certain that a loaf of bread going up in price would not affect me. But to some people here- well actually most people here- it’s everything.

Saturday, we woke up early, rented bikes, and rode to Hell’s Gate National Park. This is the only national park in Kenya where you can walk or cycle unguided across its breadth.

There’s something so fascinating about biking past zebras, buffalos, warthogs, gazelles and eland antelopes. A picture of the scenery here doesn’t do it justice.

Looming cliffs stand high throughout the park in between the stretches of savannah grasses. Farther into the park, lies a natural hot springs and several waterfalls. At certain places, the water is boiling.

The steam from this hot water makes electricity at the nearby power plant, which provides electricity to 30% of Kenya’s population.

Later that afternoon, we drove to Lake Nakuru- home to millions and millions of mosquitoes. They’re attracted to the salty lake. By the time we arrived at the guest house we were staying in, I was a little under the weather due to my allergies acting up over the dust and all the grass I’ve been near this past week. So I curled up under my mosquito net and went to bed early.

Sunday morning we headed out for our last game drive through Lake Nakuru National Park.

This park is home to 1 million flamingos that surround the lakeshore. It’s a pretty unbelievable sight. The flamingoes flock here for the lake’s green algae, which is actually what turns them pink. In addition to the flamingos, we saw zebra, baboons, impalas, buffalos, giraffes, pelicans, a hyena and a white rhino.

Seeing a white rhino was a special treat because they are native only to South Africa. A few have been brought to East Africa but it’s very rare to see one.

The difference between the white and black rhino has actually nothing to do with their skin color. The difference is only their overall size and the size of their mouth, which the white rhino is larger in both aspects. Later around 10AM we headed back to Nairobi to mark the end of our safari.

It was an adventure and definitely a week I’ll never forget. And I’m thankful for the chance that we got to see other parts of Kenya other than Nairobi.

Sustainability is the Answer

2007-10-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

While we were waiting to get our ride to Kitui, we toured the Nyumbani Diagnostic Laboratory. The lab was opened in 1999 and was one of the first labs in Kenya to not only test for HIV but also continue to monitor a positive patient’s health progress. The lab has the capability to test for HIV, TB, malaria, typhoid and other infectious diseases. The technicians are also able to perform CD4 counts, viral loads and PCR-RNA tests.

But the lab doesn’t just provide its services to the children at the Nyumbani orphanage but also the children in the Lea Toto program, the local community in Nairobi and several labs and hospitals throughout Kenya. In one month, the lab runs about 500 tests.

As 4 PM rolled around, it was time to get in the car for what ended up being one long and bumpy ride. We were on our way to visit the Nyumbani Village in Kitui, Kenya, which is supposed to be about a 3 hour-drive. That is if you don’t sit in 3 hours of traffic in Nairobi alone and if there isn’t construction on the road re-routing you to a different road for part of the way. Thank goodness I remembered to take Dramamine or I would have vomited anywhere and everywhere. This was hands down the worst road I’ve ever been on if you could even call it a road. It’s not paved, there are no signs, lights, lanes, nothing. It’s making my dizzy even writing about it now.

Four hours later, we stopped at the half-way mark and got dinner where I tried a traditional Kenyan dish called jipati. It’s wheat flour that has been fried in a skillet and resembles flat pita bread. Then before long, it was back in the car for another four hours of bumps and jerks. At long last we arrived in the village close to midnight. We were greeted by a volunteer named Ed who showed us to our rooms.

The Nyumbani Village in Kitui is Nyumbani’s response to the rising number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. It is projected that by 2010, the orphan population in sub-Saharan Africa will be 30-35 million, of which more than 7 million will be desperately destitute. There is also a rising problem with the number of elders left behind with no one to take care of them. Thus, the hope is that the Nyumbani Village will be a self-sustaining community to serve orphans and elders who have been left behind by the “lost generation” of the AIDS epidemic.

“The whole concept of children without parents and grandparents without parents is a beautiful concept. It makes a family,” said Don, who is a 77-year-old volunteer from Michigan.

The Nyumbani Village, which is the first sustainable and planned response to the catastrophe in Kenya and one of only a few in all of Africa, aims to house 1,000 orphans and 250 elderly grandparents and form new blended families that foster healing, hope and opportunity. The children and grandparents will sustain themselves through agriculture, poultry, dairy projects as well as handcrafts and external services.

Vocational opportunity in the form of training, tools and start-up financing for trades, cottage industry and agricultural endeavors will be provided with the goal of self-sustaining independence, financial security and stability for residents, particularly maturing young people. The Nyumbani Village is truly impacting the far-reaching socio-economic ramifications of the disease. The four main concepts surrounding the village are care and development of orphans, sustainability, environmental respect and poverty reduction.

Sound too good to be true?

Well it's not. It's not only true but has the opportunity to become a model community for other villages not only in Kenya but all across sub-Saharan Africa. The Kenya government and the U.S. government are watching the village closely to evaluate its success.

The Kenya government donated the 1,000 acre site to Nyumbani. The construction of the village was funded by the Vatican from an AIDS children stamp sale.

The school was funded by Jeremy Hunt, a member of parliament in the U.K. And until the village is sustainable, the village is supported by USAID. Nicholas is the mastermind behind the village’s concept and is now the director of the growing community.

The village consists of cottages for the families, staff workers and volunteers; a community center; administrative offices; nursery and primary school; medical clinic; and recreational park and game fields. Each family receives a half-acre of land and access to water. Everything is built on site: bricks, cement, window panels, etc.

A comprehensive water system allows for soil to be rich and fertile in what is a dry and arid region. Crops are watered by a drip irrigation system that is pumped from boreholes, shallow wells and sand-dams. Drinking and cooking water are pumped in from Kitui town by the Kenyan government. Four main organic farms grow vegetables, fruits and beans.

Dairy farming provides the village with milk, several chicken coups provide the village with eggs, and goat farming provides the village with meat. There are no toilets but instead pit latrines that store urine and feces until the village's sanitation team retrieves the waste and transports it to a composting center. The composting center takes cow dung, goat droppings, small branches and human feces and turns it into compost and fertilizer.

The village also grows plants consisting of beans which bio-fuel can be extracted from as well as plants that insect repellent and perfume oils can be extracted from. Over the years, both of these plants can be sold creating revenue for the village.

