Back home...

I'm back home and soooo happy to be here.  I still haven't processed everything from the trip, but I figure it will all fall into place over the next couple of weeks.  The surveys were more or less a success as we managed to administer them and collect the data.  Now they need to be analyzed and we need to create a response to the data - the most important part of it all.  Okay, so we have all this data.  What now? I think it's more overwhelming to have started something and know the hard work still lies ahead.  I think there will be many challenges to the success of this project with sustainability being at the very forefront.  What types of interventions can we put into place with the least amount of effort that will have some type of impact?  What interventions can the community put in place with the least amount of assistance from us is probably a better way to word it That seems like the first step to take.

Things unrelated to the survey:

Ron - The 14 year old child I met while in the village who became an AIDS orphan right before my very eyes.  We both decided we wanted to stay in contact with one another so I will be calling him and sending him letters once a month to see how he is doing.  I bought him a phone before leaving so I can contact him.   I figured any fundraising I do in the future will involve securing some funds so Ron can afford to get through high school.  We are working on some kind of arrangement so I can make sure he is holding up his end of the bargain and earning the educational support and not just viewing it as though it is a handout of some sort. I just hope his personal situation does not deteriorate as his mother's health is declining (as she is also positive).  Right now he stays with his grandmother so he can be able to finish school (grade 8).

I brought a present home with me...
Well, maybe not a present, but definitely something came back with me to the states.  It presented itself as a fever with intermittent, crippling stomach pains and body aches.  Of course, the symptoms only presented themselves to me when I was several miles up a mountain on the Wapack Trail yesterday.  I feel better this morning, but there is something unnerving about a fever when you have come back from Africa.  All the possibilities - malaria, dengue fever, and the numerous other little buggers start to invade your brain space (both literally and figuratively) and make you wonder: "What the hell is in my body?"  I'm hoping this is just a 2-day thing that will sort itself out sooner than later.

Velcome to ze Nederlandz....

It's about 7am and I arrived in Amsterdam a couple hours ago.  Yesterday I had to kill about 12 hours of layover time in Nairobi before my flight left to arrive here.  And now I only have 5 hours to go before the final flight that will bring me home.  Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so excited to come home.  I know I haven't been gone for that long, but I miss my life.  I miss all the little things that add up to make it my quirky silly little life: Mike making me laugh, making yummy crazy dinners that always seem to include avocado or guacamole, my dogs, going for runs in the morning, and having my crazy fam over for dinners.

I'm too tired to come up with anything interesting to say although lots of little funny things happened in the past few days.  Maybe once I actually sleep for more than 3 hours, I can form intelligent thoughts again.

There is one funny thing I thought about as I was trying to fall asleep on Wednesday night (my last night in the village).  I remembered the very first night I arrived in the village.  News of a death in the family had also joined along for the ride and people were crying and mourning just as I arrived.  At first, I wasn't sure what to think.  I wondered, "Oh boy, did I take someone's room and now their unhappy about it?  Is someone upset that I'm here?"  I kept pacing back and forth in the dark room trying not to get anxious. And then it clicked..."Ahhh, even better...someone has just passed away and they are receiving the news..." I knew that mourning sound from my mother's Ethiopian culture of mourning when someone dies.  And then I met this young lady who was about my age named Gylian.  She was still a stranger to me at the time, but I could tell her job was to make sure I wasn't alone all the time and I had someone to talk to (if I only knew then how important it would be to have her around to get my work done!)  And then when she asked if she could sleep in the same bed that first night, I thought "you've got to be kidding, right?"  But by the end of the month, it was as though she was my sister or something and we would stay up in bed at night giggling about the funny things that happened that day.  I also learned that she literally acts drunk when she eats chocolate! It was hilarious...