Diani

Megan left with the driver today to go to the airport and I said goodbye to Marta a short while later (though I'll see her again on Monday when I return to Mombasa). I wasn't able to leave at the same time as Megan and had a couple of extra days to kill, so I took matatus and a ferry to Diani Beach and checked into a resort.

Diani falls into the "this can't possibly be Kenya" category and is by far the most amazing beach I've ever seen. Sorry Phuket, too bad Kauai, no dice Mazatlan. Diani is a bit of heaven. It's also known to people who follow these things (I learned a week ago) as the place where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were first photographed together.

The beach is amazing but I have to admit that my accomodations are pretty faboo as well. I'm staying in "The Sands at Nomad" a boutique hotel with pool, beachside bar, and health spa. The cost is ludicrous by Kenyan standards and I feel a bit guilty but more than that I feel quite lucky to be able to wrap up my vacation this way. It turns out that I don't particularly like sleeping under bats or finding spiders the size of my palm in the shower (it ran under my towel when I missed it with the flyswatter and I had to run out, half dressed, and find Megan to get rid of it for me). I hacked it with the bugs and the weird mattress and the mosquito nets and the water running out in the middle of my shower (I've had very bad shower karma here) and the cold food and the peanut butter for breakfast every day, and the decapitated millipede for five weeks and I think I'm done with all of that.

When I arrived here I saw the rooms - huge cushy bed, fridge and minibar, air conditioning, satellite television - and the pool - beautiful blue water surrounded by deck chairs, looking over the beach and with a conveniently located bar - and was instantly sold. I managed to wheedle the price down 20% and after filling out the registration form I learned that the breakfast buffet, internet access, and a 30 minute massage at the spa were all complimentary.

I took a long hot shower - my second hot shower in five weeks - and scrubbed myself down. It was a little discouraging to learn that most of what I thought was my tan is really layers of dirt and bug spray. I went to work on the actual tan, sat by the pool, walked down the beach, finished a book and two crossword puzzles, watched the waves and some Kenyan acrobats, and swam in the pool. I'm now catching up on the blog and the news of the world and then, when I would normally be tucking in the mosquito net and marvelling at how there seem to be more bugs inside the net with me than outside, I will slip into the jacuzzi with a Tusker.

Tamarind

Megan and I left Takaungu yesterday afternoon. Her flight left this morning from Mombasa and we had arranged to stay with a friend from school who happens to be in a flat in Mombasa during the school break.  Seeing Marta and having a chance to tell her all about our adventures - and hear what she's been doing - alleviated some of the sadness Megan and I both felt as we drove away from TK.  We also had plans to go to the Tamarind Restaurant, reputed to have the best seafood in all of Africa.

 

We set off for the restaurant early as we've all become accustomed to an early bedtime.  It was a short walk from Marta's flat and we were seated outside the bar, looking across the river to the island of Mombasa.  The setting was absolutely beautiful and we felt like cosmopolitan women of the world as we watched the sun set and sipped our surprisingly good house wine.  The waiter brought us 'snacks' with our wine - fried plantain and taro chips and roasted peanuts.  We ordered the food and then enjoyed the complimentary "small bites" - fried prawns, baked oysters with cheese and a lovely cheese tapanade on toasts.  I'd love to recount each of our dishes in great detail - we all shared bites and tasted appetizers and entress - but I couldn't possibly do it justice.

 

As dinner progressed the restaurant began to fill up and a band, consisting of a guy on a keyboard and another on guitar, serenaded us with terrible songs from the 80's.  A second bottle of wine, dessert and coffee later we left the restaurant and discovered the meal had taken almost four hours.

 

It was a wonderful experience, the food topped only by the conversation about Kenya and our lives here and at home.  I almost wished that I was leaving with Megan so that it could be my last meal in Africa as well.  But...I have one more adventure before I board my plane.

