The process of reverse culture shock was in some ways better than I expected, and in some ways, worse. Beds and showers were even better than I expected; going out to party less than a week after being back was a painful and very hard experience. I think about Kenya everyday, but I’m losing the sharpness of the memories that I have quicker than I want to. It’s hard to describe, but I feel somewhat like I’ve been watching a really great movie called “Life in Kenya” for a while… and now the movie is over and reality is back. I’m not sure how to reconcile the two. The closest I’ve come was my Welcome Back From Kenya Party… where I got to make Kenyan food, go through my pictures, and tell my stories. I don’t want to lose all that I gained from this experience, but I can’t stay stuck in the past… so here comes the future.

After spending 3 amazing months in Kenya, I have about 3 weeks at home to recuperate, visit friends, go to weddings, throw parties, unpack… and repack! I start my new job as Marketing Communications Assistant for the Institute for Humane Studies in Washington, DC on June 7th. I know – what am I doing in marketing?! I have no formal marketing training…and my degree is in economics, math and government. Thankfully, economics is the best major in the world, and trained me to do whatever would make me money. So! I have about a week and a half left before getting to work with some of the most awesome people I’ve ever had phone interviews with from Kenya! You know it’s got to be a good job when you have 5 new facebook friends a day after accepting the offer (even before you’ve met them!)

I am very excited to be moving back to the District, although I’ll technically be living and working in NOVA (Northern Virginia).  I even managed to find a cool roommate and an apartment… all within 18 hours of starting the search! First “real” job, first “real” apartment… I feel like I’m growing up years in about 3 weeks. Not only that, but this summer holds the weddings of three of my best friends and I’m throwing/hosting a bachelorette party tonight for my high school friend Jessica. It’s amazing how living with a 6, 9, and 16 year old for three months made me feel like a kid again… now it’s a giant thrust back into “adult” life.

It’s funny – two weeks ago all I could think about was everything that I missed from home. Now, it seems like all I can think about is everything I’m going to miss about Kenya. I love my home, I love so much about life in America… but it doesn’t really make leaving this life any easier. I know I’m going to want to come back almost as soon as I leave.

Before I finish up my last post from Kenya, I thought I’d include some of my final observations and maybe even a few witty remarks in the style of my previous weekly wrap ups.

• There’s a product called “Nice and Lovely — for men”. Looks something like a hair recolorant… but instead! It’s a make-your-skin whiter! Why anyone in Kenya would want to look more like a mzungu is beyond me
• My coworker Ephantus randomly busted out with “who let the dogs out” at one point this week.
• The informal sector in Kenya – like running a yard sale every day .. and living off of the profits.
• The post office branch in Milimani (my neighborhood area) = a table on the side of the road with a small sign and 2 guys sitting at it all day
• They make keys by hand here…I’m impressed…
• I found out on Thursday that suicide is illegal in Kenya — so trying (and failing) to kill yourself constitutes attempted murder by the current kenyan constitution. Having no legal right to what you do with your body is… just a scary thought to my Western mind.
• I wore pants into town for the first time during the week on Tuesday because I was FREEZING ( thanks, malaria). I never before realized how much wearing pants makes people think that you are that much more of a mzungu.
• There are few, if any, institutions for housing and caring for the mentally insane in Kenya, so a lot of them end up on the streets. There’s one in particular I see frequently around town… who wears burlap sacks and plastic bags.
• I’m having a lot of difficulty reconciling how relatively cheap everything is here with the amount of room in my luggage. Tonight’s packing session is going to be interesting.

How do I even begin to describe what my time in Kenya has been like? What I’ve learned can’t be taught, what I’ve seen can’t be captured in pictures, what I’ve experience can’t be read in books or heard in speeches. The indescribability of this whole experience is completely overwhelming. What do I say when I get back home and someone asks me how Kenya was? When I tear up, how do I explain that it’s with a feeling of immense thankfulness that I’ve gotten to have this experience — to meet these people. How am I going to be able to walk down a street again and only see white people?! My mind can’t even begin to fathom what it’s going to be like to not be ‘mzungu’ anymore.

And yet – here comes the future! By tomorrow afternoon I will have left Kakamega for Kisumu, where I’ll catch a flight to Nairobi, and then another red eye to Paris. A way-too-long layover in Paris, then another flight back to Atlanta… then the 4 hour drive back to home. If I have my way, I’ll sleep most of the time from Nairobi to Atlanta. And on to the future, with Kenya behind me… and always with me.