There is no electricity yet at the village although there are plans to incorporate soon. Three main generators serve the village. The first powers the computers in the administrative office and school.

The second powers the word-working machines in the polytechnic school. And the third works with solar panels to pump water from the boreholes, shallow wells, and sand-dams to the village.

Nyumbani places a special emphasis on education not just in the village but in the children’s home and in the outreach programs in the slums. This is incredibly important because in a developing country like Kenya, education is the gateway to self-reliance.

In addition to the nursery and primary school, the village offers a Polytechnic school, which is a technical school where many people will learn the skills that give them the independence to be sustainable.

The technical school offers training in dairy and fruit, honey and medicinal processing; woodworking; macramé and textiles, carving and leather work; metal work and auto garage. In addition grandparents are constantly weaving baskets with beautiful prints that are sold in town.

Michael and I will be spending another 3 days there later in our trip after which I will share with you more information about the amazing people who lead the village as well as the people who are benefiting from this incredible concept of sustainability.

We headed out for Nariobi at 2 PM and thankfully took a different route that was much smoother. We stopped at a small market and I tried sugarcane for the first time! We returned to Nairobi safely and celebrated Michael’s birthday with a yummy Lebanese dinner at a nearby restaurant. This weekend we’ve been relaxing and preparing for our 7-day safari that starts Monday morning. So this will be my last blog post for a week but I’ll be sure to update you all on my safari adventure as soon as we return.

A Day I Will Never Forget

2007-10-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, Michael and I started our day off by meeting Protus, Nyumbani's chief manager, at the Nyumbani Children's Home which is in a suburb of Nairobi called Karen.

I've been told that Karen is one of the wealthiest parts of Kenya. Lots of Europeans vacation in nice homes in Karen and for a minute you can forget about the vast poverty surrounding you throughout the country. We were meeting Protus because he was supposed to give us a ride into Kibera so we could meet Paul Mulongo, who runs the Nyumbani Clinic and Day Care in Kibera.

Kibera is the largest slum in Kenya and the second largest slum in Africa. The Nyumbani clinic and day care in Kibera is part of Nyumbani's Lea Toto Program, which is a community outreach program that serves over 2,000 HIV positive children and their families. In addition to Kibera, Nyumbani has clinics in 5 other slums in Nairobi. Lea Toto is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It receives food from the World Food Program and the food is distributed to the families Lea Toto serves.

As we turned off a main street, Protus told Michael and I we were very close to Kibera and sure enough in a snap of a finger we were there. No joke- the difference between where we had been not more than 45 seconds ago and where we were now was the difference between night and day.

However we didn't get to see much of the area then because we pulled up to the Lea Toto clinic and immediately went inside where we got a briefing of the Lea Toto program. Paul and his assistant Daniel explained to us the ins and outs of their growing program in Kibera which works with 400 HIV positive children.

They offer voluntary counseling and testing. Any adult who is found to be HIV positive is referred to the nearest health institution or NGO where they can be assisted, while HIV positive children are enrolled in the program. As part of the program, Lea Toto children have access to a day care where sick children can come and get nutritional support until they are healthier.

They also have access to additional medical services, nutritional services (such as WFP food rations), home visits and nursing care. Antiretrovirals are given to needy children and currently 700 of the Lea Toto children are taking ARVs. Serious cases are referred to the Nyumbani Hospice at the orphanage in Karen, which acts as an intensive care unit where children who are HIV positive receive specialized medical attention. Lea Toto also provides support groups to help caregivers be empowered on how to disclose to their children that they are HIV positive. These support groups also provide skill training on how to offer home-based care to their children and education on the virus and the correct usage of antiretroviral drugs.

In an effort to promote sustainability, Lea Toto provides training for caregivers on income generating activities linking families to credit and loan facilities as well as supporting the initiation of small scale businesses. Lastly, Lea Toto offers training programs for HIV positive children (the older ones) on how to live with HIV and recreational therapy aimed at bonding the children together.

After the briefing was finished, Sister Joyce, who is a social worker that makes daily home visits, took us to meet a few people at their homes. As we left the Nyumbani clinic, the reality began to set in. The smell of Kibera greets you quicker than the thousands eyes gazing at the lone white person in the forgotten village. The poverty is so vast it's hard to fully get your mind around it.

The smell of trash, feces, and extreme body odor overtakes you. The densely populated slum is covered with squalid mud huts. One million people live in Kibera, which is the same size as New York City's Central Park, about 1.5 square miles. And at one million people (which is one third of Nariobi's population), the population in Kibera is 30 times that of New York City.

It's as if the world has ended and this is what is left over.

The ground is covered with trash. In certain areas, the ground resembles a landfill.

The Kenyan government does nothing about it. It provides no water, no sanitation, no toilets, no medical clinics or hospitals, no roads and no schools. There is no running water in Kibera. Instead private dealers pipe in water and charge double what people pay for the same service outside the slum. And no running water means two things. One, people have to walk 10-20 minutes to purchase water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Two, people have no toilets. There are public toilets people can use but are required to pay 5-10 shillings each time they need to use the restroom.

This leaves many people with no choice but to use "flying toilets" which simply means doing your business in one of the thousands upon thousands shredded plastic bags and leaving them outside their doors adding to the mountains of trash and filth and mud.

The first place we visited was a Christian day care run by a middle-aged woman named Martha. She takes care of 16 children- 8 of who are orphans and several who are HIV positive.

Martha uses her rented 15 x 15 feet shack as an office, kitchen, bedroom, classroom, and orphanage.

I couldn’t believe my eyes- 17 people crammed in this one little room. But what touched me most is realizing that most of these very young children don’t know any better.

They don’t realize that there is a better life out there- one where you’re not living in a house made with a mud floor and iron sheet walls supported by sticks. Where you don’t have to walk 15 minutes to get drinking water while dodging mud-soaked trash piles and fly-infested feces on the way. Where your chances of becoming infected with HIV when you grow or even when you're born are not astronomically high.

The next place we visited was a home to a family of six. We met the parents, Alise and Moses, who welcomed us into their house. I couldn’t help assuming that this was one of the better homes in Kibera.

