Work, Home and Life in Kakamega

Anyone who continued to check my blog for the second half of my trip (I know you’re out there – I can see you on my blog stats!) knows that I severely neglected blogging in the month of July.  As a matter of fact, I haven’t posted a single word since June 23^rd – just under a month before I left Kenya.  However, somehow, I think that within my blogging negligence there is a silver lining.  On one hand I disappointed my readers by failing to produce anything interesting (or anything at all) while I was in the moment.  On the other hand I was so busy being IN the moment that I really got the most out of my experience.  Nonetheless, in order to make up for all of the time that I lost in blog world, I’m going to do a recap of some interesting things that happened my last few weeks in Kakamega, and then hopefully reflect on the experience as a whole.  I’m also going to try to cut it up into a few shorter posts as opposed to the massively long posts I had become accustomed to writing at the beginning of the trip.  Enjoy!

By the end of June, I would say that I finally acclimated to my surroundings.  At work, people expected to see me when they got to the office in the morning and I became very independent in working on my projects (see my last blog).  Instead of feeling completely attached to the office like a conventional job, I felt comfortable leaving whenever I needed to in order accomplish any tasks that might be hand.  Whereas previously I had been completely dependent upon my supervisor and the KES staff to find work for me, I now knew the town well enough that I was able to accomplish objectives on my own which was a great feeling (although the staff was still there to support me.  At home, my relationship with my host family definitely blossomed, and I developed a great relationship with both of my host parents, especially my host mom who was particularly extroverted.  I spent more time with them in the house, and stayed in my room a lot less.  I became accustomed to having tea like five times a day and I definitely think that became more accustomed to my presence.  I gave them a box of assorted tazo teas that I brought from America, and while they were very polite I don’t think they liked it very much – their only response was “It is very different – Kenyan tea is very strong…” which definitely made me laugh.

I also became more accustomed to the food – although there were definitely some surprises along the way.  Overall I would say it was a good culinary experience because it got me to start eating fish (I think it was tilapia), something which I had always avoided before.  I also started eating hardboiled eggs – something I was also never a huge fan of.  I think I started eating all of this stuff just because I felt obligated to eat what they gave me, which again was probably a good thing.  In general though, we ate a lot more ugali (see past posts), rice, chapatti, beef, chicken and all that good stuff.  You’re essential protein and carbs diet.  They also found out that I like spaghetti, which is not particularly popular there although they do have it, and so I started getting that too which was definitely a plus.  One night, however, at the dinner table, this conversation occurred:

Me: (after receiving a strange looking thick substance in a bowl for dinner) ummm What is this?

Joyce (host mom): Macaroni soup.

Me: Interesting….what is macaroni soup?

Joyce: You take macaroni (spaghetti), cook it, and then put it in a blender.

Me: Oooooh I see…

That was definitely an interesting dinner.  Something that took me a while to learn also, however, was that I needed to assert myself when there was something I really didn’t like or I would get it all the time.  It worked out with the fish and eggs, but for example, it took me about a month to say I wasn’t really into the tomato and onion sandwiches I got for lunch about half the time the first few weeks I was there – just peanut butter was fine.  And it wasn’t even a big deal at all – so I guess them trying to figure out my eating habits was just as difficult as me trying to get used to theirs.  I also started weaning myself off of utensils in an attempt to eat like they do – with their hands.  It’s kind of liberating and I definitely recommend it.  You know what they say – when in Kenya…