How do you take a shower using only one bucket?
Happy Birthday Anna and Arianna!
Letter from Managing Director, Lily Muldoon, in Kenya:
After a full week in Kayafungo, we are quickly becoming accustomed to village life. The interns are familiarizing with their homestay families and growing acquainted with typical Giriama practices. They spend the mornings and evenings cooking, collecting water on their heads, and doing chores with the families. During the day the interns meet in their small groups with their team leader, review the ThinkImpact curriculum and plan for the day.
For the first several days the interns observed daily life to increase awareness about community infrastructure, relationships and resources. Working in pairs, they gathered information by performing a scavenger hunt, facilitating capacity inventory and asset mapping in the town centers, health clinics, homesteads and businesses. Leslie S. inquisitively questioned families about their use of eggs to supplement protein deficiency and plans to research more about starting a social business to sell eggs .
Birthday celebrations!
We spent Sunday and Monday night together in Mariakani for clean showers, laundry and Internet. Arianna and Anna had birthdays over the weekend and we celebrated with a frosted cake, singing and candles (pictured). We were all happy to have time to reunite after the first homestay experience. Interns shared stories about fascinating meetings with empowered women’s groups and visiting schools. We mostly enjoyed sharing hilarious incidences of trying to live comfortably with a family who has no electricity or running water.
Saul Garlick, the ThinkImpact Executive Director, arrived on Monday for a site visit and to spend time learning from and guiding the interns. He will be joining the teams in Kayafungo for the next two nights before he returns to continue running the organization from the Washington DC.
Attached you will find a picture of the group in front of the Kayafungo Chief’s office with the Chief and his Assistant Chief. The rains are starting to clear up so the van is not stuck as frequently. In the next picture Rachael, Nick, Leslie M. (now called “Marty”) and Jessie have fun together although the van is stuck, yet again, behind them. In the last picture the class enjoys their first formal Swahili lesson.
The group in front of the Kayafungo Chief's office with the Chief and his assistant
Rachael, Nick, Leslie M. and Jessie in front of the stuck van
The class has its first Swahili lesson
Hope the US is treating you well.
