A week out in the field

The problem with this project is that so much is happening, that every week I can write a story. This week was a very tiring week, but what an amazing week. Almost all week we spend out in the field, starting last saturday up to yesterday (also saturday). Today (sunday) we have been relaxing and went to the Giraffe Center, which was also great because those Giraffe's are amazing animals. I even got kissed by a giraffe (see the pictures attached to this blog).

But the field work was amazing. Last saturday we did a trial data collection at a clinic in the Mathare Valley. We recorded the youth friendliness of the clinic, interviewed visitors when they left the clinic, registered all the services, pinpoint the GPS data and talked about abortion services. It's Always shocking when you see and hear the real life stories. A young guy entered the clinic and had a certain problem where he needed medication for, but it costed 300 KSH (around 2,8 euro), which he didn't had so he left very disappointed the clinic. Hard and real stories in a hard world.

But it's not all sad stories. My most touching moment was at the day in the Netherlands election were hold. Three little kids in the middle of Mathare were having a tea break. They could not have been older than approximately 5 years old. The little girl was accompanied by two boys and the girl hold the cup of the last boy while the first boy was breaking something which looked like a cake. They were laughing and enjoying their tea break together. It touched me, because these kids understand what sharing and taking care of each other means. How frustrating to hear than later that day what is happening in the Netherlands were people with other believes are put outside our society like they have no value. Sometimes it almost seems that everybody is fighting for his own needs and forget about the greater good that we live together as social beings in a world. Being tolerant is trying to understand your neighbour and find a way to live together and not push for your way of living. Ok, so far for my political side step ;). It's just amazing to see that at this hopeless place these kids enjoying their time so much.

I also did a lot of interviews with kids. It's amazing how open they are about sharing about their sexual rights and health. And here I think the control of parents and teachers is working in a wrong way. One kid (17 years old) told me he is not allowed to have a girlfriend by his father and his teacher, so he found a girlfriend in Germany on facebook. On the question if he ever met her, he said of course no, but on the question do you love her, he said with all my heart. Weird things happen when you are not honest and open to youth about these topics. To the question if they know how to use a condom, almost all of them say no, but almost all of them are sexual active. If you talk to the teachers, they say it is not allowed by Kenyan law to teach them in school, so something goes wrong here. But therefore it is extra cool that you can help making these topics discussable. I told one school girl what we are trying to achieve and she was so interested. After our conversation she left and came back and asked me if I could already share the link of our webpage. That gave me the feeling we are busy with the right topic here in Kenya.

It was a very exhausting week, because it goes here always in an unexpected way ;). Robert, tomorrow we will use half a day, no worries we will be back early. Then next day when you are sitting in the car at 20:00 after started at 07:00 asking what went wrong, they will say, ah yes things happen. But the great experience makes everything more then worth to even work on Saturdays.

Next week we have the amazing privelege to go to a state of the art conference in the Safari Hotel here in Nairobi. All organizations like USAID, CORDAID and many others are coming from all over the world to Kenya to discuss their projects based on mobile applications. It's a 4 day conference, quite expensive, but an amazing oppertunity to generate ideas, link up to other companies and learn a lot. I'm looking forward to another busy week.

And then it's just one week when Talitha sets foot in Kenya. I'm looking of course very much forward to that day. My life in Kenya is great, but something big is definitely missing here. And that will be completed once she is her!

Feeling blessed about all the amazing adventures I'm allowed to experience here!

Ro