Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Kenya Part 4 (March 21, 2010)
Mirembe Everyone,
Another very busy week here in Eregi. It's hard to believe I've been in Kenya for over a month now.
As I mentioned in my first update, I have been working with a group of girls in a pilot program called I am an Entrepreneur. The
14 girls in the program are in Form 4 (the equivalent of senior year of high school). The main goal of the program is to give the girls the skills and experience they need to start their own businesses. The girls have participated in entrepreneurial field programs and even been set up with short internships (quite a foreign concept here). They are also 
learning other skills, from how to set realistic goals to public speaking.
**
I have been teaching the girls a variety of different things. Last week, they learned about e-mail, positive thinking and visualization, and some of the basic yoga I picked up in India. I really love working with the entrepreneur girls. They continually impress me with their confidence and determination.
During one of our lessons last week, the power was out so we couldn’t go ahead with the scheduled computer training. Instead, we sat in a circle in
the dark, practicing the interviews I am going to film to put up on the program website. Each girl talked about her hobbies, defining characteristics, dream career, strengths, and weaknesses. Then, because we had extra time, the girls started sharing their talents. Two girls sang songs in Kiswahili that they had written. It was a very special experience.
On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday, Kenyan style. The birthday cake that I made out of chocolate chip cookies was a big success (worth having to go all the way to Kakamega for chocolate and walk an hour to a house with an oven). It was
great celebrating surrounded by all my Kenyan friends and family.
I went along with my family to a four hour Palm Sunday church service. The service started in a field. Along with a couple thousand people, we made our way up to the church in a parade of sorts, everyone dancing, singing, and shaking their palm fronds. I really
like going to church here. The services are colorful and lively. Sundays in the village are also fun because after church, nearly everyone is out and about. When I’m walking around with 
Kizito, we stop many times along the way to chat with the friends and acquaintances we run in to. People get all dressed up, the little girls in their fancy second hand party frocks. Market stands selling vegetables and household items are set up along the main road.
Yesterday, a Norwegian guy I met on the airplane from Nairobi showed me around Kisumu. I visited the slum school and the center for street children where he works. Lunch was
extremely fresh tilapia, in a tin shack right on the edge of Lake Victoria. While I enjoyed visiting the city, seeing Kisumu also made me really appreciate the fact that I am living in a village.
I hope this update finds you all well.
Good luck to all my 2010 friends out there waiting on word from colleges. I'm crossing my fingers for you! It is kind of crazy for
me to think that my future roomate will be finding out that they have been accepted to Princeton tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Emmoliese
** (after writing this update, I realized that it is extremely long and that not all of you are necessarily interested in specifics of the Kenyan school system...so only continue reading if you want more details)
In most Kenyan schools, all of Form 4 is spent preparing for the KCSE, a two month long exam that determines what and where a student studies after secondary school. For example, students who score a C+ usually attend teachers college. Because KCSE results don’t come out for a few months after the school year ends, students have no other choice than to take a gap year. Many wind up waiting at least two years while they figure out how to pay for college. Unfortunately, many students are idle during this long break and wind up getting into trouble. A big part of the I am an Entrepreneur program is to prepare the girls for success after secondary school.
This week, I interviewed five girls who had finished secondary school in the last three years.
I am trying to get a better idea of the challenges faced by girls once they graduate. The results of the research I am doing will be used to improve the I am an Entrepreneur program. Talking to girls my age was really interesting. It is kind of mind boggling to think about the difference in the opportunities that they have and those that I have.
Pictures:
1) Neighborhood kids
2) With the Entrepreneur girls after I taught them a bit of yoga
3) Birkenstock tan! Not. It has been raining like crazy all week and the streets have turned to complete mud.
4) Diana helping me buy a kilo of beef for my birthday celebration. No refrigerators here. I'm kind of curious as to how long the meet is usually hanging.
5) Happy Birthday!
6) Saumu and Kizito on my birthday. Love the matching shits!
7) Very busy Sunday vegetable market after church
8) Fresh tilapia in a tin shack next to Lake Victoria
8) Diana and I
9) The 14 Entrepreneur girls
Another very busy week here in Eregi. It's hard to believe I've been in Kenya for over a month now.
As I mentioned in my first update, I have been working with a group of girls in a pilot program called I am an Entrepreneur. The
14 girls in the program are in Form 4 (the equivalent of senior year of high school). The main goal of the program is to give the girls the skills and experience they need to start their own businesses. The girls have participated in entrepreneurial field programs and even been set up with short internships (quite a foreign concept here). They are also 
learning other skills, from how to set realistic goals to public speaking.**
I have been teaching the girls a variety of different things. Last week, they learned about e-mail, positive thinking and visualization, and some of the basic yoga I picked up in India. I really love working with the entrepreneur girls. They continually impress me with their confidence and determination.