Inside, there were two twin beds, a couch, an makeshift entertainment center with a television. Alise and Moses met and were married in the Nyanza province. Moses was trained as a mechanic and came to Nariobi to find work bringing his family along. Moses and Alise are both HIV positive as well as 2 out of 4 of their children. Both of the children are enrolled in the Lea Toto program and have started taking ARVs. Both Moses and Alise are also taking ARVs but Moses is very weak and thus has not been able to work.

All of their four children are girls- something that in African culture is seen as a curse. And if a woman cannot produce a boy for her husband, she is often times abandoned. “Most people will say if you can’t get a boy with this lady, throw her away,” Moses said. “But she’s a good wife. She’s very kind. If she’s not kind, she goes away.”

After leaving their home, we walked back to the Lea Toto clinic. We had to leave early to catch our ride to go to a rural village in Kitui, Kenya three hours from Nairobi.

As we drove away, I was overtaken by guilt because I was getting to leave, because I had a way to get out, because I was eventually going back to an apartment that had electricity, running water, wireless internet, enough food for a week, and money still in my pocket.

Seeing Kibera was by far the most humbling sight I’ve ever witnessed and it made me respect people like Paul and Daniel who witness it day in and day out. I asked them both does it ever get to be too much? Do you feel like your work ever is in vain or that you’re working at a problem that will never be solved in our lifetime?

“It’s not easy for someone to commit themselves to this kind of work. You need to have the heart. Anything that affects these people, affects you. Put yourself in their shoes and there’s your motivation,” Paul said. “The reality is that it’s a big thing to tackle. But even though it’s huge, I ask myself what part can I do to help the hugeness of the problem and then I do my part.”

“The journey of 1,000 miles starts with only one step,” Daniel added.

Paul explained that conquering the HIV epidemic is a slow process because changing someone’s behavior is very difficult. “Behavior change is very slow because it has to come from within,” Paul said. “Because you can give someone a condom, but you can’t follow someone to their bedroom and make sure they use it.”

But Paul and Daniel are committed to trying to teach enough correct knowledge to make a difference. While 6,000 new people are infected with HIV every day, and at least half of those are people living in Africa, there is a stigma against talking about sex, naming certain body parts, or being educated on safe sex. “They live what they learn and they learn what they live so you have to give them appropriate information,” Daniel said. Mobilization and awareness give people no choice but to accept that HIV is a reality. Talking to Daniel and Paul restored my faith in the human race.

Paul encouraged me to encourage the people I’m communicating with back home how important it is to see for yourself what’s happening in places like Kibera.

“It’s very important to give and hear but it’s much better to give, hear, and see what’s happening on the ground because you can then talk to others about what’s truly happening,” he said.

My hope is that I can do just that.

HIV/AIDS Facts

2007-10-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

Since I've been doing some research on HIV/AIDS and learning so much about the epidemic in Kenya, I decided to share some information with you.

*In Kenya, an estimated 1.4 million people are living with HIV/AIDS while 1.8 million children have been orphaned by the disease.
*Currently, the cost of treating a single HIV/AIDS victim for a year is US$34,000 while the annual wage of most people in Kenya is under US$500.
*However, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) started by President Bush in 2003 has relieved much of the cost for Kenyans because Kenya is one of 15 countries that Pepfar funds giving antiretroviral drugs, medical care, support services and prevention programs to thousands of people who previously could not afford treatment. Pepfar funds 275 treatment sites throughout Kenya. Nyumbani is one of those sites.
*20% of the Pepfar budget is spent on prevention. 80% is spent on care and treatment, antiretroviral drugs, laboratory support, TB/HIV services, support for orphans, infrastructure and training. One third of the 20% spent on prevention must be spent on abstinence-only campaigns.
*Kenya is the second largest recipient of funds from Pepfar.
*This year, Pepfar has implemented a new prevention program: prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT). The hope is that all pregnant women in Kenya who visit a clinic before giving birth will be tested for HIV and whoever tests positive will be given drugs to protect the child from the virus.
*85% of prostitutes in Kenya are infected.
*Young girls are especially vulnerable in the rural areas due to the widespread belief that AIDS can be cured by sleeping with girls who are virgins.
*Most Western drug companies refuse to allow developing countries to produce much cheaper generic versions of their products.
*80% of HIV infections throughout the world are through sexual contact.
*People under the age of 25, especially females, are most at risk for HIV infection. People under 25 years old account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
*Every 14 seconds, a child is orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa.
*As of 2006, there were 12 million orphans in Africa.
*Grim projections show that by 2010, the orphan population in sub-Saharan Africa will be 30-35 million, of which more than 7 million will be desperately destitute.
*A courtroom victory in 2004 (by Nyumbani Children's Home) forced the government of Kenya to allow more than 100,000 HIV/AIDS children there to attend public schools. Previously, HIV positive children were not allowed to go to public school due to the stigma against the disease.
*75% of babies who test positive for HIV at birth will eventually be found not to have the virus. Usually this happens by age 2 when the mother's antibodies are fully out of a child's body. However, most of these children are abandoned right at birth due to the stigma surrounding HIV and the assumption that there's no chance they will eventually test negative.
*The Kenya government will not allow HIV positive children to be adopted.
*In 1990 there were 7 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
*In 2000 there were 25.3 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
*As of November 2006, there were 39.5 million people globally living with HIV/AIDS- more than ever before.
*Out of the 39.5 million people infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide, 37.2 million are adults, 17.7 million are women, 2.3 million are children and 4.3 million were newly infected last year.
*2.9 million people died of AIDS in 2006
*Out of the 2.9 million who died of AIDS last year, 2.6 million were adults and 0.38 million were children.
*More than 25 million people have did of AIDS since 1981.
*Around 6,000 people become infected with HIV everyday.
*In developing countries, 7.1 million people are in immediate need of life-saving antiretroviral drugs but only 28% are receiving the drugs.

Moi Day

2007-10-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Moi Day in Kenya- a public holiday that got the children out of school and most employees a day off of work. Moi Day was started by Daniel arap Moi- the former president of Kenya who was in power from 1978-2002. The first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, named a holiday Kenyatta Day so Moi wanted to do the same for himself. It's a day to honor Moi. Michael and I arrived at Nyumbani a little after 10 AM to find all the children and the Nyumbani staff standing at the front of the complex. Protus, the director of Nyumbani, informed us that they were expecting Daniel Moi in just a few minutes. Moi had called earlier in the morning and told Protus he would be visiting Nyumbani between 10 AM- 11 AM today to bring gifts and visit with the children.

