Women living with HIV/AIDS - showing off some of their crafts that they produce through their group - an income generating activity. This group is in Mombasa.


Kenyan youth love to do gymnastics on the beach.

Mary and her running club!!

Here is the tree house I slept in ----see story below about this experience !



Here is a shot of a beach volleyball tournament that another volunteer and I organized. All school children here wear uniforms.


Dear Friends;

I am currently attending a Peace Corps workshop at a fancy beachside resort. Your tax dollars at work - once again!! So I have electricity, running water, and a flush toilet. I am loving it. It has been a full moon and I can clearly see the ocean from my patio (connected to my room). Monkeys run all around the grounds and the beach is a great place to run - I run every morning. But now this situation will end on Friday and it will be back to my usual living situation. Well, I will be ready as I actually do miss it. The slow, calm life style can be very alluring!

Now for the story about the tree house -----not too far from where I live is a national forest that advertises that it has a tree house you can rent and sleep in overnight. There is an elephant watering hole not far away and if you are lucky, you will see them come to drink. Hey - sure sounds fun to me!! So I sign up -----unfortunately no one mentioned that the tree house is 6 km from the entrance to the forest AND you have to walk inside a huge electrified fence to get to the tree house ----yea, it is electrified to keep the elephants and cape buffalo inside! Also, forgot to tell us there is no water, food, toilet, shower, etc. -----just the tree house that is missing a few steps and is in need of repair. BUT the elephants did arrive, at dusk; you did have to peer around some foliage to watch them but it was still rather exciting. They made lots of elephant type noises and came over rather close to the tree house. However, I am not recommending this as a trip for Margo and Kyle and I to take when they visit in November.

The photo of the women was taken during a field trip taken during this Peace Corps workshop. We were looking at crafts made by the people in a support group. I purchased a hand knit dress for baby Canada which she potentially would wear when she is about 4! Kenya is full of support groups just for people who have been diagnosed as being HIV positive. I think the groups function very similar to support groups in the US. One of the big problems is trying to get both the women and the men of an HIV couple to participate in a group. Couples where one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative are referred to as a discordant couple. It creates many, many problems as you can well imagine. Kenya's population is 93% HIV free and 7% HIV positive ----the way to reduce the spread is to educate the 93% and make sure the 7% doesn't spread the virus.

I have friends coming in 10 days. Geneese and Bill - I went to college with Geneese and we have stayed friends all these years. I am excited to have them visit.

Till next time friends -

Mary

Feeling Fine

THIS WAS WRITTEN A MONTH AGO AND I FORGOT TO PUBLISH IT!! SO HERE IT IS NOW

OK - I am now totally recovered from both of my leg injuries. I am so relieved to be able to walk everywhere and to participate with the running club.

School is now out of session and the month of August will be a bit relaxed for me. I will work on lesson plans for next term. I am adding a "Chill Club" program for grade 7; I can do this in English and so will not need an interpreter. Chill Club is conducted in many Kenyan schools and is an HIV/AIDS education, awareness program for teens. Grade seven can even have an occasional 20 year old attending, so HIV education is very much needed at this grade level. There are few students under the age of 15.

Since recovering, I held a beach volleyball tournament with another PVC. It was a big success. Even though the beach is visible from Kadzinuni and not a great distance away, some of the participants had never been to the beach! Some kids were more interested in practising their gymnastics!

I also took a one day trip to the Arabuka Forest. Spent the night in a tree house in the hopes of watching elephants at a watering hole. Well, the elephants did show up but it was almost dark and also there was thick foliage obscurring the view. But the elephants made very loud elephant noises which made the experience fun. To get to the tree house you must walk 4.5 miles inside a high electrified fence (that keeps the elephants and cape buffalo inside). We walked in with a guide but the walk out was fast with some looking over shoulders to see what was around you.
I was with a Kenyan who seemed very concerned about the situation and made me almost run out the entire way. I am including some photos here of the tree house.

I took my Kenyan family to the Mombasa zoo - they had never seen any of the big African animals. It was really a wonderful day. I am having some computer problems right now and so will close by adding a couple more pictures from around my area. Well - that isn't happening so will close for now!

I