First the embassy, then the classes

Celebrating International Women's Day at the Ambassador's residence in Nairobi was an experience I will never forget. The residence is not far from the embassy, it's a 2 story Kenyan style house, very open and airy, clay tile roof. It's not pretentious at all, very welcoming. Security was tight, we walked through the house across the veranda and into the backyard. The house is very well suited to entertaining, which I'm sure happens a lot there. They had a few tents set up with open bars, and staff circulating with platters of food. Which was all American and tasted wonderful!! I met the Ambassador, he was very nice and lowkey. There was about 100 people there, from all over the world, mostly women, many in native dress. I met women who were members of the Kenyan Parliament, professors, lawyers, activists. I met a former ambassador who had come out of retirement to help deal with the Somalia situation. (Thank God I had kept up with it through the NY Times online and could have an intelligent conversation, very interesting to get first hand information).The ambassador spoke, announcing a new American sponsored program to empower women in their struggle against gender based violence. The most powerful impression I had is all the women who come from lives so much harder and deprived than ours who somehow commit and rise above it, not just to benefit themselves, but who have inspired, fought for, and changed the lives of their fellow countrywomen. I cannot tell you how humbled and honored I was to be in their presence. They face things everyday you and I cannot even imagine. And they do it with such courage, grace and humor. Everyone I met was welcoming, interested in who I was and why I was here,offered me a part of their story. There was a kenyan female singer who ended the evening playing the guitar and singing songs in Swahili and English that were very powerful and obviously a very important part of these women's daily struggle, I will never forget the feeling of sisterhood, the warm kenyan night, the welcome breeze, and the awareness of how blessed I was to be there. You cannot help but be changed by it. At the very least it makes you examine what contribution your own life makes to the world.
I started my classes on Friday night. The Kenyan nurse, Moses and I taught the older teens who now live in the "hostels" here. Moses was awesome, the kids interacted, asked questions, and seemed like they really liked it. On Sunday with Sarah and the PEPFAR intern, Carrie's help, I taught the younger boys and girls. Again, the response was really positive, lots of questions, they really want to learn about their bodies and HIV. The feedback I got back later from the mums and uncles was also very positive. The kids are all looking forward to the next 3 classes. What a relief!
The thing that is most troubling though, is how little they really know, and these are kids that
should know the most! The implications for the further spread of the virus is really chilling. Between the ignorance, the stigma, all the politics and religion involved, the sheer number of adolescents emerging into adulthood, things do not bode well for this continent. The problem is so much more complex than I think the rest of the world realizes. ARVS alone are not going to solve the problem.
The next few weeks I am going to be going to the slum clinics twice a week. The program, lea toto, has 6 sites with close to 3000 (I think) kids on ARVS since 2005. All the volunteers are helping to go through their charts and update them. Nothing is computerized and there's such a hodgepodge of doctors etc working there it's hard to keep it all organized. That is one of the goals of the program, to get it more established, and have tighter controls on follow up. They really want to keep the number of kids lost to follow up etc down. I think most programs here are having some of the same growth problems. Once ARVS became available to the slum programs the emphasis was on getting as many kids as possible on them as soon as possible,it was literally life and death, and the record keeping has not kept pace.
A warm welcome to the blog for the 7th graders at Cherokee middle school. You can check out Nyumbani.org to learn more about where I'm at. If you have questions send them through David Bernhardt, I'll be happy to answer them.
I'm still enjoying my treats from my packages from home.
Officer Timmy, stay safe, xoxoxo little boy.