But 11 AM came around and no Moi. 12 PM came around and no Moi. A district officer arrived and announced Moi was on his way.

12:30 PM came around and still no Moi so the children went to get lunch which Michael and I joined them for a yummy meal of rice, corn and beans.

While we waited, Michael and I spent time with several of the children getting to know them better. We also met two of the

Nyumbani board members. One was Dennis Afande, who served as the Kenyan ambassador to the U.S. from 1988-1993.

He told me stories about meeting Al Gore, Bill Clinton, as well as many others. The other board member was Paula Lanco, who began volunteering at Nyumbani while she was in primary school.

Finally around 1 PM a district officer commissioner arrived and announced that Moi had another commitment suddenly come up and would be unable to make the visit. However, he was sending a general on his behalf to deliver the gifts. I could see the disappointment in Protus' eyes because the children had their hopes up since this morning. But he handled it perfectly telling the district officer commissioner that he needed to go prepare the children so they would not be disappointed.

He approached the children who were all gathered together in the open grassy area by the playground and said there was bad news and good news. The bad news was that the former president was not going to be able to make it. The good news was that a general was still coming on behalf of the former president and every child could have a soda this afternoon. Clearly, Protus knows how to deal with 103 children- soda. The children shrieked, jumping up and down. A few even did summersaults and handsprings. But before the sodas, he told the children "So keep on waiting", which the children repeated back "So keep on waiting."

I have to admit that the children were not alone. I got my hopes up as well.

It would have been pretty neat to meet the former president. But regardless, the general finally did show up around 2 PM and with him was Miss Kenya and a few other governmental officials. The children performed several songs and recited a few poems for the guests.

In return. the general presented Nyumbani with several dozen boxes of food and cooking supplies. The general made some remarks to the children: "As Kenyans, we need to love each other, help each other, see how we can assist each other. As you grow up, if you have some thing you don't need, give it away. Be mindful of the welfare of other people and be peaceful." He also assured the children that Moi would try to come again for a visit on another day with the children were not in school.

The children rushed to the governmental vehicle carrying the food and formed an assembly line to carry it to the storage house and the dining hall. Once it was all put away, they all shouted "teamwork" with big smiles on their faces.

Now that the reception was finished, it was time to play on the playground, kick the soccer ball, take guitar and drum lessons, and try out Michael Jones' camera and videocamera.

I had the pleasure of meeting a brilliant young girl named Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is 17 years old but clearly looks much younger. That's because she's been very ill off and on with HIV throughout her entire life. The virus has stunt her growth permanently. My new friend Susan Gold, the woman who is on a Fulbright here at Nyumbani, told me that she's in good company. Due to the effects of HIV/AIDS, there will be a huge population of very short and not fully physically developed Africans.

Elizabeth is only in grade 6 although she seems much smarter than I was in sixth grade. She's full of life, super polite and truly an inspiration to me. She told me that she loves school and wants to do well in secondary school, high school, college and university. "You have to do well in school to get a good job," Elizabeth said. Nyumbani has encouraged their children to not only excel in school, but realize that their education is the means to their future.

Before antiviral drugs became available, HIV positive children didn't think of their future in terms of education, getting a job and living independently. Their future was inevitably death.

But now that's changed thanks to ARVs and support centers like Nyumbani that guide the children on a path to a vibrant future.

I also met a very young girl named Rosemary who stole my heart. She's 5 years old and from Lake Naivasha area.

She doesn't speak any English, just Swahili. But she followed me around the entire day not letting my hand free.

Before we had to head home before it got dark, I had the chance to meet the Nyumbani nurse and the nurses that run the Nyumbani Diagnostic Laboratory. The nurse explained how ARVs are administered and how nurses decide which combination of ARVs are needed for each individual child.

What combination of ARVs a child is on is based on their height, weight, and their CD4 and viral counts. The Nyumbani nurse, Mercy Mugambi, explained to me that HIV is not transmitted from a mother to a child in the womb. But rather, it's transmitted during the birthing process when the child swallows or inhales some of their mother's blood. That's why sea sections are less risky for passing on the virus however sea sections can be very expensive.

But thankfully there are new drugs out that can lower the chances of a mother passing on the virus to her child if she starts taking them when she first knows she's pregnant. At the Diagnostic Laboratory, nurses are capable of testing for HIV, TB, malaria, typhoid and other infectious diseases. The technicians are also able to perform CD4/8 counts, viral loads and PCR-RNA test. The lab not only offers its services to the Nyumbani children but the local community and labs and hospitals throughout Kenya.

On this particular day, the lab was drawing blood from several of the children to test their CD4/8 counts and viral loads to determine if the current ARVs combination they are taking is working correctly. Each child has to be retested every 6 months.

Tomorrow, we head to Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya where Nyumbani runs a community outreach program called Lea Toto. Nurses and social workers visit thousands of children and their families every day to hand out ARVs, medical care, counseling and food.

A Trip to The Nation

2007-10-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today we made a visit to The Daily Nation, which is the biggest newspaper in Kenya. This was all made possible by Randy Smith- the Kansas City Star editor who spent a month in Nairobi last year working at The Nation. There was more security at The Nation than I've ever seen at a newspaper. The Nation's building sits right in downtown Nairobi and hosts other businesses in their building- one being the Nairobi Stock Exchange. We were escorted up to the newsroom, getting a full tour of the facility before meeting Joseph Odindo, the managing editor at The Nation. He welcomed us into his office and told us to feel at home at The Nation. He's setting me up with a desk, computer and full access to the Nation's resources- which is pretty great! The Nation runs a training center in their building for up and coming journalists from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Joseph wants me to talk to the journalists currently taking the training class about my journalism curriculum at Missouri and about journalism in general back in the states. He said he also wants to try and set up in exchange program with the University of Missouri and The Nation because we both agreed that it's very beneficial for journalists to gain perspective by seeing other places and other kinds of journalism. After all- that's what I'm doing!