Goodbye Takaungu

Last night in Takaungu

Megan and I leave tomorrow and it's hard to imagine that I won't be walking down the footpath, dodging goats and greeting the Jambo Brigade* any more. We sat on the roof of the office and had a beer with the other volunteers that will stay. I walked home in the dark with Marion and Safari, a 10 year old boy who does his homework at the office (where there are lights) and sleeps with his father, the night watchman, on the porch of the Vutakaka Center.

On the road back to the Shamba I remarked to Marion that I was glad to leave Takaungu without having the unpleasant and seemingly inevitable experience of stepping on one of the huge black millipedes - seriously, some of them are 8 inches long - that are everywhere. With those famous last words, maybe you can see where this story is going.

At the Shamba, I grabbed my headlamp and went to the kitchen to eat dinner. A short while later, I returned to my hut, opened the door, and then closed it against the mosquitoes and other bugs. There was a little more resistance than usual, and then my brain registered the sickening "CRRRUUUUUNNNCH!" that could only mean one thing. I panned my headlamp down to the door and at the edge by the hinge I could see a wriggling millipede head, a big one. I had to open the door to look for the rest of the thing's body and there was another, slightly quieter "CRUNCH." Sure enough, a good six inches of millipede was wriggling outside the hut too, with a large dent in the forward portion.

I actually wasn't going to do anything with the bug but maybe leave it for Megan to see, since she hadn't returned yet. I went to the kitchen to report to Marion that I had indeed cursed myself during our walk down the road. She came to look at the bug and then asked if I would move it. "NO!" I responded and she said (she's Dutch) "Let's call Mr. The Night Watchman to get it. Kalume!"

Kalume came over and assessed the damage - the still-moving millipede. He's a nice guy but prone to prosteletizing and a dilligent Jehovah's Witness. "Oh," he exclaimed, "you have killed this!" "Yeah, I didn't know he was there. Ugh!" I responded. "But this is a living creature. It was created by God." "Well I didn't MEAN to kill it! It was dark and the thing crawled in at the hinge." "God creates all living creatures." Just to put my reaction into context, these millipedes must all be programmed with a death wish; I pass 20-30 dead ones every day. "Well, it's dead now."

*Jambo Brigade: the kids that scream "JAMBO!!!" across fields, from the top of trees, out of houses, and a million other locations that I could never identify. I've spent a good long portion of this trip just trying to figure out where the Jambos were coming from.

