some interesting things

fyi, i have not died in the gasoline fire in nairobi. if you haven't heard about it, there was a gas leak/spill in nairobi yesterday morning and somehow it caught an entire slum on fire killing nearly 100 and wounding a bunch more. people were freaking out and it's literally all over the newspapers. it's really sad :( luckily neither rosemary nor any of my coworkers have any relatives or anyone that was involved.

yesterday i got the schedule of what i will be doing each day with FAIR. they have been so considerate of me and don't want me to get bored so they asked me to create an ideal outline of what my weeks would look like. awesome. so this is the plan:
-one day will be spent at the farm, where we will harvest and deliver the massive amounts of food to the drop in centers in nakuru
-two days will be spent running group counseling sessions with the commercial sex workers
-one day will be spent working in the Red Cross drop in center that has partnered with fair where we will be making home visits and meeting with families to check up on their home lives
-on fridays i will come to the office and help them with data entry and play with my fun new coworkers!

i'm really excited that each day will be different and that i get to interact with so many people! woohoo!

so this afternoon i had my first session with the sex workers. i was freaking out because they were so quiet in the beginning and looked like they were going to be mute the entire time. when you enter a room in kenya, you go around and shake the hand of each and every person, so i did the same when i got to the meeting. however, i felt so embarrassed because i was introducing myself and asking their names and they spoke so quietly and mumbly that i had to ask them to repeat themselves multiple times. perhaps i have a hearing problem...either way i felt like salt. one of the girls had a child in the meeting so i asked the rest of them if they had kids as well and then the conversation exploded! they loveeee their children. like obsessed with them and wanted to talk all about their names and ages and how smart they were. it was great to see them so happy! they all wanted to know if i was married or have kids, so they all freaked out when i told them i had a boyfriend! they were like "will you find me a white man to marry too?" and i was like...that's going to be pretty challenging to do in africa!

so these women sell sexual favors near truck stops, clubs, and bars at night time. this means that they leave their children at home a lot and therefore the kids have a lot of psychosocial trauma and issues. obviously they don't like seeing their moms do this work, but at the same time, if they didn't, the family LITERALLY would not eat. knowing this, i asked this super chatty girl named Julie (who is 21 as well) how much money you make in a night as a sex worker. i wanted to sob when she said they make around $5-$15 for an entire night. that is far too little to support a family. the craziest part is that the ages of the sex workers range from 15-60 years old. some of them have been impoverished and selling sexual favors for twenty years. wow i really don't know how i'm supposed to be able to relate to that, but the good thing is that they just want someone to listen. good thing i can do that. also, they love when i try and speak swahili. literally they laughed so hard when i said "asante sana" which is thank you very much because i sound really american apparently! i told them my birthday is a week from today and they were SO excited and asked if they could throw me a birthday party because i will be seeing them on the actual day. i ADORE working with these women.

shout out to aunt annette: the social worker i am shadowing at the kenyan red cross here reminds me SO much of you!! her name is Anne (funny right!) and she is a dream to be around. the first time i met her she gave me a massive hug, which is very rare for women to do here. she is brilliant and incredibly kind, just like you! i think you guys have similar laughs and temperaments... love it.

i can't believe i can write so much in these posts! i guess there's a lot to see so there must be a lot to report?