Week 2

Can you tell I have been busy? No time to blog every day. But this is Friday night of an undoubtedly relaxing 3 day weekend, so I can catch up.

I have moved out of the hostel. They charged me a full month's rent and then when I changed my mind they said too bad we already rented your room, so whatever. I dragged my suitcase down the road in the rain last night. I'm staying with people who live next door and won't charge me $60/day or even $600/month. And where the blinds close and the whole stove works.

I'm house/dog sitting at the moment. Azu zena (lily in some south American language?) is my new buddy. She looks almost exactly like the cartoon dog Pluto and she is one of the more emotionally intelligent dogs I have ever met. She likes to hold hands, and she goes out of the room if she has to scratch in the middle of the night (which I really appreciate). We go for long walks early in the morning. And there is a maid that does my laundry! I was really weirded out about the maid thing at first, but I guess it is expected here to employ local people like that and people feel that even if they can't change the world they can at least make a difference in a few people's lives by employing them.

On Monday I went running with two women from my work. They don't look like crazy athletes and they are a little older and wear sweat pants to run, so I thought it would be cake. It started out good even though I had a cramp, and I was thinking "look at me, keeping up with the Kenyans". But then they kicked my ass. It was so hot and I guess the altitude here is really dramatic (but I have no concept of meters, thank you USA). And their run consists of running around and then down this endless hill and then RUNNING BACK UP. I don't usually run up mountains, especially not when it is a thousand degrees out. So I had to walk most of the way back. I haven't been again because of lab work and walking the dog and going to yoga, but I want to keep trying. It could potentially be the best training of my life. For being a badass.

Work is going really well finally! I've started on my project and they are encouraging me to start writing a paper so we can publish it. I was not expecting that at all but it's pretty cool. I work in the lab with a woman named Alice. She has buggy eyes and is sometimes a really good teacher and at other times, like when you actually need something, she is one of the least helpful people I have ever met. There is also young guy they call Dickens and Alice loves to boss him around. Whenever I need something she says "Dickens, get it for her!". I just love that his name is Dickens. He is nice though, and I had him show me how to help myself so Alice doesn't have to boss him around anymore. There are other Kenyan people in the lab and they just talk to each other and laugh in Kiswahili so I just sit there and do my work. I now wish I had my ipod. Salma is the only other non swahili speaker. She is an older PhD student from Sudan and a huge sweethart so I think I will stick with her.

Ok, this part might be really boring, but it was kind of funny to and I want to remember it. So, I need to print stuff here. On the first day I asked how I can do that and they said I need a PIN. So I asked for a PIN. Nothing. The next day I asked again. Nothing. On the third day I asked again and Sarah, the administrative person for our project called and yelled at them. The next day I got a PIN. Then I tried to print, but the printer that I was supposed to print to was not connected with my computer. So I emailed someone about that. Nothing. The next week Sarah helped me add the printer. Finally, I can print? I hit print and go enter my PIN at the printer. Nothing happens. I bother Phil to help me. We hit print again and just as I am about to enter my PIN while he is watching, the power goes out. When the power is back, I try again but the PIN is not working. I go see Sarah. She watches me enter my PIN. Nothing. She calls IT. Ohhh of course, there is a special program they need to install on my computer. How dumb of me for not knowing that. They come install it. I hit print and enter my PIN with the IT girl watching. Invalid PIN. She tries. Still invalid. She calls her department. Oh, they forgot to activate it. Now it works. Finally. And I get 3 copies of everything because it remembers all the times I tried...

On a related note. My name here is Julia Little. When I pointed out the fact that my email was spelled wrong, they just said "so? it's close enough isn't it? You aren't going to be here for that long". Ok... So I have to spell my name wrong every time I log on to my computer, and when I give people my ILRI email I have to explain that it is not really my name. And then it was made official today when I got my ID card that I have to wear around my neck at all times. Julia Little.

Other than that it has been raining a lot, there are beautiful birds everywhere, and I played soccer this evening. I really wanted to play last week but when I saw that it was all men and that they took it really seriously, I decided against it. But they invited me to play this week and even though we were one man down and I was one of the remaining players on the team, we still tied and they said I was welcome anytime. So now I have a big head.