Matatu ride

Kenya has no public transportation and the vast majority of Kenyans have no vehicles and there is very low population density...it all adds up to one big problem. Many Kenyans don't travel at all and some people in Takaungu have never in their life been to Kilifi, the town I visit twice a week to check my email. It is possible to walk (I've done it) but takes a good three hours. And walking to a place like Mombasa, forget about it. The solution then is the public's reliance on boda bodas, basically a bike taxi, and matatus. Matatus are vans, typically about 30 years old and look to be held together with duct tape. Many are decorated with inexplicable text written on the outside ("The Punisher", "Gospel Time", etc) and faux fur seats, tassels and fringe on the inside. It's also apparently a requirement that really horrible music be played at full blast all through the matatu ride. (My favorite song is a synthesizer-heavy pop song with lyrics like "I'm a man of few words, but lots of passion...I'm a gemini...That's the love twin sign..." and then between versus the synthesizer would blare out the entire tune for Three Blind Mice.) There are officially 17 seats in a matatu, but on my first ride I counted 22 people and another volunteer reported that she'd seen 25 once fit into the van. Fit is the wrong word, actually. On Megan's first matatu ride she had to crouch in a space with no seat. Other people crowd in by just crowding in. I sat in a seat once that I shared with two little boys while their sister, standing on the other side of me, reached across in front of my head to brace herself on the window. It's necessary to brace, because these vans drive like hellfire. The drivers go as fast as they can on the two lane road, swerving to miss every pothole that the vehicles from the other direction are swerving in the same direction to miss. The matatus pass slower vehicles by pulling into oncoming traffic and trying to get back into their lane before the oncoming semi gets too close. The vans also constantly stop to drop people off and pick them up. The drivers don't like to waste time for things like slowing down and simply pull off the road, which is elevated by at least 5 inches from the dirt lane beside it, tilting the van to a precarious angle. I've seen women and children scatter, screaming, as the matatu barrels into a stop without an eye for pedestrians. God help you if you're sitting in the back of the van, because you have to squeeze yourself and any bags you brought along through and over four rows of people who do not move to accomodate. Every matatu ride is terrifying in its own special way. There was the very angry driver who would pass vehicles in a very daring manner and then slam on his brakes once he was in front. The driver with no regard for people on the side of the road. The driver who forgot your stop. The van that bangs and clangs and rattles like it will fall apart at any minute. The van that drove down the highway with it's sliding door open for a good mile or so. The van with two absolutely wretched songs that are repeated over and over and over again. One volunteer was on a matatu where a fight broke out, complete with punches and a chase into the woods, which culminated in the unfortunate passenger holding on outside to the sliding door of the van until it picked up enough speed to throw him off while rounding a corner. Another volunteer rode from Mombasa (1-2 hours away) while the driver worked his way though an entire bottle of palm wine. And yet another volunteer was yelled at by the Kenyan police when the matatu was pulled over and they decided that she was in an illegal seat. ("They told me to sit here!") Megan was on a matatu that drove in circles around a town she wasn't familiar with and after the fifth loop, was kicked off with all of the other passengers when they wouldn't pay five times the standard fare. Still, we're so dependent on these matatus - there's no other option for a trip farther than you can walk - it's hard to side against them. The police however do not feel the same way. The government is cracking down on the matatus and pulling them off the road if they are too ramshackle or have too many passengers. This sounds like a good thing, but has had some really awful effects. With fewer matatus on the road, everyone waits for a very long time for a ride. We stand by the road as van after van races past us, barely slowing down enough for the debarking passenger to jump out of the moving vehicle. Volunteers have gotten stranded all over the place for lack of a matatu and if you're not on one by 3 pm, you'd better get a hotel room. The drivers have also taken the opportunity to jack up prices, charging 3-10 times as much as the standard fares. It's a bummer for us, but really devastating for some of the Kenyans who rely on these vehicles and have very small budgets.

Wrap-up

I leave Kenya a week from today and after picking yet another ant out of my cup of coffee, I think I can say that I will be ready to go. 

The Community Health Worker training is well underway and I'm impressed that the 10 students still show up early to class every day, are engaged in the lesson all day long, and seem to be excited about what they're learning.  I dropped by class a couple of days ago and the topic was First Aid.  As part of the lesson, the class split into groups to brainstorm different causes of loss of consciousness.  The lists were hung on the wall and included things like 'drowning,' 'alcohol,' 'hitting your head,' 'quality sex,' and 'delayed ejaculation.'

I've finished my preliminary look at the data from the village health surveys and typed up a synopsis. There are only 45 completed records so far, but it was still easy to see that child mortality is very common - 1 in 3 families have lost at least one kid. Most died at or around birth and the second most common cause of death was infection - yellow fever, malaria, tetanus, etc.  About half of the households use some form of birth control and about half of the women surveyed said they wanted more kids, so that seems to match. Unplanned pregnancy is a huge problem here, so I was surprised not to see more people not wanting to get pregnant. Anecdotally, there's a woman Megan knows who just found out that she's pregnant with her tenth child. She's really upset about it and was taking oral contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. Abortion is illegal in Kenya and so she has 9 months to come to grips with the new baby.

The record system for the community health workers is still in progress and I'm waiting for some final feedback from the clinic nurse.  It's all very simple, it has to be, but I hope it captures the important things. Once the work is underway and people begin to use the forms I designed, I'm sure they'll find ways to modify and improve them.  It's been exciting to be involved at the very beginning of a new program. I look forward to checking the EAC website and newsletter to find out how things go.

Hat

Walking through the village today a woman stopped me to say that my hat was very "smart" and that she liked it very much. So there.

A night at the Gossip Hotel

Megan and I were in Malindi this weekend for some shopping and tiramisu. It's a popular place with Italians for some reason and when you walk through town, instead of saying "jambo!" or "hello," the locals say "ciao!" to all of the mzungus.