A few interesting facts I learned about The Nation: (This will probably only interest those of you who are journalists)
- The Nation's main office is in Nairobi and they have bureaus in several cities throughout Kenya. However they only have one printing press, which is in Nairobi. So each morning (by the time the papers are finished printing) an employee has to drive a set of papers to each of the bureaus which can be as far as a 7 hour drive. Then that same employee drives back to Nairobi the same day to do it all over again the next day!
- The Nation has very few subscriptions. Most of their papers are sold off of the street.
- Instead of calling it a copy desk, they call it a subs desk.

And one other interesting fact I learned from Joseph: Kenyans distinguish between their home and their house. There actually was a court case about the difference between the two! A Kenyan's home is where they are from, where they were born and where there family lives. Their house is the place they live in currently. Joseph explained that most Kenyans are not from Nairobi and will not call Nairobi their home even though they may have lived in the city in their house for most of their life for schooling, work. etc.

I'm really excited to get to know some Kenyan journalists and try to learn as much as possible from them during my stay here.

Tomorrow, Michael and I head to Nyumbani again because tomorrow is a public holiday so all of the children will be there since schools won't be in session. Until then...

A Breath of A Fresh Air

2007-10-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a breath of fresh air- both literally and metaphorically.

We got out of Nairobi- away from downtown, the hustle and bustle, the insane number of cars putting fumes into the air and traveled out to a suburb called Karen where the air did seem fresher and cleaner. The grass was greener and there were more trees to gaze up at.

But as we pulled into the gates of Nyumbani, I got another breath of fresh air- children with the biggest smiles you've ever seen and the Nyumbani staff and volunteers who are making the world a better place.

In case you didn't read my earlier blog post, Nyumbani is a children's home for HIV positive children, and it was the first hospice center for HIV positive children in Kenya. It was also the first clinic in Nairobi to administer antiviral drugs. Nyumbani, a non-profit organization, is run by the Catholic Church and funded largely by USAID and private U.S. donors. Nyumbani currently has 103 children in their care and 86 children are on the life-saving antiviral drugs. The youngest child at Nyumbani is 6 months old and the oldest child is 25 years old and is currently attending university.

Nyumbani has served as home for more than 300 children. 60 of the 300 have died and many more have integrated back into the community. At Nyumbani, there is a dietitian, a full-time physician, and a psychological and spiritual counselor. In addition, there is a clinical laboratory where nurses can test children for HIV, TB, Malaria, Typhoid and other infectious diseases. The children live in several cottages supervised by house mothers. And the teens live in the youth hostel supervised by several mentors. The younger children go to a preschool on site and the older children go to area public schools.

Protus, the chief manager of Nyumbani, came and greeted us with a warm and welcoming smile. He spent an hour explaining Nyumbani's mission, Nyumbani's additional programs, and the politics behind the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief also known as Pepfar. Nyumbani began administering antiviral drugs (also known as ARVs) to their children in 1998 by buying them at full price ($500 per month per child) from drug companies through funds donated by outside donors and USAID.

But in 2003, President Bush began Pepfar which funds 19 countries with the means for administering better medical care and ARVs to HIV positive individuals. Since 2003, the number of Kenyans on ARVs provided by Pepfar has risen from 343 to 70,000. Pepfar works directly with 275 treatment sites in Kenya and Nyumbani is one of the lucky ones. Now they are receiving their children's ARVs for free, and the hope is that Pepfar funding will continue in the years to come.

As Protus was explaining Nyumbani's mission and giving us several materials to read on the organization, this quote resonated with me and has stuck in my head.

"The care of children with an incurable disease may not seem like a profitable enterprise, but as a humanitarian endeavor it is unsurpassable."

Nyumbani gives HIV positive abandoned children a second chance to live. Too often in African countries, HIV positive children are orphaned because their parents died from HIV/AIDS or they're abandoned because of the stigma surrounding HIV. In other words, they can be seen as modern day lepers. It was only four years ago that HIV positive children were allowed to enroll in Kenya public schools and that was due to Nyumbani winning a landmark case against the Kenya government.

Nyumbani focuses on the children's nutritional intake, psychological and spiritual counseling, education and making them feel like they're a part of a family. And the results speak for themselves- most of the children look perfectly healthy and most importantly happy.

Protus gave us a tour of the facility allowing us to stop into the preschool. As Protus opened the doors of the single-room preschool, Michael and I were flooded with tiny hands grabbing on to ours yelling "Welcome". One little boy, Mark, would not let go of my hand and pulled me inside making sure to grab me a chair to sit in. Then immediately the children formed two lines in the center of the room and began seeing a series of songs for us.

It was pretty remarkable to witness. My favorite was when they sang "We are H-A-P-P-Y, happy!" jumping up and down. As I was watching these children that are so filled with life and love, I thought of the countless number of HIV positive orphans who aren't lucky enough to come to Nyumbani, Because in sub-Saharan Africa, a child is orphaned every 14 seconds.

We also had the privilege of meeting Susan Gold, who is a Fulbright Scholar at Nyumbani. Susan's story is very interesting. Being in her late 40s, she's one of the oldest Fulbrights in history. She came to Nyumbani originally to work as an international nurse but with her Fulbright, she has created a sexual education teaching program.

In addition to teaching at Nyumbani, she has been traveling all over Kenya conducting seminars for children, parents and teachers. There is such a need for sexual education here in Kenya because it's hardly even taught in the school system or children only hear about the option of abstinence. Susan teaches children about sex, their bodies, their immune systems, HIV/AIDS, STD prevention and contraception options. Her program has been so successful that Pepfar is going to fund her to return to Kenya in February next year once her Fulbright is over so she can continue running her program until she can eventually hand it over to the Kenyan government to run.

All in all Nyumbani is an incredible place. There's actually a Swahili word that describes it perfectly" "ubuntu" which means "my success depends on your success."

Later that evening, we met a friend of a friend Anne Sweeney at an Ethiopian restaurant not too far from our apartment. Anne, an American from Chicago, has lived in Kenya on and off for the past 10 years. She just recently started a non-profit that works with refugee children in Kenya and tries to resettle them. We had a great meal (it was the first time I had eaten meat in a week!) but I was stuffed. Anne tells me it's common to get the "ET" gut after you eat too much Ethiopian food!

Today we're going to visit The Nation- the biggest newspaper in Nairobi that is going to host me these next 6 weeks!

By the way, all the pictures on this blog post were taken by the very talented Michael Jones!

