the sugar capital of kenya

is where i am, Mumias if you want to look it up on a map. Huddling inside from the torrential downpour, hoping the rain doesn't knock the juice out of this place.

in Kenya, you have your house and your home. Your house is where you kukaa, where you stay. Your home is where you come from, where your family probably lives, where your relatives are buried. Im on a weekend trip with a friend from Matibabu. We're in her home.

So much has happened in the past four weeks, I know even highlights are impossible, and maybe not as telling even as the lowlights.

The first few days in Ukwala were some of the hardest I've had. Everything felt impossible, but I started to carve out a place for myself, despite feeling completely illequipped to contribute
anything really.

I started going to secondary schools after work to meet with small groups of girls. I talked to them about boys, sex, family. I taught them what their menstrual cycles are, how to use condoms. They want female condoms, they really really want female condoms. They also have no money to buy sanitary napkins.

Ive also been working in the HIV clinic here, seeing some very sick people, and some not so sick people. I did some home-based care two weeks ago, so I went around on my bike and visited patients in their homes. It doesn't have a word to go with it.

In addition, I went to the shamba--farm--and planted maize and maharague--beans--with my mama, who reminds me so much of bubby. She's maybe the most amaing woman I've met, Mama Lucy. I learned a word there--khomo, in dholuo, which means planting. The shamba is along a main road, and people would lean out of matatus, trailers, yell from bikes, Mzungu! Mzungu khomo!

I also killed a chicken yesterday. And opened a Tusker with my teeth.

And I have been very treyf, so so treyf and I was reading Exodus today and Im pretty sure that my soul will be cut off from Israel.