We stayed at a hotel near our favorite restaurant there, named I Love Pizza. As we lay in the huge four-poster bed, surrounded by mosquito netting and a little buzzed from the wine at dinner we laughed at how ridiculous our trip is at times. All night long we fell asleep and woke up again to the sounds of:
1. people talking loudly on the street
2. cars that sounded as though they were driving down the center of the bed
3. a loud television next door playing a horrible movie (in English)
4. chirping crickets
5. music from a disco
6. rats and/or bats squeaking nearby
7. the people in the next rooms come and go all hours of the night.

Our sleep was certainly disturbed, but all we had to do the next day was lay beside a pool for 6 hours and eat and we managed to make it through.

Madafu with Kitana

Food

Food is probably the most talked-about topic of conversation in the shamba and we look forward to lunch and dinner, prepared during the week by a Kikuyu woman named Nancy. She's an excellent cook and makes typical Swahili dishes like mondazi, a doughnut-like puff of goodness that you eat with beans. Our meals usually involve a starch: rice, pasta or mashed potatoes, a fried tortilla-like bread called chapati or, if we're lucky mondazi. And along with that starch comes something to put with it: beans, lentils, tomato sauce, cooked vegetables. It's all very good though unfortunately cooked with a lot of oil. There also is rarely meat and never any dairy involved, the food is practically vegan. We have a dish with canned tuna in it maybe once a week. Dairy is out of the question because with no electricity there is no refrigeration, though that doesn't prevent the use of eggs which are left sitting on a shelf. (Needless to say, I avoid the eggs whenever possible).
It was difficult to adjust at first to this new style of eating. There are usually only two dishes for a meal. It's so different to the variety of food that I put on my plate at home that I kept feeling like I was hungry or missing something, even though there was plenty of food. One day our dinner was mashed potatoes and steamed green beans and I couldn't help but think of the 10 other items that would be on my plate at a typical Thanksgiving. So the dishes are good, if a little monotonous and it's hard to grumble when so many people within a stone's throw have so much less to eat.
Three days a week we have dessert and dessert days are highly anticipated. We either get a cake made with flour yet somehow still a little gelatinous inside, or little round fried balls dipped in sugar (like donut holes) called "sweetballs", or a cake made of noodles and held together as if by magic. The desserts are typically flavored with cardamom and are very tasty.
Breakfast, for me anyway, involves a spoonful of peanut butter. I still haven't figured out how to toast bread in a skillet (no electricity=no toaster) and try not to eat many raw fruits and vegetables which are either washed in untreated tap water or not washed at all.
I'm becoming accustomed to the food situation here but it's still strange enough that I'm always feeling hungry and anticipating the next meal. Stranger even than our weekday fare is that any little trip of excursion on the weekend invariably includes an all-you-can-eat buffet, or in the case of last weekend, three of them. Everyone gets incredibly excited about the range and types of food available - meat!! Bread!! Real butter!! - that we gorge ourselves until we're sick and then start talking already about the next meal. I can't imagine what my poor digestive system must think encountering the same two dishes day in and day out for a week and then confronting the 20 or more different items I can fit in my stomach at the buffet.


Sweetballs

Safari, finally

Safari

The van picked us up bright and early yesterday morning for a 3-hour ride on the typically horrible Kenyan roads and we jounced and bumped until I thought my spleen would rupture.  The drive was so difficult, particularly when the rain came and we began slipping on the mud in between bounces, that sitting in my window seat felt like hard labor and the possibility of seeing African animals in vivo wasn't the only reason I was pleased that we arrived at the park.

At the gate, the top of the van was popped up, so that we could stand and see (and take pictures) of the park's inhabitants. We were not allowed to get out of the van at any time, but were satisfied with the unimpeded view from the pop-top.  The driver, checking the road and then scanning the horizon as we drove through the park, was the first to spot giraffes. or so he said as he pulled the van over and pointed at some specks in the horizon.  I craned my neck to no avail and didn't totally believe that they were out there.  We drove a while longer and he pulled over again.  We all popped our heads out the top and swung cameras around to look at....I'm not sure. I didn't see it.  By this time, my internal dialogue began to focus on reframing the safari experience. "The animals in this huge park certainly won't stand by the side of the road. I should just enjoy the pretty view. It's okay if I don't see any animals." And so on.  We continued.

