Brand New Day

Well yesterday was a weird day, is all I can say. Six months ago, wondering why my calves were suddenly stinging and then discovering a prickly 3-inch caterpillar stuck to the inside of my skirt would have been the low point of any day. But somehow going to bed feeling like there is MAYBE one person in your
community who is trustworthy and everyone else is a corrupt liar takes the cake - and makes for weird dreams and even weirder mental health in the morning. I have decided to keep listening and asking questions, and to try to convince myself that a corrupt man is not necessarily a bad man (or woman). I don't know if I will ever actually believe that, but I think it will be an exercise in mind expansion that will hopefully help me understand why things work the way they do in Kenya - why people choose to give and take bribes and steal from their own communities and lie to my face about it - even if I don't agree with it. I am learning not to believe everything I hear right away, because rumors run rampant in small villages like mine, and narrow minds run even more rampant. I am also learning that what an American considers a selfish lie may be what a Kenyan considers a way to avoid hurting someone's feelings. And also that while it's a bit naive to assume that most institutions in America function as meritocracies, it's downright retarded to assume that meritocracy even exists in Kenya. The U.S. isn't the only country where money
talks big, and the rich get richer, and the poor have more children.

Well, on a happier note, we successfully redesigned and printed out our new letterhead for the VCT, and I think I managed to convince my co-worker that homosexuality does exist in Kenya, even here in this community.

And yes, today is a brand new day, and the weather is beautiful, and my co-worker is trying to convince a woman dying of AIDS in the hospital to go with her to the VCT in Mosoriot (outside Eldoret) to get ARVs - antiretroviral drugs to help her feel a bit better and extend her life. The hospital in my village doesn't have any capacity to care for someone with AIDS - no ARVs, not even HIV tests except for pregnant mothers. The patient is an AIDS widow but is in denial about her own status, although I don't know how the endless vomiting and diarrhea doesn't give it away. Oh yeah, because it looks like cholera. Or malaria. Or an amoeba or typhoid or...