To Mama, Betty, Garry and Alvin: I love you all like crazy, I’m coming back to visit, and I’m gonna miss you tons!

There are subtle differences about living in Kenya that I’ve only really picked up on over time. For instance, it’s much more acceptable to stand close to people here – even strangers, and not uncommon to brush past 10 or 15 people on the way to work in the morning – no excuses provided. It’s also not uncommon for mothers to ask you to hold their babies – the communal rearing of children is quite ordinary. And while we’re on the subject of children – most kids here (Garry excepted) whine and cry a whole lot less than they do in the states. Probably because they have more legitimate things to cry about, they don’t cry nearly as often about the silly things like not getting a piece of candy at the supermarket.

I’ve also learned a lot more patience living in East Africa than I ever thought possible. Everything moves slower here – people walking on the street, businesses, the internet, waiting for the doctor, waiting for things to happen. I realized last night as I was helping Betty with her math homework how much more frustration I can take – and how much more I can put up with ‘wasting’ time than I could three months ago. Down time here is like an open invitation to think – to observe – to experience that which we in America often don’t have the time, patience or awareness to notice.  While it can sometimes be aggravating to not have anything productive happen in a day – that’s just how life is sometimes (and in Kenya, most of the time). I guess I can see how this “pole pole” has allowed me to tackle those previously hair-tearing-out experiences with a sense of calm.

One of the things that’s struck me about Kenya is the presence of handicaps in ordinary society. Let me try to explain this – in the US it’s not uncommon to see someone on crutches or in a wheelchair, but usually they are only temporarily incapacitated, elderly, or a rare congenital defect. Here, I can’t go a day without seeing someone missing limbs or with some abnormality. There’s the bicycle repair man who works on the street that I pass everyday who doesn’t have legs below the knees and the guy who runs the cyber with one arm that’s too small and doesn’t work properly. There was a baby I saw on a matatu who literally had a forehead twice the size of the rest of his face. I guess what’s really different is that these people, problems or not, still work – everyday. They aren’t sitting at home on their couches watching “The Price Is Right” every morning and living off welfare. You don’t have an arm in Kenya – you’re still able to work… and if you decide not to work, then you decide, in essence, to die.

These are a strong people – in almost any contest they make Westerners look like pansies. Women walk everywhere,  with their babies strapped to their backs, carrying bags in their arms and giant platters of bananas and fruit on their heads. You have a problem – pick up the pieces, keep moving, keep living, survive. In a place where there is so much death – there is even more surviving going on. I think that’s what a lot of Westerners miss when they think about Africa – they miss the strength of the people, the will to survive, their incredible resourcefulness, their undeniable passion for life. Those TV ads with pictures of starving black children certainly do pull at the heart-strings of the average Westerner, but they completely miss the spirit of a people who despite disease, destruction, war, violence, and poverty have survived for thousands of years. These aren’t people who need charity. These are people who deserve respect.

If I retain nothing else, Kenya has taught me that when you face the prospect of death everyday, you begin to appreciate what life truly means.

I want to remember everything… from the way the air smells in the morning, to the feeling of gritty, blood-red dirt caked on the back of my legs, to the taste of hot chapati on a hungry stomach. I want to remember the sound of Garry’s laugh when he’s being tickled, the look in Betty’s eyes that says “oh brother”, the smell of Mum’s cooking in a sufuria late at night. I know I’ll never be able to duplicate the simple experience of walking down the street in Kakamega once I return to the US. To go from being so different, to being… well, pretty much the same as millions of other people… I think it’s going to shock me for a bit.

I think about home a lot these days, not in the way of being homesick, but more in wonderment of what it will be like to be surrounded by white, and clean, and mechanized. I guess one could say that I’m consciously trying to prepare myself for a phenomenon known as “reverse culture shock”, the theory of which goes something like this: when you leave home and matriculate into another society, especially if you are able to adjust and accustom yourself to those changes easily, when you return to your home society, you are changed but the world that you’re entering back into has not adjusted as you have. Thus, there’s a discrepancy between expectations (of you and by you) and what reality presents things as.

