We have a Problem

We have a Problem. It’s a phase my host mom said a lot this past week. My poor host family. The beginning of the week Milka, my host mom, was feeling ill so she went to the doctor and turns out she has typhoid. A few days later Eric, my 10 month old brother, wasn’t doing so well so they took him in and he has malaria. They are on medicine and doing fine now, but it’s been quite the week.

We have also struggled with water and electricity this week. Tuesday we ran out of water and didn’t have any all day. Then Thursday the pump water got fixed so we had running water! (but still no hot water because it’s too expensive to turn the water heater on) But Friday we were back to no water. Then Friday the rains came and they came hard. El nino rains are no joke. It appears my life is going to involve a lot of mud the next month as the rainy season is officially here. So we lost electricity at about 7 last night and it didn’t come on til 10 this morning. So today we had water but no electricity. I’m told the power is very unreliable during the rainy season. It’s a bummer, since the power rationing just ended. I’m not sure if we are going to have running water again. Right now we go to the “river” (our water tank outside) and bring it in.

Sometimes I forget where I’m living. Life normalizes and the fact that I’m living in Kenya isn’t such a big deal. But then my host mom comes home with typhoid and the baby has malaria and the reality of where I am slaps me in the face. This is Africa and malaria and typhoid are part of life.

I was at Sidai four days this week. Unusually I only do three but since I’ll be gone next week I worked Friday this week. I’ve been doing a lot more computer work lately. I’m working on a newsletter and brochure for Sidai. To help as resources for more donors. I still get to play with the kids lots.

Mombasa is finally here. We leave Tuesday morning and set out on a 7-8 hour bus ride. I’m really hoping the rainy season has not hit Mombasa yet. I want sun.