tie-dye and mzungu's

Favorite t-shirt I saw yesterday: tie-dyed t-shirt that said "I 'heart' (HUGE red heart) Washington D.C. I'm not sure I'll ever get over seeing the crazy t-shirts here. Least favorite thing about yesterday? Sunscreen explosion!!! In my bag. grrr. But it's all cleaned up - if I can survive bazillions of bugs, I think I can survive that.

Spent yesterday and today in Sangla Village (yesterday) and Nyahara/Kirombo - both kind've huge. I am SO tired! But I had some great conversations and even got to talk to a woman about birth control! Oh, and really exciting - one woman that we met with yesterday hadn't gotten ANY of her children immunized. She was asking me questions about it and we talked about it for quite a while and you know what? She came to the clinic today and immunized her little baby! Now we just need to get cracking on her other four children... but still, so great. I tell you, sometimes, when I'm talking to these women, I am so sad - the problems seem too huge to tackle. They have no work because their husbands are fisherman, but there isn't a lot of fish. So the women go and cut down trees to make charcoal and sell it in Mbita in order to feed their families. But now, there's no trees, massive soil erosion and it's all added up to NO RAIN. People don't understand how much they are hurting themselves! And then they try to farm, but for many of them, they really don't know how to farm - combine that with the soil issues and no rain and you can just guess the result - no crops.

Anyway, not to be a downer, but where do you start sometimes? The clinic is doing so many great things and seriously, getting kids immunized is so huge. But now that that is going so well, is there a next step? I was talking to some of the people who run CGA (the school started by the Americans) and the statistics for schooling for girls and women in this area is soooooo poor - many of them barely finish Class 5 (equivalent of 5th grade, about). That just sets them up for so much hardship later in life and to dependence on their husbands.

On a lighter note - funny story. Last night I was cooking in the kitchen and I could hear this faint humming coming from the living room. I came in and found about 100 large fly-like things twitching all over the floor! I had forgotten to close the door all the way before it got dark - blecch! So I grabbed a broom and succeeded in sweeping them onto the porch, where the humming was MUCH louder - there were tons more out there! and I hadn't locked the porch door. It was seriously like the ATM all over again - I had to just run out and keep repeating to myself, "just don't think about it, just don't think about it!" I, obviously, survived. Mistake number who knows what I won't make again!

Today, I was riding back from the clinic and a crowd of kids yells from the side of the road the usual chorus of "MzunguhowareyouI'mfine!" (They always say it all at once like that - it's hilarious). Anyway, than these three guys doing construction on the road (that has been going on forever), yell "Mzungu, how are you?" at which my moto bike driver, Moses, starts laughing and laughing. I asked, "What's so funny?" "Oh, well, for the kids to say that, that is normal, but an adult. It sounds so funny! Adults should not say that, they should just be fine with it." Ahhhh, yes, so funny.

Tomorrow my day in the field got cancelled and switched to Monday - I'll probably work on transcriptions and Friday, it's off to Kisumu to extend my visa! Hope that goes off without a hitch. I'm going to try to post some pictures, if the internet cooperates...