Thursday 25th Nov
To be honest, today involved no sex, no recreational drugs, and no rock 'n' roll.
I delivered a training session for the committee on financial management. The committee consists of 11 men and 2 women. The women have had no education, and didn't speak any English or Kiswahili. At the start of the training session I asked for someone to translate into Luo, but this request was refused. So the women sat quietly throughout the session.
DRUGS
So in a rough attempt to live up to the title of this blog post, I will talk about drugs (well - medicines)...
It being a religious community, most meals start with someone saying grace. If I'm honest, I never really feel truly grateful when I receive food - I've always lived in extreme food security. Even in the village, the family where I stayed were well off, and there was always enough food.
Medicines, however, were different. I came with plenty of paracetamol, ciproflaxin (possibly my favourite antibiotic!) malarone, doxycycline, ventolin, and elastoplasts. People around me in the village would have to travel for half an hour to get a government health centre, and that typically didn't have any medicines and required a bribe for what little was there. As kids around me made do with a leaf or a dirty rag instead of band aids, I really felt truly grateful - even guilty - for the drugs I had. It was enough to make me want to say a little prayer of thanks every time I took my drugs.
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