Catch Up

So I took a few days off the blog to avoid ranting more about my anonymous joy kill commenter. But I'm back and ready to tell stories!


The past few days I had a little bit of homesickness, which just makes me crazy. The past two years that I have been in New York all I wanted was to be at Daraja. And now I'm here and missing home, if only I could erase the Atlantic and bring the two a little closer together.

I have been coming into town a lot this week, running errands and trying to organize my projects. I went to the VCT clinic yesterday which what the HIV clinics are called. I had been there last time I came and didn't have a good experience, so I was a little worried. The clinic was down a pretty empty ally way, and inside there is just one room with a sign that says VCT. I knocked on the door and a man answered who was pretty surprised to see me. Inside the VCT office there was one desk and two chairs, rubber gloves, and equipment to do rapid testing. I told him that I had 20 girls who wanted to get tested. I now have to figure out what is the safest and most ethical way to get these girls there. They want to try to keep it it as anonymous as possible, but obviously I have to tell someone I'm taking them off campus. I am also concerned that if I bring 20 girls there and someone comes back positive, she is obviously going to be upset and therefore everyone will notice. I think I'm going to end up bringing in smaller groups. Some girls agreed to get tested on campus but others were afraid.

Today we came into town to do some research about a recycling plant. One of the volunteers (Sarah) is working on a recycling program for Daraja since right now we burn everything (papers, plastic). The plant was pretty great, they are really trying to do something good and they hire women from the town who need jobs. They buy plastics from locals and farmers and then crush it down and sell it in Niarobi to a place where they will reuse it. Pretty cool!

This afternoon is a staff/student football (soccer) match so that should be interesting!