Riding in a Matatu and Holding a Cheetah

2007-10-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

Riding in a matatu and holding a cheetah were the two highlights of my day. Michael and I decided to venture out to Nairobi National Park where we had read that we could catch a bus only on Sundays that would take us around the park. And instead of taking a taxi, we decided today was the day we could try our luck on riding a matatu. But it's not just riding a matatu, it's figuring out how the matatu system works. There are no signs, just numbers and no guide books or schedules to explain where certain matatus go or what time you can catch them. You have to figure out what number you need to take and what direction you want to go.

We first hopped on a bus near our apartment that took us downtown. We arrived into town right around noon when church was letting out and there were people everywhere- way more than we have seen during the week. We got off the bus and started searching for matatu number 125 or 126. As we're looking around, matatu drivers are screaming at us in Swahili, banging boards against the top of the matatus and honking horns.

After walking several blocks, we found matatu 125. If you frequently suffer from car sickness, which I do, matatus will make your head spin and send your stomach for a rollercoaster ride. At one point I thought we were going to have a head-on collision because our driver passed 4 cars in front of us with oncoming traffic in sight but we were fine. Like I have said before, the driving is crazy here but at the same time the drivers know how to navigate in it. At one point during the trip, we stopped at a traffic light where it looked like a police officer was checking the buses and matatus to make sure they were following the fairly new regulations. Instantly everyone on board our matatu scrambled for their seat belt (requiring seat belts is one of the new regulations). We ended up not being checked but everyone had a good laugh about the situation.

We had been told that matatu 125 stopped directly in front of the park but after we had been driving for awhile out of the city centre, Michael asked the driver if we were getting close to the park. He replied "It's back there" pointing to the direction we had already passed. So we immediately got off and had to get back on another matatu going back towards the park because the one we were originally on couldn't turn around.

But finally we made it there to find out that the park's bus that only runs on Sunday wasn't running today because it had a "prior commitment". Not wanting to pay 6,000 Kenyan shillings to hire a driver to take us through the park, we settled with taking a tour of the Animal Orphanage, where park rangers bring animals whose parents have been eaten or died from another cause leaving their children in the wild alone. We got a tour guide named Steve who was very knowledgeable about the animals and national parks in Kenya. Steve hooked us up with a special treat while at the same time breaking the animal orphanage's rules. He took us back to the area where new arrivals are brought in. That's where Michael and I both got to hold a 2 week old cheetah. Michael embraced it, letting it crawl all over his back whereas I was a bit more timid about bringing it too close to me. In addition to the cheetah, we got up close and personal with a lion. The animal orphanage also had some very entertaining monkeys, warthogs, leopards and an ostrich that loved posing for the camera! And we also got to hold bones from an elephant and a giraffe's leg. And one other crazy thing- our tour guide Steve told us that a man once held his phone too close to the cage trying to take a picture of the ostrich (the one shown here on my blog) and the ostrich swallowed the phone whole and pooped it out a few days later!

The ride back to our apartment was more uneventful than our previous journey. We stayed on buses rather than taking matatus because they are a bit safer, more spacious and I've been told more reliable. But I was proud of us for going on a matatu and realizing that they are not as scary as they're made out to be.

Tomorrow is our first day at Nyumbani, which in Swahili means "home". It is a children's home for HIV positive children. The Nyumbani children's home sits on the outskirts of Nairobi in a suburb named Karen. Nyumbani was the first hospice center for HIV positive children in Kenya. It was started by a Jesuit priest named Father Angelo D'Agostino in 1992. Father D'Agostino died last year and Nyumbani is now in the hands of Sister Mary. Nyumbani is led by the Catholic Church and funded largely by the U.S. government and private U.S. donors. In addition to the children's home, Nyumbani has a program called Lea Toto, which works in the slums of Nairobi giving medical care and antiviral drugs to children. The center is also working on a third project in a town called Kitui where the hope is that elders and orphans can eventually sustain themselves. Michael and I hope to visit all of Nyumbani's projects.

Facts About Kenya

2007-10-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of research to prepare for this trip and to prepare for the stories I hope to write. And I thought I would share some of the most interesting facts with you.

*Kenya straddles the equator.

*Nairobi's population is 3 million while Kenya's population sits at 30 million.

*46% of the country's population lives below the poverty line.

*The population growth rate has slowed due to HIV/AIDS which now infects 15% of adults in Kenya.

*The standard of living fell drastically from 2002 to 2005. In the UN's 2005 Human Development Report Kenya was ranked at 154 of 177 countries, a drop of 20 places form the previous report in 2002.

*Life expectancy is 52 years although some say it's closer to 47 due to HIV/AIDS.

*Only 42% of the population has access to clean drinking water.

*33% of the population lives in urban areas.

*There are 70 tribes in Kenya. The Kikuyu tribe is the biggest with 20% of the population.

*Most Kenyans are Christian although there is a large number of Muslims and Animists. Animists employ witchdoctors and soothsayers to act as intermediaries with the spirit world.

*The Maasai tribe is the symbol of "tribal" Kenya. Their land, the Maasai Mara, is where most of the safaris in Kenya visit. The Maasai people have a strong taboo against "piercing the soil" so they traditionally leave the dead to be consumed by wild animals. Blood and milk are the mainstay of the Maasai diet. They also drink mursik, which is made from milk fermented with cow's urine and ashes, and has even been shown to lower cholesterol. In the Maasai tribe, males at age 14 are required to leave the village with their livestock camp for 8 years and live alone before returning to the village to marry. Men typically dye their hair red with ochre and fat. Also in the Maasai tribe and a few other tribes in Kenya, female genital mutilation is common despite it being illegal in Kenya.

*The movie Constant Gardener was shot in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, which is the largest slum in Africa. The movie was based off the John Le Carre best selling novel. The book was banned in Kenya because it depicts corrupt Kenyan officials but the director, Fernando Meirrelles, talked the local authorities into allowing the film to be shot in Kibera.

*The black rhino is Kenya's most endangered species. It is hunted for its black horn. Elephants aren't technically endangered but are still a target for poachers. About 28,000 elephants are killed each year in Kenya.

*Literacy rates are around 85% and are considered higher than in any of the country's neighbors. The motivation to get education is huge here although education isn't compulsory. As you walk down any street in Nairobi, you see kids in uniforms everywhere since both public and private school kids wear uniforms. Primary school is free and 7.5 million children are currently enrolled in the program. However, there are still 1 million kids not in school due to a lack of teachers, school buildings, etc. Secondary school is not free but the current president and the presidential candidates are promising secondary education to be free if elected in the upcoming December election.

