Wrapping up my time at ICODEI

This last week has been filled with trials and tribulations. There has been a lot of disappointment mixed in with some truly wonderful moments.

Last weekend was perfect. On Friday night we took all the ICODEI drivers out with us. At the end of the night I had a heart to heart with the Kenyan who is in love with me. I am now avoiding him, but he wants 10 min of my time to tell me all the ways in which he is thankful. The Saturday we went to Janet's house for lunch and to meet her husband. Janet is the clinical officer that I have worked very closely with here. The lunch was amazing and the cold Fanta was glorious. We now strongly believe that Fanta cures everything. After lunch her husband put on the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". It was hilarious. The movie is set in Botswana and perfectly sums up certain aspects of being in Africa. After lunch we spent some time in town playing pool. That night we welcomed a new volunteer with red wine, chocolate half smores and a fire.

The Sunday was also fabulous. The farm that we are staying on belongs to Ruben Lubanga who is also the Bishop of the Episcopal Church. He has 21 different churches that he rotates through, but he happened to be preaching at the church just off the farm. Church was filled with singing, dancing and a surprising four baptisms. Rubens sermon was excellent. The thing that struck me the most was how political he was. There was lots of mentions about how the government had let us down and therefore Kenya needed our prayers more then ever. After church there was an absolute feast. We tried what Ruben calls chewing gum ugali. It is black and sticky and made from millet. After lunch they served tea, fried eggs and bread and butter. It was the most bizarre mixture of breakfast and lunch ever. The rest of the group went hiking, but I stayed behind and did yoga and read. The whole thing was glorious.

My week has been filled with HIV awareness in primary schools, my last empower session and a day of mobile clinic. This week was also the week where three out of our four cars broke down. This week we also got one of the ICODEI employs fired. If those are the low lights then the highlights include teaching HIV to 200 deaf students, dancing in the streets with tons of school children and finishing empower with a bang.

Tomorrow is my last day in ICODEI. Tonight we are having another fire. Tomorrow will be filled with laundry, packing and goodbyes. The people that I have met here are quite simply amazing. So many of them have touched my heart. Tomorrow will be hard. I leave for Nairobi on Saturday morning. I will be meeting up with James on Sunday night.

The mixture of sadness and excitement is quite profound.

I will end this message with a big

SIGH