A rat scuttled across the floor today as I showed Eileen, Emmanuel and Sylvia's oldest 10 year old daughter, my facebook account.  We both looked at it in horror as it ran into my room.  We laughed and tried to find it under my bed with a flashlight, but could not see where it was hiding. The internet is very slow to load, and showing her pictures on my facebook turned out to be a patience test of the century for me. 

As I write this, the wind outside is blowing quite hard and you can hear claps of thunder in the distance.  I have just finished my lunch - one that consisted of an entire fish - yes head, skin, and fins placed on my plate.  Unsure of how to proceed and afraid to offend, I dug right in, and found juicy, tasty white meat under the skin.  I am certain that I have gained at least 10 pounds here.  I keep explaining that we don't eat this much in the United States, but Sylvia just keeps piling the potatoes, ugali (paste of maize and water), and other meat onto my plate. 

All the schools in the area have a two week break now.  Eileen is home from boarding school, but ABBA is quieter because the 350 students are at home with their parents.  Twenty-seven orphans who are housed here full time remain, and I played with bubbles and my camera with them yesterday, as I held a very small baby in my arms. Some of the kids are still afraid of me, but most will come right up and ask for all the jewelry on my arms and to take pictures with my camera.  They are fascinated with my hair, and dig through it to see if they can spot my scalp.

There are Dutch people here working at the organic farm, and Berend's parents are here visiting for three weeks, so they came to ABBA yesterday to meet Sylvia and Emmanuel.  The language barrier is vast and hilarious - Berend's parents speak English but not quite fluently, and you can see how badly everyone wants to be able to converse on their faces, if only our brains and mouths would catch up! We toured fish ponds by Lake Victoria that Sylvia and Emmanuel have as income generating activities - catfish and tilapia that will be harvested in November and sold at the market.  There are hot springs that are about a 30 minute drive away and we went and felt the boiling, hot, slimy water as we were followed by many curious children.

Sylvia is a nurse and worked at a hospital before moving back to Emmanuel's home village of Kochia. I asked her why she left, and she explained how horrible it was when AIDS came.  She said people would literally die standing up. It is very common for people here to have HIV, and ARVs are available, but she said people have a hard time remembering to take the pills.  They will take them for a while, but then forget for a bit and get sick. She specializes in tooth extractions, and usually has at least 4 people a day that come to have their teeth pulled without anesthia. THere are no toothbrushes here, and many people have rotting teeth with holes in them because of it. It is one of the most painful things I have ever seen done, and the only person to cry was a tiny baby.

We take strolls every evening as the sun goes down. 'Mzungu how are you' rings from every direction as the sky turns a deep pink. Sylvia reminds me to put on long sleeves and pants because the mosqitoes are quite bad at night.  They introduce me to everyone, and tell them I am staying with them but am a visitor to the whole community.  Everyone here can ask me how I am and reply they're fine in English.  I'm afraid to report I can barely say that much in Luo. We return to the house once the sun has completely gone down and everything is dark.  Sometimes we sit on the curb part of the outside of the house. Last night Sylvia asked me if it sounded the same at night in the U.S. and I told her no - everyone is in their houses with tv's and radios turned on, so the crying of neighbors and barking/crowing of animals is rarely heard.

We have dinner around 8 or 9 in the evening and then talk until around ten at night.  They ask me about the United States and tell me about their lives, how they met and were married. It's interesting hearing what they think home is like - glittering and shiny with money around for everyone.  I tried to explain that it is certainly not this way for everyone, but articulating that to people who are raising 27 kids who are orphaned from HIV is strange and challenging.

I am not used to not having things to do.  I have no medical skills to offer, and it's hard to go and sit in a clinic because they let you watch everything - even things that I don't believe I should have the right to see.  People ask me why I'm here and I explain that I'm interested in community health, and they cock their heads, so I continue and say I want to learn about the people and the culture.  I keep telling myself to relax and try to be patient - that things will develop as time moves forward, but it's already been a week here and I have no plan or schedule for what I will do here.  The type A personality Rachel desperately wants to go for a long run and cross things off a long check list, but attempting either of these things makes Sylvia and Emmanuel go out of their way and disrupts them from their extremely busy daily tasks. We shall see how this next week unfolds!