Up ahead, we could see a cluster of other white vans pulled to the side of the road and once again looked out to see...something...something...oh my god! It's a lion!  There was a female lion sunning herself on a rock maybe 100 yards away.  I snapped pictures and she looked up, a little bored by us, and collapsed again.  The drive continued and a short while later we could all see that we were driving up to another lion, sleeping under a tree.  This time it was a male lion, possibly with the biggest roundest belly I've ever seen. He either has liver disease or was recovering from some type of feast.  He was only 30 yards from us, practically close enough to spit on, though no one dared of course.  After many pictures and pulling around for a slightly better look at his face (many of the animals were unfortunately posed and I'm afraid I may have more butts than noses in my snaps), we continued.

Next we saw a waterbuck, a large member of the antelope family. Then a group of Thompson's gazelles. Then some zebra far off in the distance. Then African elephants in the distance. Then African elephants closer to the road.  The safari, rather than seeming cheesy or touristy, was a fantastic experience and we were all excited by each new find. Amy made a list of the animals we spotted:

Ostrich (male and female)
African elephant
Zebras
Jerunuk (AKA giraffe-gazelle)
Thompson gazelle
Secretary bird
Lion (male and female)
Antelope
Hartebeest
Waterbuck
Baboon
Warthog (which our Kenyan friend pronounced "warth-og")
Grant gazelle
Yellow-necked spuffa (which our Kenyan friend called a "yellow nekkid spuffa" much to my amusement)
Banded mongoose
Buffalo
Guinea fowl
Rock hyrax
Egyptian goose
Lesser Kudu
Dik dik (the smallest member of the antelope family and about the size of a mini poodle)
Oryx

It was a wonderfully successful game drive and apparently the overcast sky and cool temperatures had brought out many more animals than are typical.  We went to our lodge to check in and eat a much looked forward to lunch.  The lodge, all of the rooms, the restaurant, decks, and patios all look over a few watering holes at the bottom of the hill we were perched on.  Lunch had to wait as we walked toward the restaurant and saw more elephants at the watering hole.  I raced down with the others to the camera hide, a viewing station located 30 feet or so from the hole and accessed through an underground tunnel. As I snapped pictures I watched the elephants - including several small calves - drink, wander aimlessly, and scratch themselves on the large rocks nearby. Finally, the hunger getting the better of me, I met up with the others and we went to lunch. We could watch the elephants from our table and saw the group at the watering hole wander off in single file and another group approached from the distance.

After lunch it was time for another game drive. We didn't have to go far for our first find, a group of 7-9 lions laying out on a rock near the lodge.  Later, after spotting more members of the antelope family, we saw a female lion almost hidden in tall grass. As we watched, she rolled on her back and two small cubs tried to climb on her stomach. Down another road, two elephants crossed almost directly behind our van and later we saw a buffalo. This buffalo was wandering alone and the driver explained that a single buffalo was very easy prey for lions.  On the way back to the lodge we saw the lions, still on the rock.  An elephant was passing by near them and the lions seemed a little perturbed. One stood up and walked closer to the elephant - it seemed to be giving it the stink-eye.

We found out later that shortly after we left the buffalo, other safari groups saw it chased by lions.  Today on our game drive we saw a dead buffalo, perhaps the same one.  We had another large meal last night and watched the bats fly around and the rock hyraxes precariously climbing trees. I fell asleep to the sounds of baboons scuttling across the roof and the loudest frogs I've ever heard in my life.

