East African Adventures with Preston pt. 2: Limuru

After returning from Uganda, Preston and I spent the next two days in Limuru. Our goal was to give him a better understanding of what my life here is like and what CARE for AIDS is doing. On Tuesday, we visited the CFA centers at Banana Baptist Church and Koinonia Baptist Church, where Preston got a chance to meet the workers and some of the church pastors and see what a "CFA center" actually entails. Then, later in the afternoon, we accompanied Duncan and Steve to the Trends Fitness Center in Limuru for a true Kenyan experience - aerobics class! I don't think I've said much about aerobics here before, but it's become an amazing part of life in Limuru. About a month ago Duncan decided that he was still too fat from his visit to America, so he joined a gym (monthly rate = $13) in town. I was thinking that he would be going to the gym to work out, maybe spend some time on a cardio machine, but it turns out that this gym is all about aerobics classes, and the Kenyans love it! A few weeks ago I went with Duncan to a class - there were about 8 Kenyan men and women, along with me, in a basement room with big mirrors, doing aerobic steps and ab workouts to the tune of Aqua's "Barbie Girl" for about 45 minutes. It was actually a lot of fun, and I was surprised at the workout it gave! Since then I've gone back with a big group of "wazungu," and I knew it would be right up Preston's alley.

After aerobics, we went to Kevin's house for a real Kenyan dinner. Earlier in the day I'd talked to Kevin about what to cook and when we would be there, and he assured me that he would start cooking early and have the food ready at about 7:00 when we arrived. In true Kenyan fashion, though, he didn't end up getting back to his house until 7, so dinner wasn't ready until about 9:30. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), Kevin had a copy of "George of the Jungle" on DVD, which we watched while he and some friends made dinner. When it finally arrived, though, dinner was great! Kevin is a really good cook, and we enjoyed a big dinner of chicken stew, chapati, and vegetables.

The next morning, Preston and I drove to Banana and met up with Margaret and Joseph, the workers from the Banana center, to go with them on their home visits for the day. We walked about 30 minutes to an area called Muchaitha, where we visited four clients' houses. Preston described a lot of what this experience was like in his recent post on this blog, and it was really cool for me to see him understanding the reality of what CARE for AIDS is trying to do at its most basic level. It's always exciting to see the encouragement and love that a visit can provide to people who have been so stigmatized and cast out by their community, and the welcome that we always receive continues to humble me.

After catching a matatu back to the car, we spent some time during the afternoon at the first CFA center, in Imani Baptist Church. Preston got to meet our original center workers, Rosemary and Humphrey, and sit it on some of the counseling sessions with clients. These clients have almost finished their 9 months in the center, so it's great to see how well they are doing and how excited they are for the future! To end the day, Preston and I went with Duncan to Shark's Palace, a "nyama choma" restaurant in a town called Kiambu. It's a typical Kikuyu (the tribe from this area) restaurant, and nyama choma is a favorite meal of the Kikuyu's. It literally means "roasted meat," and you start the meal by picking out the raw meat you would like from a butcher, which is then roasted over a fire and brought to the table with your selection of roasted potatoes, ugali, mokimo (mashed potato/corn mixture) or chips (french fries) about 45 minutes later. We selected two goat thighs (about 1.5kg of meat) and relaxed with a soda on the outdoor patio while we waited for our delicious dinner!

It wasn't a long time in Limuru, but I think Preston got a good feel for the area and the work I'm doing before heading out on our next adventure Thursday morning...