We have arrived in our house in Kenya safe and sound. This is the Wandering Third 2.0 (Nura) writing my first contributing piece. We spent two nights in Nairobi then flew out to Kisumu. Naveed would like me to say that he was amused to find that the 'baggage hall' at the Kisumu airport consisted of a sign saying 'wait here for your luggage'; meanwhile two vans raced towards us and our suitcases were tossed out of the vans in a pile on the dirt for people to grab.
Anyways we flew to Kisumu with Jeanne and Ned (Dr. Walker, professor at MSU who does malaria research here in western Kenya) and stayed one night in Kisumu. Ned introduced us to a lovely Baha'i family with whom we spent the afternoon. Monday morning we shopped for supplies for the house and then on our way to Usenge we stopped at the research facility to visit Ned and see where he works. It was a really neat place with all kinds of malaria and HIV/AIDS research going on.
Tuesday we spent unpacking and arranging the house. Our house consists of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, storage room and bathroom and there is RUNNING WATER!!! This was a happy surprise for us when we arrived. There is no electricity but we invested in many solar chargers and lanterns and flashlights which are working great for us so far. Living with us in the house is a young Kenyan man named Oti who works for GYEC-Kenya and was in charge of the building of the house. He is great and we're glad to have him here helping us get settled in and meeting the community.
Wednesday we were supposed to meet with the chief , but the chief was out of town so instead we met with the assistant chief who was very friendly and welcomed us to Usenge. The only other eventful thing that happened on Wednesday was the removal of the four gigantic anthills in our yard. A man was paid to dig up each of the anthills in search of the elusive queen ants. Once the queen ant of each hill is killed the rest of the ants apparently disperse. So halfway through the afternoon we are called outside to see what a queen ant looks like. Let me tell you it was one of the nastiest looking insects I've ever seen in my life (and this was after recently completing an entomology class). It was about two inches long (but Olivia and Naveed think it was three or four... ) regardless it was long and slimy and apparently lays over a million eggs and just gets fed off of the worker ants, much like a queen bee. When asked if they just kill the queen to dispose of it, the reply was that they eat it raw and that its full of good fat. None of us were quite brave enough to sample that delicacy, but during the course of the afternoon we saw two of the four queens, and that was more than plenty for my lifetime.
Thursday we walked over to the Usenge community dispensary which serves as the local clinic here. we met one of the two nurses, Joyce, who was very motherly and kind, and said that she's very happy about us coming to volunteer at the dispensary and was so grateful for the donations we brought from Naveed's dad's pharmacies.
Today we went to the nearest ECD (early childhood development centre) and met the teachers and got to play with the kids a little. They were very shy at first but soon got over it. This ECD is only a 15 minute walk from our house so I think we'll be visiting it most often, whereas the other three we would need to find transportation to. Tomorrow Ned is planning on coming for a visit and then will be taking us to Kisumu to meet some more of the Bahá'ís. Jeanne will be leaving on Sunday, so today is her last day here.
Our cooking skills need a little work, but we've been managing with our three pots and two burners hooked up to a propane tank. Fasting has been a bit of a challenge here, as we are trying to adjust to the climate, but have been walking almost everywhere we go. I actually got a little dehydrated yesterday but am doing fine today. The sun sets around 6:40pm here so we eat dinner and then have been playing games after that through use of our very handy solar lights. To explain the title briefly, when Naveed and Olivia were in Victoria preparing for our trip, they called me and said they got the best thing ever, personal headlamps. For some reason the keyword 'head' just went over my head (no pun intended) and I thought they were some sort of flashlight/floodlight delios. When I finally did see them they were the nerdiest looking headlamps (as in let’s whistle hi-ho and go mine some diamonds kind of headlamps) that I may have teased Naveed about them a bit too much , but of course as soon as we get to Usenge and the sun sets so early here, having any kind of light is handy, and yes especially the headlamps. So, sure, Naveed can be justified in saying, ''headlamps are cool!''
Anyways, so far Quiddler is the favorite over Scrabble Slam, but we have others yet to try. Oti beat us all last night at Quiddler, but we'll see how it goes when we don't all help each other. Right now he's reading a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that we brought, and seems to be enjoying it...
That's all for now... We'll try to post pictures when we can (especially of the queen ants ;) but it probably won't happen often.
Love,
The Wandering Three
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