During one of our lessons last week, the power was out so we couldn’t go ahead with the scheduled computer training. Instead, we sat in a circle in
the dark, practicing the interviews I am going to film to put up on the program website. Each girl talked about her hobbies, defining characteristics, dream career, strengths, and weaknesses. Then, because we had extra time, the girls started sharing their talents. Two girls sang songs in Kiswahili that they had written. It was a very special experience.
On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday, Kenyan style. The birthday cake that I made out of chocolate chip cookies was a big success (worth having to go all the way to Kakamega for chocolate and walk an hour to a house with an oven). It was
great celebrating surrounded by all my Kenyan friends and family.I went along with my family to a four hour Palm Sunday church service. The service started in a field. Along with a couple thousand people, we made our way up to the church in a parade of sorts, everyone dancing, singing, and shaking their palm fronds. I really
like going to church here. The services are colorful and lively. Sundays in the village are also fun because after church, nearly everyone is out and about. When I’m walking around with 
Kizito, we stop many times along the way to chat with the friends and acquaintances we run in to. People get all dressed up, the little girls in their fancy second hand party frocks. Market stands selling vegetables and household items are set up along the main road.Yesterday, a Norwegian guy I met on the airplane from Nairobi showed me around Kisumu. I visited the slum school and the center for street children where he works. Lunch was
extremely fresh tilapia, in a tin shack right on the edge of Lake Victoria. While I enjoyed visiting the city, seeing Kisumu also made me really appreciate the fact that I am living in a village.I hope this update finds you all well.
Good luck to all my 2010 friends out there waiting on word from colleges. I'm crossing my fingers for you! It is kind of crazy for
me to think that my future roomate will be finding out that they have been accepted to Princeton tomorrow.Thanks for reading!
Love,
Emmoliese
** (after writing this update, I realized that it is extremely long and that not all of you are necessarily interested in specifics of the Kenyan school system...so only continue reading if you want more details)
In most Kenyan schools, all of Form 4 is spent preparing for the KCSE, a two month long exam that determines what and where a student studies after secondary school. For example, students who score a C+ usually attend teachers college. Because KCSE results don’t come out for a few months after the school year ends, students have no other choice than to take a gap year. Many wind up waiting at least two years while they figure out how to pay for college. Unfortunately, many students are idle during this long break and wind up getting into trouble. A big part of the I am an Entrepreneur program is to prepare the girls for success after secondary school.
This week, I interviewed five girls who had finished secondary school in the last three years.
I am trying to get a better idea of the challenges faced by girls once they graduate. The results of the research I am doing will be used to improve the I am an Entrepreneur program. Talking to girls my age was really interesting. It is kind of mind boggling to think about the difference in the opportunities that they have and those that I have.Pictures:
1) Neighborhood kids
2) With the Entrepreneur girls after I taught them a bit of yoga
3) Birkenstock tan! Not. It has been raining like crazy all week and the streets have turned to complete mud.
4) Diana helping me buy a kilo of beef for my birthday celebration. No refrigerators here. I'm kind of curious as to how long the meet is usually hanging.
5) Happy Birthday!
6) Saumu and Kizito on my birthday. Love the matching shits!
7) Very busy Sunday vegetable market after church
8) Fresh tilapia in a tin shack next to Lake Victoria
8) Diana and I
9) The 14 Entrepreneur girls
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Kenya Part 3
Hi All!
The rain is back. Just in time to save the maize and beans that Kizito planted last week. Everyone in the village had started to get a bit anxious about their recently planted crops after nine days without rain.
Without maize, there would be no ugali. No ugali? Unimaginable. Ugali is the Kenyan staple food,
eaten at least twice a day. It is a polenta-ish mush that tastes kind of like mashed up corn tortillas. It actually tastes better than I’m making it sound. Saumu said that if you don’t feed a child ugali, no matter how much they have eaten that day, they will go to sleep complaining of being hungry.
My time here in Eregi is going by so quickly. I am comfortable with my Kenyan family, am super busy with the various projects that I'm working on, and love living in the village. The days are flying by.
This week I spent a day doing errands in Kakamega, the nearest town. This gave me the chance to get the hang of a
few different types of transportation here. I took a "piki piki" (motorcycle taxi) to the main road. Then I took a bus to the next market area. Next, I took a "matatu" (vans that work like buses...very convenient because they are everywhere but they often don't leave until full) to Kakamega. I got around Kakamega by "bodaboda" (bicycle taxi). Getting to and from the town was a lot more fun than just driving a car.