*When you order a beer or a soda here, you're asked if you would like it warm or cold. I've learned that most Kenyans prefer their beer to be served warm- meaning at room temperature.

Feeling More Comfortable

2007-10-06T03:12:00.001-07:00

I've uploaded several pictures throughout this blog post. The first three show our cozy little apartment. The fourth shows our cab driver Kaylo. The fifth is of Muthoga, who will be our tour guide on our climb of Mt. Kenya and on the safari. And the last three photos were taken inside the memorial garden for the old U.S. Embassy. One shows a picture of how the embassy used to look before the August 1998 bombing. The second shows a wall that lists all the victims' names from the bombing. And the third shows a Kenyan proverb that hangs in the park promoting peace.

We started the day of with making our way to the market so we could withdraw money to pay our rent for October. Every time I pay for anything, I feel guilty for spending money because even though I know the exchange rate (1000 shillings= US$16) paying 1,000 of anything seems like a lot of money! So imagine how I felt when I had to withdraw money for a month's rent. It was by far the largest number I've ever typed in to an ATM! Even though the walk from the apartment to the market is not long, we waited for our cab driver to come pick us up from the market because we didn't want to be walking with all that money on us.

After paying our rent, we headed downtown to meet Shashank Bengali, the Africa Bureau Chief for McClatchy Newspapers. (For those of you who aren't in the journalism field, McClatchy Newspapers is a media company that owns several newspapers across the U.S.) He used to work for the Kansas City Star and is a friend of Randy Smith, the very helpful editor from the Star who has helped me tremendously getting set up here in Kenya.

Shashank took Michael and I to the Nairobi Java House, which is known for its incredible coffee, breakfast, burgers, and all around great food. Actually, the Java House is one of two coffee houses that actually brews coffee made in Kenya. Most of Kenya's coffee gets sent abroad, mostly to Europe. Shashank has been living in Nairobi for about two years and is required to cover all of Africa, except for Egypt!! He gave Michael and I suggestions on restaurants and how to use the matutu system. Matutus, which are 15 passenger vans and the main means of transportation for Kenyans, have a reputation for being a pickpocketer's heaven not to mention the chance of having a traffic accident- although anyone could have a traffic accident here with how crazy the driving is.

Michael and I are going to steer clear of matutus for the most part because we'll be traveling with camera equipment but Shashank told us riding a matutu is part of the Kenyan experience so we're going to attempt to figure the system out.

You would think that since Shashank has mostly all of Africa to draw stories from, he would constantly be getting published back in the states. But Shashank told us it's harder than you would think since U.S. newspapers have limited space in general- especially limited space for international news.

And when they want international news, it's generally Iraq, Iran or Israel. So I have a challenge before me: get people back in the U.S. to care about the HIV orphans, the education crisis, and the means for achieving sustainable development that I plan to write about. I'm also realizing how important it was that we planned to be here for 7 weeks because it definitely takes a while to get going once you land on the ground.

Not long after we finished our lunch with Shashank, we headed back home. As we drove along, I noticed several women roasting corn cobs on the side of the road, women trying to sell vegetables from a run-down shack, and a mother and child holding cups in the air begging for a spare shilling.

But then I turn my head to the other side of the road and there are men walking down the street in fancy suits heading off to their high paying job. It's very black and white here with little gray area. There are the rich and the poor and very few middle class. 46% of the population live below the poverty line.

During our trip home, Kaylo brought up the upcoming election- something that is huge news here but most Americans could care less about it. But on the other hand, Kaylo and several other Kenyans I have spoken to know all about U.S. politics and the upcoming election next November. Definitely an eye opener.

Kaylo explained another part of their election process. Each election, they elect a consular, a member of parliament (MP), and a president. But the president is actually a member of parliament as well. However, whoever wins the presidential race also has to win their constituency's parliament seat or they automatically cannot be president and a new election has to occur.

This has never happened in Kenya's history but I still thought it was interesting. Here, the president is above the law, above parliament, above the courts, and obviously above the people. The current president, Kibaki, is running
for re-election.

For anyone who has Skype, my account name is jenprice497.

Getting More Adjusted

2007-10-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

Still fighting the jetlag. It is incredibly painful to get up in the morning. All I want to do is keep sleeping but I know that I'm missing out on learning, discovering and seeing so much around me. Today, we spent the morning trying to explore perspective safaris and other trips we might take. We also contacted some other people to help plan our next few weeks. When landing in a foreign place, I'm learning it takes much longer than I ever imagined to get things going, plan things, and connect with people.

But good news- we're heading to this orphanage for HIV positive children called Nyumbani first thing Monday morning. I'm super excited because their organization sounds incredible and I'm thrilled to be able to spend some time with them. I'll fill you all in more on Monday.

Today, we went to the memorial garden for the former U.S. Embassy. It was bombed in 1998 and killed over 200 people. There was a small musuem that had lots of information about the bombing and the memorial garden serves as a private park for anyone to use. We were there during the lunch hour and saw many people eating lunch with friends and taking a nap under the sun. From there, we traveled on to the Kenya Conference Center which is the tallest building in Nairobi. We had some pretty incredible views from the rooftop- Mt. Kenya, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the city itself.

We spent an hour walking around downtown familiarizing ourselves with the area. Immediately, I noticed how many newspapers are printed and sold in this city. It's crazy. Seriously for any of you journalism folks out there reading my blog, if you are ever looking for a job in the newspaper busy, come to Kenya! I picked up a copy of The Daily Nation- which is the largest newspaper in Kenya and a place I hope I get to visit during my stay here.

I'm realizing that it (meaning Nairobi and Africa in general) is not as scary as I made it out to be. I realize I've only been here for 3 days and we definitely have to be safe, but the scariest part of it all is the mass amount of unknown that you have to face.

After walking around, we had the experience of tasting the major beer served here- Tusker. We met our friend Muthoga (the friendly Kenyan who welcomed us at the airport) at a local restaurant/bar joint in downtown Nairobi. It's so cool to be able to not just be a tourist here but actually get out and see what the city is truly like. Michael and I had a very engaging coversation with Muthoga about Kenya politics, the upcoming election and free education. Muthoga explained the different political parties to us as well as the controversy surrounding the free primary education problem which 4 years into the program still has almost 1 million children not enrolled in school.