Honestly, there’s no good way to tell whether or not I’ll experience reverse culture shock. When I came back from living in England, I didn’t have that problem (of course I never really matriculated into English society on my first trip). However, after living in DC for a summer and then being thrust back into the world of Tennessee for 3 days before college began again, I felt disconnected and disoriented. I think the basis for determining reverse culture shock (or culture shock in the first place) has to do with how much an individual has adjusted, how aware they are of that adjustment, and the level of expectations they have of their surroundings. I knew coming into Kakamega that it was going to be a different world – and I forced myself not to imagine what it would be like before I left, knowing full well that I would never be able to imagine the reality of life in a third world country. Not imagining what home will be like is much harder for me. It seems like I can almost taste the late May air, feel the softness of the pillows under  my head, and the joy of seeing my family again. I’m not sure how much my expectations of home line up with what it actually is like there, but I also don’t think that I’ll be able to turn off my expectations entirely.

So,  it seems like the next step is to determine how much I’ve adjusted. I think it’s practically impossible to quantitatively measure the changes in a person after an experience like living in Kenya for three months. Truthfully, I probably won’t even begin to notice the real changes in the way I think and perceive things until I return to the states and begin the reintegration process. So far, all I can say is that I can walk down the street in Kakamega and not question why everything is different. Life works here, not as it does in the US, but I’ve adjusted to it and found my own sources of happiness. I guess that’s a pretty clear indicator that I’ve changed. I see things differently – the beauty in a marketplace without prices that operates only on barter. The organization of a society that revolves around the community and word of mouth is ‘primitive’, by American standards but functions remarkably well.

Am I an entirely different person? No, of course not. I just see poverty and wealth differently now. I understand what it means to be constantly ill in a society where missing a day of work means missing a day of food.

so here’s the story behind the text. i was feeling craptastic (which you know cuz i called you yesterday) and so i decided to go to the dr. this morning once i realized that my freezing chills were gone and i was feeling feverish again. so i went, he said, get tested for malaria. test comes back – lo and behold i still have malaria. evidently, the malaria in western kenya has been building resistance to drugs, so it wasn’t fully cured last time. so dr. recommends giving me a ‘jab’ — which in Kenyan speak means a shot. this is evidently way more effective against the malaria which is great. the catch is that it’s not just a single shot— it’s three of them given on 3 consecutive days. ok fine. so i roll up my sleeve… and doc’s like – you want it in your arm? i’m like.. that’s where i usually get shots…. so he gives it to me in my arm – 4 cc’s (which is a hell of a lot of liquid) into my left arm – hurts like hell, but i expected that since it’s a shot. within 5 minutes, i’m about to pass out. world getting fuzzy doc has to practically carry me to the bench to lay down. 10 minutes later – i feel okay and haven’t completely lost consciousness yet. so i wait for a couple more minutes, go to pay (the equivalent of $20) and i start to pass out again so have to sit. i make it back to my office…which is thankfully right across the hall from the drs and have to lay on the concrete floor for another 10 minutes before i can stand up again. so i try to eat… and all i want to do is puke. the upside of this is that after 3 days i shouldn’t have any malaria left!! i’m feeling better now – not faint any more, and i managed to eat some crackers that helped my tummy. argh. oh yea, my left arm – twice as large as my right….. might explain why it hurts so much!! hopefully i’ll be able to sleep and recuperate before round 2 of shots tomorrow…. ugh. i can’t wait to come home.

General Observations and Witty Remarks:

• Soap operas, especially English-dubbed telanovelas from Latin America are incredibly popular here. Most of the afternoon and evening TV slots are filled with these types of programs. Only one has managed to catch my interest – Marimar. But now that the kids are back in school, it’s work work work all the time!
•  Vacuum cleaners are strange here. There’s evidently one that’s been sitting in the living room of my home for the last 3 months and I only realized what it was yesterday. More like a round metal canister on wheels
• If I ever get lung cancer, I’m sure it will be from all the smoke I inhale in Kenya. If it’s not burning trash along the road, it’s the jiko (cooker) burning charcoal inside
• I need to go to the doctor early next week for a malaria check up – make sure there still aren’t any little buggies living in my blood
• Every morning, I eat margarine and red plum jam on brown bread. I can’t WAIT for cereal!
• Unfortunately, one common thing in Kenya is death-by-matatu. It seems like I can’t go a day without hearing about some matatu crash in the country that claimed x- number of lives. According to the paper, the month of April alone claimed 170 lives due to road accidents. Gives being thankful for American traffic laws a whole new meaning.
• Work has been incredibly boring in the last couple of weeks (see the post on inefficiency). Makes me want to run a half-marathon every day, just to be able to accomplish something.
• The male role in the family is strange in Kenya. I know there’s a “dad” in my family – he was here for my first few days in the house. But, I have seen no sign of his presence since then – no mention of him over dinner, no visits, no phone calls, no pictures. I’m not even sure if my host mom is actually married to him or not. (And unfortunately, this appears to be a pretty common type of occurrence in Kenya).
• On Tuesday night, my mama tricked me! She (and the kids) told me she’d be out of town over night so I was responsible for the kids and such. This didn’t really worry me, until I heard that I was going to have to be up at 5 am to make sure Garry and Betty were ready for school in time. Yuck. The next morning, she laughed and said she wasn’t staying over night. Morning grumpiness averted!
• Despite the immense number of things you can find on a street in Kenya (trash, car parts, bottle caps, sleeping children), the one thing that I have never spotted is money. Even 50 cent coins (worth 1/2 a shilling or about 1/2 an American penny) are vacant from the streets. I dropped a shilling coin on the sidewalk in front of my office yesterday and it rolled into a murky puddle so I left it, but I guarantee that if I go back today, it won’t be there – puddle or not.
• I discovered this week that along with malaria, I also contracted a nasty case of amebiasis… or ameobic dysentery.  (I believe that this one was caused by a nasty pathogen called Giardia lamblia). Needless to say, it was less than a fun week. Thankfully, the medicine has FINALLY kicked in and I am feeling better. Here’s to hoping that I don’t get sick again in the next 7 days!!

Favorite Quotes/Words of this week:

• “Supergetti” — actually, means “spaghetti” but I like the super part better!
• “Hot Mint” — Garry’s term for mouthwash… and it surprisingly fits really well!
• “Lala Salami!” — it’s technically “lala salama” which means “sleep well” but salami just sounds more funny – “sleep like a roll of spicy meat!!”

Once upon a time four days ago, in a land far, far away called Kenya, there lived a mzungu intern named Erin. Our story starts on a Sunday night in April, a Sunday night in which our little mzungu forgot to take her malaria medication, mefloquine. Unfazed, Erin woke up on Monday morning, realized her error, and hastily consumed the 250 mg dose in order to ward off any evil schistisomes that might be lurking. “Not to worry” she thought, “mefloquine works for a week and I only missed my dose by less than 12 hours. Plus, I can’t remember the last time I got bitten by a mosquito.” As the day progressed, Erin started to feel a bit funny – nothing too terrible, just a gurgly stomach and some cramping intestines. The walk home from work was unpleasant and she arrived in a bit of a cold sweat, but besides a headache and dysentery-like problems, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. Tuesday started off with a lovely night of sleeping in… as he stomach still didn’t feel well, she decided to take the day off. Tuesday was a bit rough, illness wise, because now she had a bit of a low grade fever to accompany the stomach issues, but thankfully the host family was off of school so the company was great. Armed with her $3 thermometer from Wal-Mart, prescription anti-diarrheal drugs and over-the-counter pain pills, Erin was ready to take on any Kenyan germs that dared cross her immune system. After a good sleep on Wednesday, Erin felt some better, but was irked to still have a cramping stomach and low appetite, even though the fever had gone down a lot and the headache was better. Despite the medicines and antibiotics specifically supposed to cure these things, Erin still wasn’t feeling top-notch on Friday, so she told one of her leaders that she’d go into the doctor. Convinced that she probably had something intestinal – bacterial or amoebic, Erin waited patiently to see the doctor, who just so happens to be right across from her office. After a quick chat about symptoms and their timeline, Mr. Doctor did a very thorough check-up… by feeling her forehead and telling her that she had a fever. She was then referred to the lab, where they pricked her finger and drew blood for a malaria test that costs 50 shillings (about 75 cents). Less than 20 minutes later the news was in.. “You have malaria!” Congrats, little mzungu, you thought you could escape us, but nope! We out witted you!

So, at the end of a very long week of feeling not-so-great, I’ve discovered that I have malaria. The stories that I had heard of malaria were violent, fever and chills, body-on-the-floor, can’t move feel awful – this, was not my case. Given the timeline of my illness and the way in which it occurred, I’ve determined that those dear little anopheles mosquitoes must have given me the less common form of malaria parasites, known scientifically as Plasmodium vivax. This type accounts for around 30% of the cases in Kenya, and is less sever but can be longer lasting than it’s cousin, the more prevalent and initially more violent P. falciparum. Because the P. vivax parasites stay in the liver and release over a much longer period of time, a person like me with this type of malaria can have it in their system for up to 4 weeks before experiencing the symptoms. Evidently, those 12 hours without my mefloquine drug allowed the parasites which were already in my body to begin manifesting themselves and reeking havoc on my blood cells. And then, once I had taken the medicine, it was flushed out of my system before being fully absorbed because of the diarrhea complication from the malaria. All this to say, despite my precautions (bednets, bug spray, antimalarial meds) I still managed to get it and I’m thoroughly impressed that it tricked me into thinking it was something else so well.