I'm really excited about the solar start up business that I've taken the lead on. Solar technology has a lot of potential to sell well and be quite helpful in rural villages where there is no electricity.
I’m partnered with two Kenyan guys my age, Mike and Philip. Working with them has been great. As part of this project, I have been testing out different products, setting up stands at local markets (next to ladies selling dried minnows and fresh avocados), collecting feedback from buyers and potential buyers, creating excel spreadsheets to track costs and profits, etc. This week we are launching a pilot program at a local secondary school that will enable students to pay for solar lights in installments without going into debt. The students will hopefully really benefit from the lights because they can use them to study at night. I knew next to nothing about business before coming to Kenya so this has been a very interesting, hands-on, learning experience for me.
One of the things I like most about living in Eregi
is that there are so many incredibly cute, very friendly kids. Whenever I walk anywhere, random kids join me along the way. They never tire of shouting out “mzungu” (white person) and asking me how I am. Sometimes, the language barrier makes conversation impossible, so we walk together in silence for half an hour. Kizito's sister runs a nursery school that I help out at a couple
days a week. There is also a group of kids from around the neighborhood (among them are Newton, Gryphon, and Titas...great names) who come around every evening for games. I think I’ve played enough monkey in the middle and crazy eight’s in the past few weeks to last a lifetime. I love it though.
I hope everything is going great with all of you.
Love, Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) Planting maize
2) Riding a pikipiki with Philip
3) Philip, Mike, and Accadius selling solar lights
4) With St. Peter's ECD (nursery school) kids
5) Cutie pies I met while walking to work
6) With girls from the neighborhood (Purity, Seline, and Skolvia) and my Kenyan brother
The rain is back. Just in time to save the maize and beans that Kizito planted last week. Everyone in the village had started to get a bit anxious about their recently planted crops after nine days without rain.
Without maize, there would be no ugali. No ugali? Unimaginable. Ugali is the Kenyan staple food,
eaten at least twice a day. It is a polenta-ish mush that tastes kind of like mashed up corn tortillas. It actually tastes better than I’m making it sound. Saumu said that if you don’t feed a child ugali, no matter how much they have eaten that day, they will go to sleep complaining of being hungry.My time here in Eregi is going by so quickly. I am comfortable with my Kenyan family, am super busy with the various projects that I'm working on, and love living in the village. The days are flying by.
This week I spent a day doing errands in Kakamega, the nearest town. This gave me the chance to get the hang of a
few different types of transportation here. I took a "piki piki" (motorcycle taxi) to the main road. Then I took a bus to the next market area. Next, I took a "matatu" (vans that work like buses...very convenient because they are everywhere but they often don't leave until full) to Kakamega. I got around Kakamega by "bodaboda" (bicycle taxi). Getting to and from the town was a lot more fun than just driving a car.I'm really excited about the solar start up business that I've taken the lead on. Solar technology has a lot of potential to sell well and be quite helpful in rural villages where there is no electricity.
I’m partnered with two Kenyan guys my age, Mike and Philip. Working with them has been great. As part of this project, I have been testing out different products, setting up stands at local markets (next to ladies selling dried minnows and fresh avocados), collecting feedback from buyers and potential buyers, creating excel spreadsheets to track costs and profits, etc. This week we are launching a pilot program at a local secondary school that will enable students to pay for solar lights in installments without going into debt. The students will hopefully really benefit from the lights because they can use them to study at night. I knew next to nothing about business before coming to Kenya so this has been a very interesting, hands-on, learning experience for me.One of the things I like most about living in Eregi
is that there are so many incredibly cute, very friendly kids. Whenever I walk anywhere, random kids join me along the way. They never tire of shouting out “mzungu” (white person) and asking me how I am. Sometimes, the language barrier makes conversation impossible, so we walk together in silence for half an hour. Kizito's sister runs a nursery school that I help out at a couple
days a week. There is also a group of kids from around the neighborhood (among them are Newton, Gryphon, and Titas...great names) who come around every evening for games. I think I’ve played enough monkey in the middle and crazy eight’s in the past few weeks to last a lifetime. I love it though.I hope everything is going great with all of you.
