Ellana's African Adventures: Here comes the sun

"Here comes the sun" definitely explains my current mindset towards living in Eldoret and Kenya in general. For better or worse, my attitude is very much controlled by the type of weather I am experiencing (hence one of the big reasons we are moving to Florida, at least in my opinion). Although all of the normal frustrations still exist, we have had about five consecutive days of absolutely glorious weather with amazing "Carolina" blue skies, as my NC friends would say. This has certainly helped my outlook on life in general. Ellana and I, or her babysitter, have spent almost every day, all day outside with her friends either in the pool or in the swing, or just simply walking around enjoying the sun. I really think that we are experiencing a little bit of Heaven right now. The highs are in the mid-80s with zero humidity and the temps probably reach the low 60s at night.

One of my favorite memories of the past week was when Ellana and I were out by our main front gate just watching people walk by and talking to one of the friendliest people I have ever met, our guard, Michael. About 10 cows came strolling by, and as Ellana really loves cows and making the "moo" sound, we stood and watched them for several minutes. These were some of the largest and healthiest cows I have seen in Kenya, and Ellana went right up to pet them. Although I'm sure they didn't know what to think of her, they tolerated her very loud "mooing" until they decided that our grass wasn't adequate. I'm really enjoying seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler!

My attitude has also changed after visiting the Tumaini Children's Drop-In Center located about 5 minutes from the IU House. I had been wanting to visit, but just hadn't made the time. Our housemate, Matt, has been working there since May and encouraged me to see the organization to see if there was something I could do to help. Tumaini was founded by a former Indiana medical student (now a Duke resident) named Tim, and one of his research assistants, Kimani. After doing extensive research, Tim and Kimani decided that trying a drop-in center would be the most effective way to deal with the growing amount of street children in Eldoret. This problem was compounded after the post-election clashes in Kenya in 2008. The center officially opened in January 2010, and has successfully placed many children either back with their parents or with other families, and has gotten many back into school. As part of the Tumaini program, a "livelihoods" project was also developed. This is the part of the program that Kimani and Matt are hoping that I will be able to lend some assistance. When I visited last Friday a group of young women (Tumaini works with street children up to the age of 25), were working on beaded pins that are going to be sent for Purdue's Homecoming in October (one of Tumaini's board members is the head of Purdue's Pharmacy program in Eldoret). Many of the women have at least two children. I suggested that adding a brief story and picture of the girls, along with information about Tumaini would be helpful, so we set to work getting the backgrounds of the girls and designing an informational card. I was sorry to give Matt more work, but hopefully the pins will sell better and people will be able to learn more about the program!

Once again, by hearing the women's stories about what they hope to do once they finish the Tumaini program, I realized that I have gained so much more from the people here than I can ever give. Also, many of the women mentioned that they wanted to start businesses of their own someday. Not that I haven't realized this many times before, but I was brought back to the fact that I am so incredibly lucky to have been born in the US and to incredible parents that said I could do anything. Because of this support, I was able to have an amazing education and attend an incredible business school. I kept thinking one of my favorite phrases over and over "to whom much is given much is expected." I have tried to carry this attitude over to my work at Imani, and as a result, had a much better week working there.

Other than work and hanging out in the sun, Steve, Ellana, and I have enjoyed spending time with our friends at the IU house. I must say that it is so nice to be able to walk outside of our front door and always have something to do. For example, last Sunday a big group of us made homemade pizza, Steve helped a friend brew his first batch of beer, and unfortunately, we watched Chelsea lose. Tomorrow we are heading out to a working farm about 20 minutes outside of Eldoret, and Steve is making his famous shrimp etouffee and red beans and rice. The farm is run by a third generation South African family living in Kenya, and they have rescued several giraffes. We are excited for Ellana to see "twiga" very soon!