Warning-im in a bit of a place

so i wrote this a few nights ago on a friends laptop, things change by the hour and are looking up.

I don't know if I have ever been this scared. Actually, I know it, I have never been this scared, Im damn terrified. Im not afraid of being attacked, im not afraid of the many critters/reptiles living in my home, im not afraid of getting sick or injured in anyway. This isn't that kind of fear. This isn't like jumping out of a plane, where you have no control over what happens to you in the air and you know you are safe when your feet hit the ground, this isn't like the most important interview of your entire life or a final where you know you just need to power it out for a few more hours and it will all be over. There isn't a rush involved with this fear. There isn't any deadline or set moment when this fear will subside. I'm scared of daily life, im scared I won't be happy, im scared I won't actually be effective, and most of all, Im scared of loneliness. Im scared of all im giving up to be here, im scared of losing a man who has come to mean a great deal to me and is now across the country. I usually seek out a certain degree of fear – I think in those types of situations you learn the most about yourself, those around you, and life. You experience things many run away from and they can turn out to be magical and beautiful. Right now I just want to say to myself, fuck all your mantras. This is nearing paralysis here.

I woke up this morning and for the first time in all of my travels I thought, fuck, im in voi. This isn't a reflection of my site (Voi) sucking, but more a reflection of today being another day(day 4 alone at site) where I will not have the possibility of seeing anyone I love or remotely care about (other than the degree to which I care for and regard all people). Another day of not seeing anyone who knows me, knows how to make me laugh, knows how to challenge me and comfort me. Really, it has only been 4 days, so you are all thinking, suck it up Rachel that's like a long weekend. What is so daunting is the possibility of feeling this way indefinitely. Its pretty impossible that in 2 years I wont meet someone who can do all this in voi…but right now it feels possible.(sorry for the double negative) I feel incredibly alone and I feel like this will last for 2 years, which at this point in the game, seems like forever.

I will now give you the disclaimer. I am currently in day 4 of what every Peace Corps volunteer refers to as the most difficult 3 months of their lives. Things might get a little dark. Don't think you are losing me or that I am becoming a depressed cynic, just know there is a lot I am struggling with. I want to vocalize them so that you can have an idea of what I am facing. Pole. Right now, I am alone and not really contributing anything substantial to this world, so I am absent some of that passion that usually lights me up. Its there, it's just hiding while I figure out exactly what all this means and how best to use myself to benefit my community.

Today did however end up much better than it started off. I went into the office and mainly just hung out with the many people who swing through our office and resource center (vice president of ministry youth affairs organizing a big march of the youth and area clean up, young women who are forced into sex work to finance their education studying in our 'quiet' resource room, vocational trainers, human rights activists researching and monitoring the public spending of local governmental institutions among many things, environmental activists working to preserve the last remaining bit of forest in the area, peer educators, and really any other number of folk. This was just today.). You can imagine the variety of conversations I was able to have today. So that was uplifting and I believe it gives you a taste of the organization I am working with. It is called Voi Youth Forum and its goals are basically to empower the youth (in Kenya, this category is stretched a bit to about 30, so congrats to all you 28 year olds fretting about turning one more year closer to 30, you still get to check the youth box - in Kenya at least). It started as a few people coming together and realizing that this country's future is bleak if society didn't start addressing the issue of out of school and or unemployed dis-empowered young people with little to do but drugs and drink. We have 5 areas of focus, AIDS and reproductive health, gender equality, environment and wildlife conservation, child advocacy (child labor/sex work are HUGE issues here), and eradication of corruption/creation of good governance. All in all I am thankful to be working with such a great group of motivated and caring people. I am a little surprised by the structure-- I imagined living in a mud hut with no real organization to be working for and really just talking to people to figure out what it is that is needed. Which is still a little true, I will take the next 3 months to get to know the rather large town and the half dozen or so interior villages that I will be working in, try to do some needs assessment, and figure out what I can do from within the organization to help, and what some other side projects might prove beneficial in the coming years.

What I know of voi town thus far, it is big. Like damn big. Much bigger than Davis. We have a dance club, a store devoted entirely to wine(smiles, I feel like the force above was really looking out for me, I mean really, how many stores are there in east Africa with a name like 'wine makes the world better'), we border the largest national park in Kenya thus get a lot of tourists, people mainly speak Kiswahili, people are crazy friendly and patient with me as I accost them on the street and exhaust my Kiswahili in a desperate attempt to start feeling like I belong, voi town appears relatively wealthy because of the numerous international aid agencies and NGO's, but on the outskirts and dipping into the interior, we see most people living in abject poverty. The town is beautiful, it is a merging of many things, rich poor, peri urban clutter and peaceful landscapes, cultures from all over Kenya, Africa and old England(boo colonial legacy)…I could go on.

Lastly ill talk tonight about my house, because it is noteworthy and absolutely not what I expected. Things I love about my house (initially)

It's a huge octagon. It has character. I have electricity and running water. Each room is uniquely shaped, has tons of windows, killer kitchen with 4 burner gas stove/oven and tile counter, vaulted-esq ceiling with skylight, many a wooden doors and beams to give it the rustic feel, 12 floor to ceiling wooden folding doors – with great lighting potential, and its only a 10 min walk to town. From pictures it looks almost like a vacation cabana. ALMOST.

Things I don't love about my house

It's too much space for me-compounding the loneliness issue. my toilet leaks- i miss my choo. The shape lends itself to many nooks and crannies for bugs and bats to live in. The windows are slat windows, therefore never fully close, therefore permitting every noise within a mile radius to enter and sound as though they are taking place in my house, also creating some terrifyingly loud wind suctions. Kitchen is still cool, though one of my burners is broken and stuck on, creating potential headline "PC Volunteer decimates entire small Kenyan town in gas exploosion accident"... My skylight has been covered by landlord in order to kick out birds that are nesting and making a mess. Wooden doors and beams are infested with termites and the 12 doors, in addition to providing the perfect environment for upwards of 20 wasps nests, in addition to being slatted and contributing to the noise/wind problem already mentioned, they don't actually really open. So really I have 4 doors that open…oh yeah, and the 10 min walk from town (which is in a smallish valley essentially) means every single noise in town comes through clearly here…this is not my quiet place. Actually surprisingly, right now, at 9pm on a Sunday, ray lamontagne is coming through clearly with little background noise. Ahhhh.

i think ill call it a night. i have great access to internet, so ill try and post some less emotional more substantive writing soon. please continue sending mail, it makes my life.