On our game drive this morning we saw two types of giraffe (Masai and Reticulated) and more antelope.  On returning to the lodge for breakfast we were astonished to see a huge herd - maybe 200-300 animals - of buffalo at the watering hole. They crowded close together to stand in the water and drink and many of the buffalo were being ridden by little birds, just like you see on a nature show.  There were so many buffalo and they splashed and drank for so long I was afraid the watering hole would dry up.  Finally, it seemed that most of the herd managed to shuffle through and as we checked out of the lodge we could see them resting a little ways off.

There was another jouncing van ride to get through which was made a little easier by chocolate cream oreos and a beer at a stop along the way.  It feels like I've lived a year in two days and I'm already excited to go again on safari someday.
 

Translation please!

Megan and I spent two busy weeks working furiously to create a curriculum for the Community Health Worker training. The EAC had hired a health instructor to provide the class, with the idea that he and the EAC nurse would have a month to pull together the curriculum. Neither of them had any experience creating these materials though and when Megan and I offered to help, they jumped at the chance. They said that in Kenya, if you want something taught you hire an instructor and tell him "I need a class about HIV." The instructor arrives the day of the class and teaches. There's no other planning or curriculum involved. I was impressed that the instructor and the nurse would be so welcoming of Megan and my efforts, given that it isn't business as usual. We used some of their references and some that the EAC already had to put together classes on almost 30 different topics ranging from "How to Help Someone Who is Giving Birth" to "Recognizing Tuberulosis." So we pour our heart and soul into this project for two weeks, meet many times with the nurse, the teacher, the committee and the coordinator, we pass around drafts for review and finalize things. And never realized that the class would be taught in SWAHILI. In retrospect, it is obvious that it would be, yet easy to see how we could make the mistake. All of our meetings were conducted in English, the curriculum and handouts were all in English, we were told that one requirement for being hired as a community health worker was the ability to speak and read English, the notetakers (Megan and another non-Swahili speaking volunteer) speak only English....it seemed like a reasonable assumption. But on the first day of class we discovered that the class was indeed in Swahili and Megan and I were the only people surprised.

Mnarani Beach Club

Our weekend of leisure - and the other side of Kenya - continued today with a visit to the Mnarani Beach Club. This resort is a 15 minute matatu ride from the main road and a world away from day to day Kenyan life. For 500KSH (about $7), we spent the day beside a beautiful pool that looked out over the ocean and enjoyed an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. I read Out of Africa and reapplied my sunscreen every 15 minutes or so, in between sips of beer and the occasional dip in the pool.

Rolando's

It's Tricia's birthday and all of the volunteers are going to dinner to celebrate.  Strike that, it's not dinner, it's a feast.  It's a very strange thing that a 20 minute walk from the village there is an extraordinary Italian restaurant perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean. There seems to be no good explanation for why this restaurant exists, practically in the middle of nowhere, but the current guess is that Rolando, the owner, is either hiding from the mob or acting as a front for some mob activity.

We walked out and took a seat at the long table that was set for us.  Over the course of three hours, Rolando and his staff brought us many dishes, beginning with a pasta, then roast vegetables, sauteed onions, caprese salad, two types of cheese, and anchovies. Next they brought fried vegetables (zucchini, yam, eggplant) and calamari, followed by shark (really). And finally dessert and coffee.  It was a feast and a wonderful break from the lentils and rice that are our daily fare.

During dessert, Rolando came over and announced "the Kenyan police, they are taking me to jail. You will bring me oranges, yes?" and shook the hand of each person at the table.  We had been gossiping during dinner - a short while before we arrived, a volunteer had seen Rolando's van tearing down the road out of Takaungu.  A member of our group asked Rolando where it was going and got the impression that the mechanic had been working on it, had a disagreement with Rolando and then had stolen his van.  Somehow, someone knew that the mechanic had accused Rolando of brandishing a gun in the course of the argument and then someone else thought that it is illegal to own guns, or at least to threaten people with them, in Kenya. And so we weren't too surprised when the police arrived.

