Paris Hilton has nothing on me.

Hello!

As it turns out I can email from here no problem. The way it worked out, I am working with the Red Cross in Nyeri. I am working with internally displaced people but I am living with the eldest sister of Peter (the patriarch of the family in Ongata Rongai) on a shamba (farm) in a mud hut. Also living on the shamba are 3 of Peter and Aneta's nieces that Aneta is taking care of while they go to school. Aneta, 71, with some help from the girls (11, 13 and 16) runs the entire farm. She raises pretty much all of the food we eat: beans, corn, potatoes, bananas, other veggies, milk (from 3 cows). I've helped a little and am learning a lot. It's pretty amazing.
The next day, my first day with the Red Cross, was also amazing but in a different way. The Red Cross in this area does not have one huge camp with thousands of people. Since this is a mostly Kikuyu area and most of the violence is over and people feel safe traveling many Kikuyus are now coming here from other displacement camps because this is either where they have family or where they've been told they belong. Some of the displaced people are living in temporary shelters but many are living with extended family. Within my first hour at the Red Cross I was asked to counsel a young man who had lost his entire family in the violence in early January. My Kiswahili is not ready for counseling and he spoke little English so another staff came to translate. At first I felt ridiculous because I felt the translator could probably do the counseling as well or better than I could but in the end I think it was really positive that we were both there. His story was so terrible (burnt house, found his father decapitated, mother and sisters also killed) - you really have to wonder how people can do these things (although it's been proven over and over again). But he had started healing and I think he will be OK. All he wanted help with is getting a job so he can go on with his life. It's too bad jobs can't be donated. After we assisted him (the government does have a program set up for job assistance for the displaced) we left to load a truck full of supplies to take to two different displaced people distribution sites. There were about 200 people at the first site (well over 100 of them were children- playing soccer of course). It was a little chaotic- there was a bit to be desired as far as organization but in the end it was successful and people were very grateful. We then headed to the next site but we never made it because going up a hill we got stuck behind another truck that was stuck in the mud. We waited for about an hour (we didn't have room to turn around on the hill) while a caterpillar was fetched to help the truck out and by the time we would have been delivering the food it would have been getting dark and the Red Cross was worried that the people would be mugged and the much-needed food stolen. The other volunteers (all Kenyan) are very nice. Anyway I hope I can continue to be helpful. The land here is so gorgeous!