Anopheles mosquitoes & P. Vivax win Round 1. Nuts.

In case you’re interested, you can see what P. vivax malaria looks like (microscopic blow-up of blood smears) here: http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/html/PDF_Files/Pvivax_benchaidV2.pdf

• -         Sidewalks
• -         Fluffy pillows
• -         American germs – so you  know what you’ve got!
• -         Spring flowers – especially tulips
• -         Washing machines
• -         Constant electricity
• -         Being paid for work
• -         Pavement
• -         An oven
• -         Sinks with running water for brushing teeth
• -         Bubble baths
• -         Clean feet
• -         Pedestrian right-of-way
• -         American-style church
• -         Carpet and hardwood floors
• -         AC and fans
• -         Hangers and closets
• -         Verizon unlimited texting
• -         Paying by credit card
• -         Public restrooms
• -         Clocks
• -         Mirrors
• -         Bedside lamps for late night reading

So with less than 3 weeks left, this post is intended to discuss the finer points of American cuisine in an effort to keep me from thinking about it. In reality, this post will probably only make your mouth water… and hopefully clue my family in to the kinds of food I want to eat when I get back! So, in no particular order other than that which springs to my mind first, I give you the Tasty Desired Delights List: 

• Salad – in particular, a giant salad with all sorts of fresh veggies out of my sister’s garden, topped with cheddar cheese and my sister’s homemade lemon-garlic salad dressing
• Bread – fresh baked deliciousness preferably in the form of toasty garlic french bread; can also be topped with cheese
• Lasagna – mmmmm yummy pasta and sauce and spinach and cheese goodness. Definitely topped with extra cheese
• Popcorn – the kind you make in the microwave, smothered in parmesan cheese and fresh ground black pepper – an Anne Wallace specialty! (Seriously, cheese is a major component of almost all of my cravings)
• BACON – any kind, anywhere, right now.
• Biscuits – soft fluffy warm Southern delights straight from the oven smothered in honey butter
• Mexican food – in particular, tortilla chips, salsa, guacamole and cheese – oooo and fajitas. In Nairobi we saw a place with the Taco Bell logo, but it was called “Taco Club” … and it looked kinda sketchy.
• Lemonade – ICE COLD. Heck, any drink ice cold would be pretty good right now!!
• Pizza – one that actually has real sauce and real cheese as opposed to the Kenya version. In particular, a family size Papa Murphey’s pepperoni or veggie works. Or Kathy’s pizza – ahhh homemade goodness!
• Cake – and one that isn’t dry like the sands of the sahara desert. I’ve already specifically requested a caramel cake from my sister, but really, any good cake would do
• Veggies – the less cooked, the better.
• Butter – real, cold butter from a cow – not blueband margarine from some processed plant product!
• Cereal – preferably with 1% milk straight out of the refrigerator and a large glass of juice. Mom, I will never again complain about having to eat cereal for breakfast.
• Chicken – the kind you can buy at the supermarket – boneless, skinless, white meat chicken breasts that have probably been refrigerated for weeks and don’t have other attached body parts like brains or kidneys. This can be combined with pretty much anything listed above (minus the cake and cereal).
• Wine – preferably a red in a very large goblet at room temperature. In fact, right after I get off the plane would be a good time for this!

Beware -This is not an exhaustive list and moderate substitutions are allowed

 Things I don’t want to see on my plate for the first two weeks (at least):
• Rice – unless it’s accompanied by delicious Masman curry from Taste of Thai
• Cabbage – in any form, even Cabbage Sausage Stuff (although that is tasty)
• Brown Bread
• Peanut butter and jelly
• Water that has stuff floating in it and is room temperature on a good day

To Jessica (who’s wedding I am in less than 2 weeks after I get back from Kenya)– I’m already sorry about the alterations my bridesmaid’s dress will need after I eat all of this stuff. On the plus side, you’ll look fantastic next to me!!

To all those reading this post from a nation where you can get these items, for me, enjoy a large salad for lunch today and think about all those starving wazungu in Kenya!