I am starting to understand what people mean when they say Kenyan time. After taking two extremely rushed (and quite chilly) showers and hurrying people to get to a place by a certain time, I am slowly learning this is not necessary.  I showed up for breakfast and the people I was supposed to eat with happened to still be sleeping. Rushing into a meeting place telling Silvia we were going to be late (the meeting was supposed to start at 9 and we arrived at 10) only to find it was just us and the people setting up chairs for the meeting that were present.  It's hard to break the never-be-late mentality that has been instilled by my parents from an early age, and reinforced by sports teams and other engagements.  The '15 minutes early is on time' phrase that was repeated endlessly during high school basketball practices is how I treat most situations - just ask my best friend or my roommates. I have since learned that there's always more than enough time to take tea here, and you should never be rushing to go anywhere.

I had survived almost three weeks here without any major health snafoos, and was starting to think all the excessive worrying by me and other people was a huge overreaction.  The health gods must have heard me and decided to prove me wrong.  I took some medication after my stomach had strong disagreements with some of the food I ate, and crawled into bed feeling slightly better than I had all day.  My head was a bit itchy, but I assumed this was from not washing it as often as I do back home. One hour later, I sat up in bed and realized that my ears and head were extremely swollen and hot.  I woke up Silvia and Emmanuel, only to have them stare at me sleepy eyed asking if I had not applied oil to my skin after my shower.  I told them to go back to bed, determined not to ruin everyone's night. One more hour passed, and by now I was covered in hives from head to toe.  Web MD didn't do much to ease my worry - cautioning anyone with hives starting at the head/neck that swelling of the throat could be next. Luckily, I live with a nurse who keeps her clinic well stocked, and after calls to Mom and about 12 hours, my face was looking a bit less swollen and the itchiness had subsided.

The big meeting that I thought we would be late to didn't actually start until around 12 - only 4 hours later than planned. It was a meeting for all of Kochia, wihich is the town I'm living in.  It is normally split into three regions - East, West, and Central, but the new constitution has made it into 1 place.  People who were originally from Kochia but living in Nairobi, Mombasa, or Kisumu were present.  There were about 9 different groups, with 10 people in each that were coming together to discuss how the whole of Kochia could be improved.  Sone of the groups were Health, Education, Energy, Food Security, Etc. It lasted the entire day and was really incredible. Everyone here wants to improve their community so much, and are taking many steps to make this into a reality.

I have had the good luck to be able to spend a bit of time with Paul and Berend (boys from Holland) this weekend.  I went to their guest house on Friday and they made me spaghetti and shared insights about living in Kenya.  They are hilarious, and both working very hard with Abba and other CBOs in the area. We watched a movie on their lap top and I got to eat a Dutch version of Nutella in the morning. They are encouraging me to start a project here and making sure that I'm having a bit of fun in addition to that. They told me I have to learn some Dutch, and they are keeping my sarcasm sharpened!

I can't believe I have been here for almost a month. It has been raining quite a bit, and the roads and grounds at Abba are full of water and mud. I have been learning to make Kenyan dishes, and slowly by slowly learning some Luo. I now have two football (soccer) teams at Abba that have yet to start practicing, but hopefully will soon.  I played with some of the older boys some days ago, and many were surprised to have a Mzungu (especially female) elbowing them and pushing them around. A microscope has been re-discovered at Abba, and I'm hoping to get malaria and typhoid testing back up - because they use to do these tests but have since ran out of supplies. My arms are becoming strong from swinging kids in circles and carrying Che around, and I'm almost used to ice cold showers in the morning!