Kristen Roupenian lives her dream as a Peace Corps volunteer in western Kenya. She's just a day's walk from the Uganda border and three hours' bicycle ride from the nearest American.
Surgeon's daughter lives in a mud hut
By Rich Harbert
MPG Newspapers
Kristen Roupenian's dream job in an African village took some adjustments.
Villagers learned to endure the occasional sight of a woman wearing pants. Roupenian gained an appreciation for the wonders of cow dung.
A 22-year-old Chiltonville native, Roupenian lives her dream as a Peace Corps volunteer in western Kenya. She's just a day's walk from the Uganda border and three hours' bicycle ride from the nearest American.
A year out of college, Roupenian is a year into a two-year stint as a public health volunteer in a rural area known as Bukhalalire, a region devastated by the AIDS virus. She works primarily in an AIDS orphan center, a school for children whose parents have died of the disease.
The daughter of a local surgeon, Roupenian started talking about working in Africa as a young girl after hearing a friend's older sister tout the Peace Corps. After graduating from Barnard College in Manhattan with degrees in English and psychology, she made good on her plan and landed in Kenya last summer. She is home on three weeks' vacation, but normally spends her days teaching health classes in the Siguli orphanage.
There she lives without electricity or running water in a mud hut with a grass roof. Roupenian watched in wonder as villagers put the finishing touches on the exterior of her home - a coat of cow dung - just after her arrival last summer.
The dung gave the house the odor of a barn, but protected the hut from the ravages of termites and helped keep it cool under the blistering equatorial sun.
"At first I thought, 'Oh my,' but then it dried and made it really cool even on the hottest days," Roupenian said. "And it kept the bugs out."
It was one of several concessions she has gladly made to her new surroundings. Native cuisine was another.
Ugali is a doughy paste villagers eat with every meal, wrapping it around every morsel of meat and vegetable to make themselves feel full.
"It's heavy and tasteless and really disgusting, but it doesn't seem that strange at all any more," Roupenian said.
Like the natives, she eats it three times a day.
Villagers have made adjustments too.
The ultra conservative society is not accustomed to seeing women wear anything but ankle-length skirts. Roupenian wears them most of the time, but slips on pants on occasion to assert herself.
"At some point you just have to say this is my place too," she said.
She learned the hard way about the society's strict values system while showing off a family photo album to villagers. She now knows the photographs of friends in bathing suits on Plymouth beach were like Playboy centerfolds to the Kenyans.
The only white person for miles, Roupenian is still occasionally viewed as a spectacle, especially when she travels away from her school. But locals warmly accept her, and the children share a genuine love.
Her father, Dr. Armen Roupenian, witnessed the bond while visiting his daughter in the village last winter.
"What struck me when I went there was how acclimated she was and how happy she was in a situation that a lot of people, including me, would find difficult to live in on a day-to-day basis," Armen Roupenian said. "She ate their food, which a lot have difficulty doing. Just to live in those conditions and be happy.... They love her, they absolutely adore her."
Kristen Roupenian's main focus in the village is educating children about the dangers of AIDS. While one of eight Kenyans has AIDS, one of three in the village has the disease.
Treatments are available to prevent children from inheriting the disease at birth, but many women still refuse testing because of stigma attached to the disease. The diminished role of women in the society puts them at risk because older men begin having relationships with girls while they are still young teens.
"By the time they are old enough to know what's going on, it's too late," Roupenian said.
The orphanage is daytime home to nearly 200 children whose parents have died of AIDS. They range in age from 5 to 14 and live with relatives, attending classes by day only.
The center gives each child a cup of porridge every day. For some it is the only meal of the day.
Relatives weave baskets to support the children. Armen Roupenian took several home last winter and sold them at Jordan Hospital. Together with donations from hospital staff, he raised more than $2,000 for the orphanage. The money will help purchase a home for some of the children.
Kristen Roupenian took baskets home as well and hopes to sell them locally. Sales will help the orphanage place deaf twins in a program for the hearing impaired. Taken from the streets, the brothers visit the center but cannot communicate with anyone.
Roupenian has not decided if she will spend two or three years in the Peace Corps. She plans to return to school for a graduate degree after leaving Africa. She hopes to become a college English professor. But for one more year at least, she will live in a mud hut, teaching basic health lessons.
"I live with them completely," Roupenian said. "They are my friends, my family."