Love, Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) Planting maize
2) Riding a pikipiki with Philip
3) Philip, Mike, and Accadius selling solar lights
4) With St. Peter's ECD (nursery school) kids
5) Cutie pies I met while walking to work
6) With girls from the neighborhood (Purity, Seline, and Skolvia) and my Kenyan brother
Kenya Part 2 (March 16, 2010)
Hi Everyone,
So I definitely jinxed the weather in my last
update when I wrote that it rains every day. It has not rained at all this past week. The weather has been much hotter. Now that the rain has stopped, we have to carry all needed water up from the stream in jugs on top of our heads. Needless to say, I provide all the neighbors with plenty of entertainment around here. They could not stop laughing the first time I attempted to carry a jug on my head. I wound up spilling water all over myself.
Tasks that are every day chores for my Kenyan family are new cultural experiences for me. I’m
not sure if I’ll ever be able to hand wash my clothing so that it is actually clean. I am so happy to be living with a Kenyan family here because I am getting a pretty in depth experience of a very different lifestyle.
I am quickly adjusting to life in Eregi. I know my way around now. Though this is a village, things are pretty spread out so I wind up
walking for around two hours every day. I love walking from place to place because there is plenty to see and everyone is so friendly. I like the way everybody in Eregi greets each other (“Habari”, meaning “how is the day?” is always answered with “mzuri” which means “fine”). I am beginning to get to know many people in the village. I am also slowly learning some Swahili. I feel more at home here every day.
On Sunday, Kizito had one of his monthly men’s group
meetings. I went along with him and spent the entire day in the kitchen, helping the host’s wife, Nancy, prepare an absolute feast. We prepared rice, chapatti, ugali, cabbage, greens, greens with groundnuts, potatoes, beef, chicken, soup, eggs, and more. Nancy was very patient teaching me
how to cook Kenyan style. And all the men were impressed (surprised maybe?) that I had helped.
As far as volunteer work goes, my days are very busy. I’ve decided to focus on one project per update. Three days a week, I teach computers to interested teachers and a group of girls at a local high school. The teachers and students are all very excited to get a chance to learn some basic computer skills.
They realize how important computer literacy is for many jobs around the world. My lessons are split into different categories, including introduction to computers, microsoft word, microsoft excel, and internet basics. It has been interesting for me to see just how foreign of a machine the computer is to most of the people I'm teaching. The teaching takes a lot of patience but is also quite rewarding.
I hope you are all well!
Keep updating me on your lives please,
Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) Diana is a pro at carrying water jugs on her head up from the river.
2) Learning how to cut Kale properly. I'm not very good at cutting it into small enough pieces, especially with no cutting board and a blunt knife.
3) Eregi's main market. The building is Sunray Supermarket. I think calling it a supermarket is a bit ambitious.
4) No feast is complete without cow intestines roasted on a stick.
5) Chapati, rice, potatoes, beef, chicken, cabbage, greens 1, greens 2 (I'm never quite sure what the greens are...), beef, and chicken. The food is definitely not bad. But the food in India was a lot better.
6) Teacher computer training
So I definitely jinxed the weather in my last
update when I wrote that it rains every day. It has not rained at all this past week. The weather has been much hotter. Now that the rain has stopped, we have to carry all needed water up from the stream in jugs on top of our heads. Needless to say, I provide all the neighbors with plenty of entertainment around here. They could not stop laughing the first time I attempted to carry a jug on my head. I wound up spilling water all over myself.Tasks that are every day chores for my Kenyan family are new cultural experiences for me. I’m
not sure if I’ll ever be able to hand wash my clothing so that it is actually clean. I am so happy to be living with a Kenyan family here because I am getting a pretty in depth experience of a very different lifestyle.I am quickly adjusting to life in Eregi. I know my way around now. Though this is a village, things are pretty spread out so I wind up
walking for around two hours every day. I love walking from place to place because there is plenty to see and everyone is so friendly. I like the way everybody in Eregi greets each other (“Habari”, meaning “how is the day?” is always answered with “mzuri” which means “fine”). I am beginning to get to know many people in the village. I am also slowly learning some Swahili. I feel more at home here every day.On Sunday, Kizito had one of his monthly men’s group
meetings. I went along with him and spent the entire day in the kitchen, helping the host’s wife, Nancy, prepare an absolute feast. We prepared rice, chapatti, ugali, cabbage, greens, greens with groundnuts, potatoes, beef, chicken, soup, eggs, and more. Nancy was very patient teaching me
how to cook Kenyan style. And all the men were impressed (surprised maybe?) that I had helped.As far as volunteer work goes, my days are very busy. I’ve decided to focus on one project per update. Three days a week, I teach computers to interested teachers and a group of girls at a local high school. The teachers and students are all very excited to get a chance to learn some basic computer skills.
