Stupidest Things I've Done in Kenya...

Mom - do you really want to read this?!

1. Believe that all pateurization processes are equal. Fortunately the Jolly Drinking Yogurt came up nearly as smooth and creamy as it went down.
2. Embark on a 4-hour hike at noon on the equator and forget to put on sunscreen. I was just so excited by the monkeys! When I was little I wanted to become a monkey when I grew up. When I realized it wasn't a likely option I went for the next best thing - a professor.
3. Enter a bat-filled cave in Ebola-land without a torch. When my guide asked if I had my torch with me I had to restrain the sarcasm to not respond that I'd left it with my spear. Good thing - she meant a flashlight. Torchless, we entered the 60-m long cave and proceeded to splash through puddles and mud until I was completely freaked out and couldn't go further. I turned my camera up to the ceiling, put on the flash... and wait until you see all the creepy bat pictures!
4. Give myself 3 hours to complete a 1-hour journey. Not a very exciting story. Just a lot of waiting beside the broken down matatu (a mini-Datsun truck fitted with bench seats filled to capacity - 22 people not including children and chickens - carrying an entire living AND dining room set on the roof. I would have taken a photo but I couldn't move my arms that much). After the struts broke the first time and were repaired with some handy twine, the driver loaded more people on, and surprise surprise - it broke again!
5. Let a group of aspiring hair salonists give me a rasta-do. I will need a serious hair cut when I return. Enough said.

I'm now in Nakuru, a city in the middle of the Rift Valley, and am leaving for a safari in the Massai Mara tomorrow. The work with the girls has finished. It was a wonderful three weeks, and I already miss them. The final day of class I put on a party and all the girls invited their family or guardians. It was so great to see them show-off proudly what they'd learned and created. They are so excited and inspired by the future possibilities; they tell me that next time I visit they will be taking care of me! After some speeches, a song written for me in thanks, a million photos and receiving a beautiful bolt of African fabric (the girls figured I'd come up with something creative to do with it!), I was 'showered' with thanks; the entire congregation stood up, and with the hands above, rained thanks down on me. It was one of the most moving moments of my life.

But of course this is a land of contrasts. As time went on, more and more questions had begun to arise in my head, and little red flags now appeared as huge, flashing beacons. Why is a girls' empowerment movement directed by a man? Why does the director's father not know I paid the director $250 for boarding with the father (or - how does a 29-year-old man who has never had a job pay for all the cell phones, calling minutes, and transportation he uses?). Why were the portions of the other GEWLS board members' speeches - which indicated that the men would step back now that the project was off the ground - not translated by the director into Kiswahili? Why do the prices the director gives me always add up to at least 5 times more than anyone elses? Why was I being followed, monitored (unable to have any conversations without the presence of the director), and how did the password and security codes to the GEWLS e-mail account I'd set up - for the girls only - end up in the hands of the director? Why was the director trying to insist that he be given signing authority on the GEWLS bank account? And why have the girls, except one, moved out of the director's hut in favour of sleeping with the chickens?!

My last morning, after I'd called the moto boda and was sure it was on its way, I asked these questions of the director in front of his family and a couple of the girls. I learned a lot from the answers - or rather lack of answers - shook hands and thanked those who would look me in the eye, got on the back of the moto boda and left.

If there is one thing I know, it is that the girls will persevere - GEWLS Program or not. They have already been through so much at their young ages; all are survivors. When I confronted the director I demanded he resign. Who knows if that will ever happen. Fortunately though, as I left I was able to slip the instructions for a new e-mail account into the hands of Christine, the GEWLS co-ordinator, so that I will be able to stay in contact with her and the girls without his interference. I was also able to get her mailing address (something the director had apparently forbade - he insisted everything go through him so he could skim off the top) so I can replace the supplies that will undoubtedly be confiscated now that I'm gone. I believe they will succeed, because fortunately, education is the one thing that can never be taken away from them.