Gede

It's Saturday and a large group of us went north to explore Gede.  Outside a bustling little market town, hidden back in the forest, are the ruins of an old and mysterious Swahili town.  Occupied from about 1200-1500 AD, Gede is a mystery. It was never mentioned in any Swahili or Portugese historical accounts (the Portugese were occupying a town about 20 miles north), though the pottery shards and other bric-a-brac found on the site indicate that Gede was an important trading point for goods from China, Iran, Europe, and other far-off places. It's also strange that Gede would be so important for international trade given that it wasn't located very near the coast, which is about 5 miles east of the town.

Gede was 'found' and now mzungus can walk through the ruins of this old town. There are foundations and short walls, the rest of the structures have worn away.  Gede includes at least four mosques, a palace, maybe 10-20 other houses and buildings, and an extensive system of interconnected wells.  The forest has overgrown the ruins and there are massive trees, at some places even grown into the middle of huge walls.  The dense forest casts strange shadows, adding to the haunted atmosphere.  We climbed around and walked through the woods for a few hours. There was no site of the "mournful, sheep-like creature that follows you down the path" according to locals and my guidebook.  There were however loads of Sykes monkeys and a woman from Woodinville who was following them to collect data for a scientific study.

After Gede, Megan and I went a little further up the coast to Malindi. It's known for excellent beaches and/or sex tourism depending on which guidebook you consult. There's a long history of Italian tourism and we sat on the porch of an Italian restaurant, eating pizza and tiramasu, staring at the ocean, in complete disbelief that we were even in the same country as our batty hut and mosquito bites.

The goat project

There are lots of goats here in Takaungu and you can't walk down a path without practically tripping on one.  The goats are used as collateral for loans and as a sign of wealth, but not, surprisingly, for meat or milk.  The goats are "local goats" as opposed to dairy goats and don't produce drinkable milk.  It makes sense then that if dairy goats could be provided to the existent goat owners, a new source of cheap calcium and other nutrients would be available in the community. 

The EAC has taken on this project and begun procuring goats. They also brought in dairy goat experts and are creating an instruction manual for anyone interested in owning and caring for a dairy goat. Another volunteer here, Nick, is in charge of taking the current text of the instruction manual, what he describes as "Swahili translated to English back to Swahili and then back to English with other random stops along the way" and turning it into a readable document.  We were all sitting in the office one afternoon as he toiled away and he said "what should I do with this?  'Leave a goat tethered and it cannot get away but someone make come to make sex with it.'"  My first thought was that this goat manual probably wouldn't want to go into local bestiality rumors, change it to "the goats may be harmed."But another volunteer pointed out, rightly, that perhaps this is a very big problem here, we have no idea, and perhaps the goat manual needs to have very explicit warnings about people having sex with goats. 

I'm not sure what was decided in the end....this is just another great example of a roomful of college educated mzungus with the best intentions and absolutely no cultural context.

Millipede double decker

A new hypothesis

I returned from Kilifi after posting my last message and elected to walk the 4 km from the main road to the shamba. I'd left my hat at home and was walking down the path in my sunglasses, greeting people as I went. A couple of different times, people would come and walk beside me for part of the way and we would chat. It was the usual: where are you from? How long will you be here? How do you like Kenya/Takaungu?  I also came across a couple of people who asked where I was going (common question) and when I responded "Vutakaka" they asked: "do you know how to get there?"  This is not a common question and even after saying yes, they'd mutter things like "well, it's just straight down the road" or "oh yes, you should find it okay."  Strange.

 

The third person was a boy around 15 or 16.  He was wheeling a bike, I'm not sure why, and caught up to me.  I greeted him and he told me he didn't "have good English" but tried to converse anyway.  "Tam-rind, where you from?"  "Tam-rind, you have brudders?"  The walk continued as did our stilted conversation and finally he said "Tam-rind, can you see?"

 

If I were in a movie, there would have been a sudden flashback as my mind raced - no other volunteers wear sunglasses, I haven't seen a single Kenyan in sunglasses, my sunglasses are rather dark.  I think some people in Takaungu think that I'm blind!  It may have been strange enough to see me walking around with Megan, who must have been acting as my guide, but once I was alone and wandering, I'll bet these kindly people were a little concered that I'd break my ankle in a pothole or walk into a palm tree or something.