Bumble Bee Tuna

Dom and I have been fortunate enough to be living in the "best" accommodation according to everyone that works in the office at GVN. We are living in a condo that has power, running water and a tv with cable!! This might not seem like a lot to all of you, but some of our volunteers are living in tin shacks that have only power and a squat toilet (ie a hole out in the backyard!). So we feel that we have been very lucky in all of this ... though this isn't necessarily the experience we had prepared ourselves for. We were ready to rough it ... but I don't think either of us would be stupid enough to complain!!!

The family we are living with consists of Josephine (the mother), her daughter Suzanne, and their house girl Doreen. They are a wonderful family and have been nothing but generous to us since we arrived. Josephine runs her own business, and contracts out to General Motors ... which sounds great, but unfortunately they don't deal well with her always, and make last minute demands that she has to fulfill or they will find someone else. Suzanne is an amazing 13 year old that has big dreams of becoming a doctor like her late father. He had her promise him before he died that she would follow in this path, and she is more than determined to do so. Josephine and Suzanne told us how they count on eachother to get through each day, and they are inspired by eachother to succeed in their late husband/fathers honor. They are inspiring people and I can't help but wish the best for them!!

Josephine is also quite intelligent, and we have had many chats with her about the misconceptions held in the Western World about Africa as well as the reality of Obama being elected. Though there are parts of this place where people go without food and water, it is quite prosperous and many of the people here are doing very will for themselves. They wish more people would come and visit this place so they could see for themselves the truth about Africa and how wonderful its people are. And they really are!!! They are also realistic about Obama being elected. They understand that he has his own country to fix, and that everything comes at a cost ... and he won't just give out donations to this place for nothing. But they have hope that once he fixes his own country that he will reach out to the African countries, especially Kenya because it is his roots.