Site, Here I Come!

The day after we swore in as PCVs we headed to our sites.

Meg (Math and Science Education PCV), Meg’s headmaster, Meg’s headmaster’s son, my teacher from my school, and I traveled together.  It took all day to make the trip.  I woke up around 4 am, finished packing, ate breakfast, and took a taxi to the bus station with my travel buddies.

We couldn’t reserve bus tickets the prior day because they were all sold out due to the holidays.  We couldn’t get a bus ticket at the first bus station so we went to a second bus station where we were able to board a bus.

It was crazy.  There were people walking up and down the aisle trying to fit as many people and luggage they could on the bus.  People were trying to sell stuff.  I was constantly getting hit in the head since I was sitting in the aisle seat.  At one point my glasses got knocked off.

It was around that time that I had an odd and quick attack of not feeling well.  I got really hot and extremely itchy all over.  I took my jacket off, rolled my pants up to capri length, rested my eyes for about half-an-hour…until I felt a tap on my shoulder….apparently our bus was broken so we had to move to another bus.

Less than 2 hours later I started feeling better just as quickly that I didn’t feel well.  I then happened to look at my arms which were covered in red spots which I chalked up to heat just because I had been hot but decided to keep an eye on it.  The rashes/spots went away pretty quickly after that and I noticed what appeared to be a bug bite on my arm.

It took us almost 2 hours to just leave the bus station and about 8 hours to get to the town where the teacher I was going to stay with lived at.  It was a bumpy ride and a few of those hours were on unpaved roads.

Once we got to town we headed to the teacher’s house where I met his family and had dinner with them.  I crashed pretty early since I was tired and because the electricity went out.  I shared a room with the teacher’s daughter, son, and niece (?).

The next morning, he took me to town to get a few essential things (e.g. kersone stove, food, etc.) and he put all of my luggage on his piki piki (motorcycle) to take to the bus station.

No worries, I didn’t ride the piki piki….I walked from his house to the bus station. We’re not allowed to ride piki pikis in the Peace Corps…that’s the quickest way to get kicked out of the Peace Corps and a direct ticket back to America.

He then put me on a bus (with all my luggage tied on top of the bus) headed towards my school where I met up with the herdsman, guard, and house mama.

It was a nice feeling to get everything unpacked after dragging around 100 pounds of luggage with me all over Kenya for 10 weeks.  I also did some math….I spent the night in 6 different towns, 5 hotels, 3 different families, and slept in at least 15 different beds.

I can’t believe it has been 2 weeks since I’ve been at my site already! I was a bit sick the first few days with 101 degree fever, runny nose, headache, sore throat, and an achy neck.  It would come and go.  I would feel sick for an afternoon and then feel perfectly fine.

It feels so good to finally be settled in and to have everything unpacked!  I even have hangers and a place to hang my clothes.  I don’t have to live out of my suitcases anymore!