Then as 6PM rolled around, we called our friendly cab driver Kaylo who brought us back to our cozy but small apartment where Michael cooked me dinner! That's all for today.

P.S. I just got skype so if anyone has it or wants to get it, we can talk for free!

Day 1

2007-10-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

We made it. After a SUPER long trip, we're finally here. That was by far the longest plane rideS (plural) of my life. But thankfully it went smoothly. None of our flights were delayed, all of our bags made it, we sped quickly through the visa line and customs, and safely arrived to our apartment. British Airways has a special place in my heart.

Leaving the Nashville airport was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I knew it was going to be hard saying goodbye to Andrew but I didn't realize it would be that difficult. But somehow I was able to let go and walk through security with tears streaming down my face. I guess the security people felt sorry for me because they offered me tissues and asked if there was anything else they could do. I think the reason why it was so hard was the massive amount of unknown that laid before me. Unfamiliar country, unfamiliar people, and oh yeah the fact that no one is in charge of me keeping me on my toes.

We flew to New York and then to London. It's amazing what buying some Maltese candy, listening to the British accents and walking around Heathrow airport smiling at the places I used to see everyday while studying abroad in London- Boots, Harrods, Pret- will do for a person when they're 16 hours into a trip. All I wanted to do was jump on the tube and go take a vist to Earl's Court. A few hours later we boarded the flight to Nairobi and the nervousness really began to set in. I tried to preoccupy myself by sleeping and taking advantage of the countless movies and TV shows British Airways offers.

Then at 8:45 PM, we landed in Nairobi. As we were walking off the plane, Michael leaned over to me and said "that dude is John Legend". He was on our flight- I'm assuming sitting in First Class that's why we didn't see him before- but I got a good glance at him. We proceeded to the visa line which only had a few people in front of us. After answering a few short questions, my passport was stamped and I was granted a 3 month stay in Kenya. We walked down to the baggage claim as I crossed my fingers that all of our bags made it and sure enough they had. We walked out the sliding doors to a greeting area where we were bombarded with probably 50+ Kenyans holding up signs in our faces seeing if we were the individuals they were supposed to pick up, asking us if we needed a taxi or help with our bags. My eyes searched the crowd for a sign saying "Jennifer Price". A few moments later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Muthoga (a friend of a friend of a friend) appeared ready to take our bags and escort us to his car.

Muthoga and his brother drove us to our apartment which was about a 30 minute drive from the airport. Muthoga is a very welcoming, cheerful man who was so happy to have us there. We had a conversation about Kenya politics because his brother works for the governemnt. It's an interesting time for Kenya politics because there is an election scheduled for December. But the word "scheduled" is an interesting topic. I learned that no Kenyans know when the election will be because the current president (President Mwai Kibaki) decides when the election will be. So technically, President Kibaki could wake up any day in December and announce that "today is the election" giving the citizens no prior warning or preparation. The last election in 2002 was a monumental moment for Kenya. It was the first mostly free election in Kenya. Past president Daniel Moi was pushed out of power by an amendment to the constitution creating term limits. The upcoming election this year is proving to be a controversial topic. Since I've been here, several people have told me people are scared to talk about their political views because if they say they suport the current president in power, it could hurt them come December when a new president possibly comes into power.

Anyway- enough about politics for now- our apartment is small but safe and safety is the most important thing. When I say small, its about 150 square feet. Our bed comes out of the wall and is set in between 2 walls. And since I'm so tall, my head touches one end and my feet touch the other. But the people here running the apartment complex are nice and helpful. Michael forced me to get up this morning- although I could have stayed in bed all day due to the jetlag. We called Kaylo- who will be our driver while we're in Narobi- and he took us to get groceries, a cell phone, the bank, etc. We went to the city center to get the cell phone. I noticed several things instantly as I stepped out of the car.
1) Michael and I were the only white people on the street for miles.
2) Everyone (men and women) were really dressed up- coat, tie, suits. I had been warned about this before and brought nice pants, shirts, blouses but I definitely do not have nice enough shoes so I'm going to have to do something about it. Americans stand out quickly because they are always dressed down compared to Kenyans.
3) People drive crazy here. There are no stop signs, no right of ways. People just go and I guess trust the other car stops when they see that they will be hit if they go any further.

When we went into this shopping center, the trunk of our cab driver's car was searched. And in the shopping center, there are police officers everywhere patroling with machine guns!! And I learned that basically anything you can get in the U.S., you can get in Nairobi. We went on a walk later around our community and talked to some school children, watched the "matutu system" and attempted to blend in as much as we could.

The other thing that's been constant on my mind today is how to prevent traveler's diarrhea. Call me gross but seriously you want to prevent this. We have to use bottled water to drink, brush our teeth, etc. When grocery shopping, you have to think "I can eat it if I can peel it or boil it." We bought some fruit juice but later realized that it had water added to it and it was made in Kenya so that was off our list of things we can consume.

Going to call this blog post a quit since I'm been rambling on now for some time. But all in all- I'm having a great time so far.

The Start to an Amazing Adventure

2007-09-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone-

As most of you know, I'm heading off to Kenya on Monday. Michael Jones is coming with me and we're flying from Nashville to New York to London and finally to Nairobi. Unforunately Abraham did not receive all of the needed paperwork in time to be able to leave next week. Hopefully, he will receive it in the next few weeks and meet us there. Now, Michael and I are looking to spend time at several orphanages for HIV positive children and also spend time in Kibera, which are the slums of Nairobi.

We're also hoping to travel around the country making our way to the coast, climbing Mt. Kenya and of course going on a safari. We'll be there for 7 weeks, returning on Thanksgiving Day.

I'm planning to use this blog to communicate back home and share some of my experiences as well as some of my photos. I feel so blessed to be able to take this once in a lifetime opportunity. I know it will be truly fulfilling.

This week leading up to my departure has brought a mixture of emotions: fear, excitement, nervousness, anxiety, and lots and lots of butterflies.

Send me an email every once in a while (jenniferlynnprice@gmail.com) and keep in touch these next 2 months.

I love you all and look forward to sharing my journey with you through this blog.