While I was doing some shopping in Voi the other day, I met a German volunteer named Katharina. We talked for a while about all kinds of topics (school had just closed, so I think that I was pretty scatterbrained) and she mentioned that she was interesting in building a greenhouse in her community. We started focusing on that, and decided that I would join in this project and figure out if I could provide any useful technical advice.
We met in Voi on Thursday and looked at the model she had made. Then we talked with a few people to get price quotes for equipment. I think that one of the most interesting parts was when we were running around the cyber-cafe, using the size of floor tiles to appreciate the scale of the model. While we were doing this, I met Doreen, her best friend in Voi, who runs a small shop for beauty products. Doreen invited us to go back to her home for dinner, so we spent the evening there. As it happens, Doreen stays with her aunt and uncle, and they know Mwakitau very well. They even sponsor one of my favorite students (I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but since he's the only other Daniel in the school, he earns major bonus points) so we had a lot to talk about that evening. We also promised that we would come back and teach them how to make pizza. After that, we went to the main club in Voi and discovered that Thursday night is not a very happening night on the club scene. We had fun, but we left after only an hour or so.
Yesterday, one of the inquiries I had made led to a local greenhouse expert named Joseph coming to give some advice on the best way to make this work. We talked a bit, but this conversation was a bit more challenging because Katharina's english is pretty good, but in the Gymnasium (German version of secondary school) I don't think that vocabulary for building a greenhouse is emphasized very strongly. Still, after a pretty short time, we were able to understand one another and he started talking about putting up shade netting to conserve moisture (I think when most people think of a greenhouse they think of polythene or plexiglass to conserve heat; however, heat is not a problem in most of the area surrounding Voi). We closed the meeting by agreeing that he would come visit her site and try to make some concrete recommendations in about two weeks when he is less busy.
Katharina is a bit impatient, so she wanted to try building a smaller scale greenhouse in the meantime to see what she could learn. Now that we had specific needs in mind, we were able to get quotes and make some progress. We actually wound up visiting nearly every hardware store in Voi (there are probably about 20) and even a fabric store (we wanted to explore the prospect of making a cheaper version of shade netting using wedding veil material and mosquito net material). I had to do a lot of mental math, since all the material was different dimensions to figure out where she could get the best deal. In the end, she opted for some blue mosquito net material at a rather reasonable price. We spent the rest of the day joking about the blau-haus (German for bluehouse, since this one won't exactly be green).
Katharina went back to her site, so she will be working on her blau-haus, and I will visit her at some point before Joseph comes to brainstorm a bit more. We talked a lot, so I actually got to learn some more German (most of which I know from listening to German music) and she got to practice her English. I also got to introduce her to some other volunteers in the Voi area, including one of the new Public Health volunteers (my group are now sophomores, as a new bunch swore in last week) who lives near Voi. He seemed really cool and it sounds like their initial training went somewhat better than ours, which is nice to hear. One of the strangest moments was when the Indian man who ran one of the hardware stores (where we spent a lot of time) happened to be at dinner with us, and then he was behind the bar at the club in Voi (presumably running that club as well).
Now I'm off to a training in HIV/AIDS awareness that Peace Corps is giving us in Mombasa. I'm always excited to spend time with the other volunteers and also to see Peace Corps's training staff, so I am excited about this.
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I also forgot to mention that I met a Trini named Abena (though these days, she's more Canadian). I was suspicious, so I asked her where her name came from. She told me that it is Ghanaian. I decided to make sure, so I asked "so you were born on a Tuesday?" (the Ghanaian name for a girl born on Tuesday is Abbinah). She said, "No, I was born on a Wednesday." Then, she noted my quizzical expression and added "I was born a day late." We both laughed. Then I asked her about the spelling and she commented that in the West Indies, they like to modify the spelling of names a bit. It was fun to talk to her, since her passport as pretty similar stamps to mine (or at least the ones mine would have if I hadn't lost it in Ghana).
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