They realize how important computer literacy is for many jobs around the world. My lessons are split into different categories, including introduction to computers, microsoft word, microsoft excel, and internet basics. It has been interesting for me to see just how foreign of a machine the computer is to most of the people I'm teaching. The teaching takes a lot of patience but is also quite rewarding.I hope you are all well!
Keep updating me on your lives please,
Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) Diana is a pro at carrying water jugs on her head up from the river.
2) Learning how to cut Kale properly. I'm not very good at cutting it into small enough pieces, especially with no cutting board and a blunt knife.
3) Eregi's main market. The building is Sunray Supermarket. I think calling it a supermarket is a bit ambitious.
4) No feast is complete without cow intestines roasted on a stick.
5) Chapati, rice, potatoes, beef, chicken, cabbage, greens 1, greens 2 (I'm never quite sure what the greens are...), beef, and chicken. The food is definitely not bad. But the food in India was a lot better.
6) Teacher computer training
Kenya Part 1 (March 8, 2010)
Hey Everyone!
I hope you have all been well since my last update!
Now I am in Kenya! I arrived last Friday and will be here for a total of six weeks. I am living with a family in Eregi, a really small village in Western Kenya. Eregi is close to the Kakamega rainforest. It rains every day so everything is lush and green. It is really beautiful.
My host parents, Kizito and Saumu are both teachers. They have a son at boarding school (who I have not met) along with
two foster children, Diana (age 12) and Moachi (age 8). Everyone has been extremely friendly and welcoming. Kizito and Saumu are already calling me their daughter and treating me like a member of the family.
So far, I love living here. Our whole neighborhood has no electricity or running water. Food is cooked in pots balanced
on three stones over a fire. There are no cars and we walk everywhere. There are two cows, some chickens, and some ducks living out back. My hosts find it very amusing that in the US, I do not go out looking for firewood on a regular 
basis and that I often drink milk from a cow that I have never seen.
A Stanford graduate, Lyndsay, who lives outside of Eregi, has helped get me started on a number of interesting volunteer projects. I teach math, computers, sports, and leadership to a group of 14 girls in a pilot program called I AM an Entrepreneur at a boarding school in Eregi. I am teaching the teachers how to use computers at the
same boarding school. My goal is for all 31 teachers at the high school to be computer literate by the time I leave. I am also working on a start up solar business. I’ll send a little more information about these projects in the updates that follow.
Thanks for reading.
Love,
Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) The road leading up to my house
2) Our cow. I actually thought they had used a lawn mower to cut the grass when I first arrived.
3) Diana lighting a fire to cook dinner on
4) My bedroom! The mosquito net is a must. Though I think there are also bed bugs bugging me. I wake up covered in bites.
5) The kids are starting to get the hang of using my camera. Moachi is the one in the front.
I hope you have all been well since my last update!
Now I am in Kenya! I arrived last Friday and will be here for a total of six weeks. I am living with a family in Eregi, a really small village in Western Kenya. Eregi is close to the Kakamega rainforest. It rains every day so everything is lush and green. It is really beautiful.
My host parents, Kizito and Saumu are both teachers. They have a son at boarding school (who I have not met) along with
two foster children, Diana (age 12) and Moachi (age 8). Everyone has been extremely friendly and welcoming. Kizito and Saumu are already calling me their daughter and treating me like a member of the family.So far, I love living here. Our whole neighborhood has no electricity or running water. Food is cooked in pots balanced
on three stones over a fire. There are no cars and we walk everywhere. There are two cows, some chickens, and some ducks living out back. My hosts find it very amusing that in the US, I do not go out looking for firewood on a regular 
basis and that I often drink milk from a cow that I have never seen.A Stanford graduate, Lyndsay, who lives outside of Eregi, has helped get me started on a number of interesting volunteer projects. I teach math, computers, sports, and leadership to a group of 14 girls in a pilot program called I AM an Entrepreneur at a boarding school in Eregi. I am teaching the teachers how to use computers at the
same boarding school. My goal is for all 31 teachers at the high school to be computer literate by the time I leave. I am also working on a start up solar business. I’ll send a little more information about these projects in the updates that follow.Thanks for reading.
Love,
Emmiliese
Pictures:
1) The road leading up to my house
2) Our cow. I actually thought they had used a lawn mower to cut the grass when I first arrived.
3) Diana lighting a fire to cook dinner on
4) My bedroom! The mosquito net is a must. Though I think there are also bed bugs bugging me. I wake up covered in bites.
5) The kids are starting to get the hang of using my camera. Moachi is the one in the front.
Friday, February 12, 2010
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