UM

The last week was crazy, and not in a good way! Ok Friday, a Cobra, yes I said Cobra was killed in the rocks at our water tank which we use everyday! I do not do snakes! Also, after the Cobra was found I was informed that they have been found in the toilets multiple times, so not only am I trying to poop in a hole but I have to do a full check to make sure a Cobra does not bite my butt. This is so roughing it! :) Saturday morning I woke up and even before I could drink any coffee, I was chosen to be the assistant with helping skin a gazelle that had been killed on our land. Then that night I got sick with a fever, cough, and flu. Tuesday, Emily, the two German guy volunteers myself, and a teacher decided to go on a motorcycle tour to Lake Magadi. Unfortunately, the one German boy crashed his bike because a goat cut him off! He is ok, no broken bones, but he has given me a lot of work this past week changing his bandages everynight! And we never made it to the Lake. But we did spend the day cooking meat at a campsite in the rift valley, while he recovered from his crash. That was really fun, and gorgeous. But it was a scary day. I will not be going on any more moto tours for a while. And my time at the clinic has been not so good b/c I am only see about 1 patient a day. But I have been informed that the staff had a debate about what I should be doing, and starting today I get to rotate around and do everything! So I am excited about that!!! Hopefully, I will get to see more and be more useful!! The kids at the center are excellent, lots of fun and just so sweet. Unfortunately, one of them is now sick with what I had so I am pretty sure everyone will have it soon enough! Hopefully, this next week will be much better!!! But I do love it here, just had a bit of a bad week!! But Emily and I are still laughing so its all good!!

Scorpion

First off, I killed a Scorpion this week! He was hanging outside our door trying to break in so I had to kill him!! Most importantly, I had such a good week! I found a clinic to work at, it is a Catholic hospital! I will work there in the mornings, then they take lunch at 12:30 and I will head home to be with the kids! I really hope I like it, I am just excited to be doing something. Although they were like you need to learn Swahili, which is a little intimidating, it is a hard language. The week with the kids was really good, they are entertaining, and I am loving the German volunteers. Ok the big event of the week was going to the clinic on Thursday. Where I had diarrhea about 3 times. I made a really good impression. The toilet was of course a hole, with no tp and I had about 10 squares for 3 rounds of diarrhea. It was rough! We headed back to zebra with a truck with hay for the cows. We got home at about 8, and we unloaded the hay. Afterwords the truck driver realized he locked his keys in his car. And I was not there, but after about 15min I heard what happened, and went out there and taught everyone how to break into a car!! And it worked! It was really funny! Everyone was questioning how I knew how to do it, and was very impressed by my work! Fortunately, about a month ago my mom had locked her keys in the car with the car running, and my aunt taught me how to break in. It did not work on my mom's car but it did work here in Kenya! So everything has a purpose. The next day EM and I went to the kids' school and observed. Where one of the German boys told everyone I broke into a car the night before which was embarrassing. But one of the teachers made Mathiesen teach two of her classes. I seriously would have died, I was very thankful I was not a teacher at that moment. Just walking in and being forced to teach. So embarrassing, but she did really well. So that was our interesting week. Yesterday the Germans, Em and I all came to Nairobi and went out for dinner. So it has been a good week! I am really loving it, and am excited to start at the clinic!!

Zebra Village

I am sorry for my delayed updates everyone! Monday we moved out to the orphanage called Zebra village. There are 13 children ages 6-15. There are also 3 German volunteers, who we really like! And two Kenyan staff, who we also really like. So we are loving the community at Zebra! I have even embraced the hole for a toilet. It is actually nice b/c it is private, and it will never clog. The only problem is it really starts smelling about mid-day when it is really hot. The outdoor shower is actually really nice! So though we thought the accommodations would be rough we like them a lot! The only bad thing is that water is so limited. We are having a major drought here which is killing people and animals. And the tanks ran out at the children's center, so we had to pay to have them refilled. You don't realize how much we take water for granted. It is so important. It is hot where we are which is about 1hr outside of Nairobi. But there is a good wind, which makes it bearable, I actually get very cold at night. I need a big bulky sweater. We are basically in the middle of nowhere. In order to catch a matatu which is the public transportation we have to walk 20min to get to the road. Then we catch the matatu which is basically a VW van stuffed with about 20 people. It is a special experience. I really appreciate the tap taps in Haiti b/c at least u have good airflow. The matatus move very slow so usually it takes about 2hrs to get to Nairobi by matatu. But they are very cheap which is nice.
So far we have been helping the kids with their homework, and developing individual homework for each of them to help them improve in school. I am hoping to start working at a clinic soon in the mornings and then work with the kids in the afternoons! They need a lot of one on one time b/c they have btwn 50-60kids in their class with one teacher. Also, many of the kids at the center started school late so we have an 11yo in kindergarten. It is fun creating homework for each of them, and seeing their improvement. Although, I have a new appreciation for teachers b/c it is hard to teach division and other things. How do you explain a fraction, and then if you explain and they still don't understand what do you do next? I am very thankful I came with a teacher!
So far I had a monkey on my head, and I have seen Zebras and an ostrich! My spider killing techniques have not been put to use, their are basically no spiders or mosquitoes. We heard there are snakes and I am hoping to never see one!!