Victory

Sundays are my favorite days in Kakamega. The entire town shuts down so that everyone and I mean EVERYONE can go to church. The streets are full of entire families walking together and the bright colors of traditional African fabrics as everyone struts around in their Sunday bests.
This Sunday however I woke up feeling slightly depressed and homesick as I knew I was missing my little sister's graduation and my boyfriend's twenty-first birthday. Wishing I could be there and feeling sorry for myself that I couldn't, I decided it was time to do something "rebellious." Pulling out a pair of shorts that had yet to be touched during my trip, I slipped them on under my floor length traditional skirt. I grabbed my IPod and headed out of the house and onto about a five mile walk to a park I had heard about.

Once at the "park," which was really just a patch of grass in between two cornfields where only two herdsmen who grazing their cows, I removed my skirt and began to run along a narrow dirt path. After three weeks of being unable to show my legs, let alone go running (women in Africa DO NOT exercise), I felt AMAZING. I ran until I felt as if I could not move anymore and then I settled down on the grass to do an ab workout that my coach at Duke had given to all the swimmers for the summer. Soon a group of women who had clearly just gotten out of church began to congregate on the field with their children. I was aware of them all staring at my bare legs and my seemingly bizarre movements as I struggled with my workout. Finally one woman came up to me and just said "teach me."

Immediately I began to do squats and leg lifts with this lady, Nancy, until about fifteen or so of her friends shyly joined in, laughing when we all fell down during push ups. Eventually someone tapped me on the shoulder again. This time it was a man and he asked if I would like to join their field day. "Um... are you kidding? YES!" I saw this as the moment of cultural acceptance that I had been waiting for for the past three weeks. I joined the fifty or so men and we were soon divided into two teams. I tried to encourage some of the women to play but they all laughed and said it was only for men. People started gathering around the field to watch the events and I was placed on Team Obama. Great.

As much fun as I was having in the potato sack race, and 50 meter dash (I didn't dare touch the potato balancing contest... I mean these people can balance a sack of fifty ears of corn on their heads at the same time as carrying two children into to town... I couldn't touch them when it came to balance), my moment came during the egg toss. I was placed as the representative for Team Obama in the egg toss. I have never been so nervous in my life, but I was in my element. I could hardly believe it when the egg finally broke in my hands and I looked around and we were the last team standing. My team surrounded me and lifted me up on their shoulders screaming "Myzungu myzungu" (white person white person) and patting my back. I was finally living the dream. I looked around at the spectators and saw the women going "a girl? a girl!" They were so shocked and proud that the only girl in the competition had won and they shared equally in my victory. That was the best moment I have had yet in Africa; I was just so proud and happy to be accepted. A group of women gave me some leaves to wash the egg off my hands (there is a good chance I will getting Salmonella) which I quickly used not thinking twice about what kind of leaves they were. After a week of Poison Ivy on my face, I now have Poison Ivy all over my fingers... but it was worth it. I am meeting them again next Sunday for a soccer competition... should be interesting.

In addition to my success on the field I have also had a very interesting week. I completed my work plan for my time at ACCES and have begun a very exciting project. While I was sick and confined to my bed and malaria net, I read an article about re-usable pads for girls. I quickly thought back to the fact that many girls in Kenya were not attending school for one week every month during the time that they had their periods because they could not afford and sanitary products. The ACCES centers are currently spending half of our Health budget in providing each girls with 10 disposable pads a year which are hardly sufficient to last them through the whole year and so many girls are forced to miss school during their periods still. This puts girls at a huge disadvantage academically in an environment where your grade point average and testing abilities play a major role in your future and whether or not you can get a scholarship for high school. I remembered that ACCES also supported a group of students at a tailoring school and wondering if we could link our microfinance initiative with the students at that school and help them to produce re-usable pads for our students in a pilot run to see if it worked. Then, if the pilot run is successfully, we can produce more pads and advertise them to the multitude of NGO's based in Kakamega and surrounding towns who also work with schools for disadvantaged youth who are undoubtedly running into the same budget restraints as ACCES when it comes to supplying disposable sanitary pads to their girls. This could open a whole new market for Kakamega and at the same time give girls the opportunity to stay in school and keep their grades up in order to compete more with the boys for highschool scholarships. ACCES loves the idea and after a week of giving out surveys to the girls at some of our nine centers I have found that the girls are really excited about the idea. I am doing a presentation at the tailoring school tomorrow in order to find girls to work on the project and will be conducting interviews after that in order to assure that we have the most capable and diligent girls on board the project. Hopefully this will go well and then I will spend the rest of next week writing an extensive grant to the Foundation for Sustainable Development for the funds to make this project a reality. I will also be starting a private fundraising campaign shortly in order to assure the sustainability of this project. In addition to the teaching the girls from the tailoring school how to make the pads, we will also be offering them small-business start-up classes which will help them to expand their business and also keep the project sustainable. I am very excited to see how much I can accomplish in the next six weeks and leave my mark on Kakamega!

On top of the research I have been doing for my reusable pad project, I have also taken to heart another study. I have noticed in my time here that Kenyans do not go to the bathroom. While I realize that "bathrooms" are limited and even the "luxurious" pit latrines are hard to come by, I cannot understand how people literally NEVER go to the bathroom. At the ACCES office I sit across from the bathroom. In the past three days not one person in the office has used the bathroom. At my two bedroom home that on any given night can hold anywhere from 9 to 16 people, in the past three days NOT ONE PERSON HAS USED THE BATHROOM. My room is right next to the only bathroom in the house and I have been painstakingly listening and waiting to hear someone going into the bathroom for three days and NOTHING. What does this mean? Where are people going to the bathroom? Are they even going to the bathroom? Is that even healthy? On top of supplying reusable pads to the girls of Kakemega, I am determined to find the answer to this bathroom mystery in the next six weeks. If anyone has any ideas... please let me know.