Before dinner, I found a dead scorpion inside my banda, next to my door.

It must have known I was a Princeton student because it was bright orange and black.

SUCCESS!!!

Today we finally did the lantern demonstration and distribution. I must say, it was an extremely satisfying experience. It took a lot of work, no doubt, but it was definitely worth it!

The day started out with a splitting headache and a painfully sore throat. I have been sick for the past few days but with mild symptoms - then my roommate and I thought I gave her the bug but today I'm pretty sure that I got whatever she had because the symptoms were definitely much more painful and acute than before.

I stumbled to breakfast and tried to make the most of it, since I knew I had a lot to do - we finished our interviews last night (we got all but one house because the guy has been out of town!) and today I had to write up a bunch of documents, get them translated, and prepare the lanterns. In fact, Wole and I had decided that I should pre-test and charge all 80 lanterns that we were going to be distributing before-hand. As painfully tedious as it was to unwrap, connect, and charge all the lanterns, I'm certainly glad we did - not only were a handful of the lanterns missing parts, but it also generated a lot of attention and excitement from passing employees! Unfortunately, however, while Maggie and Alex helped me set the lanterns up, this time I had to re-pack all the lanterns all by myself because Alex was already back in Nairobi and I was giving Maggie a quite long translation assignment!

My morning quickly picked up, however, when Oreste dropped by to help me try to figure out how to connect a radio to the lanterns. He had mentioned it in passing at the beginning of my trip and so I had gone around telling everyone that the lanterns could power a radio. But I hadn't figured out HOW and so I was quite anxious to learn how before my 7pm demonstration. Well, it turned out that Oreste THOUGHT he knew how to connect a radio, but never had actually done it before! So we got Lawrence's old radio and got to work - I had asked two of the workers to try to pick up some car chargers with matching pins on their trip to Nanyuki the day before but it turned out that they didn't fit. So Oreste had to be a little more creative and kept having to go back to the shop to find more parts and pieces of equipment. Meanwhile, I was pacing back and forth between the dining hall, where we were working, and the main offices, trying to get someone to print out my files. Finally, I came back to the dining hall and what did I hear? Noises coming from that ancient brown box!

Honestly, I was so excited, it was as if we had invented fire. If you saw me, you would have thought I had never heard music before. I was so happy I could've kissed Oreste.. but thank God I didn't! haha.

The best part of it all was when we beckoned Lawrence over 20 minutes later, to show him our magic trick.

I wish I could describe how happy Lawrence was. He's such a sweet and humble and sincere man but this day, his eyes were BEAMING. Honestly, they were twinkling with delight. He was so excited to take photos with his radio, which he hadn't used in months because he hadn't gotten around to buying new batteries. And later, he was just grinning when he told me how neat it was that all the other staff members who were passing by stopped by HIS radio to ask HIM questions and learn more about what was going on!

I still smile when I think about it :)

So yeah, that definitely made my morning a lot brighter and I was so happy that I even forgot how sick I felt! So I spent the remainder of the morning packing the lanterns and trying to coordinate the printing/translation process.

To make the day even better, we had chapati and lentils for lunch, which is one of my favorite meals here.

And Tuni shared the Godive chocolate that I had brought for him and the admin staff. I never thought I'd miss chocolate so much!

After lunch, I got back to packing the lanterns. It took forever but I really wanted the community to feel like they were opening up a brand new product, not something that was a used floor sample or something. So I didn't mind and it was quite enjoyable to listen to music and soak in the lovely view. The only real problem was that I was running out of time before the presentation and the repacking was taking much longer than I'd expected.

Well that, and the fact that I had to clean off the bird poop on a couple of the panels. Yuck.

As I packed the lanterns, staff members kept stopping by to ask questions. A couple even told me they were 'waiting anxiously' for the meeting tonight and one, Eunice, begged me to give her a contract before-hand since she had to work and would miss the meeting but didn't want to miss out on a lantern. I finally finished around 5:30 so I rushed back to my banda to get my demo lantern and a couple other small things. I didn't have a chance to finish all the documents that I had been working on but I at least got the running list of the people eligible/guaranteed to buy the lantern first, and the contracts.

But then I couldn't find Joseph, who had the printer! I started freaking out but luckily, he arrived 10 minutes to 7. I ran to him in excitement.

He agreed to print/photocopy the pages, and another friend, Franklin, agreed to run them up to the village when they were ready. It was 7:15 and I was late and nervous. Maggie and I went up.

We got to the Church tree, where we were to hold the meeting, and nobody except for a few kids were around. They saw me and of course immediately started the whole 'Tiffany/Stephanie/Mzungu, lollipop!' routine. I was not in the mood today. Finally, a couple of the adults showed up and shooed the kids away, and then helped gather the rest of the community members. Slowly but surely, more shadows appeared. Finally, we decided to start when there were about 15 people around.

I started by thanking the group for welcoming me, and by re-explaining the purpose of the project. I wanted people to realize that they were taking part in something that was far bigger than them and their community, but would rather hopefully help many similar communities all over Kenya, Africa, and the world. I explained that we were recouping the exact dollar amount that we had put in, and would use the money towards additional lanterns, a water filtration project, and to replicate the project elsewhere. Through it all, Wilson gracefully served as my translator. I really can't thank him enough for all he's done for me this trip.

Every time I looked up, there were more and more people. I think there were at least 40 people surrounding me and my lantern under that tree tonight. We went through the logistical issues and I fielded questions ranging from payment schemes to whether or not individuals could strike a deal to act as middle-men for future entrepreneurs!

Finally, we moved to the lantern demonstration.

I opened the box and explained all the parts. I actually had to get my headlamp out for this one, because otherwise it was too hard to see. But I wanted to go through the whole process with them, from start to finish, so I didn't want to have the actual lantern on before-hand. Finally, we turned it on. Let there be light!

The community has a wide range of income levels, standard of living, etc. It's kind of like living in the dorms - everyone gets the same cramped corners but it's still easily evident what different income levels people have because of how they fill the space inside it. Some people had full solar systems that charged ceiling lamps, while others could only afford to fill glass jars with kerosene and stick tiny wicks in them. Regardless, a lot of the community members still came to listen to the presentation out of curiosity.

The minute the light turned on, the atmosphere shifted. I actually had to just shamelessly take photos in order to take in the moment. The entire project came down to that moment.

I continued with the demonstration and explained all the different features. My favorite moment was when I made Lawrence demonstrate how to turn on and power his radio. As he tuned the radio station - ironically enough, P-Square is what came on - he just looked at me with a knowing smile. He would never admit it but I could tell that he was just so proud.

I continued to field questions. One person asked if it was possible to dim the light. In order to do so, I had to turn off the lantern first, before cycling through to the 'low' setting. The moment that the light turned off.. I just can't explain how that moment feels. I think it's partially because these lanterns have quite a bit of intense light so you just end up staring straight at it. So when it turns off, the difference is just incredible. People actually shouted 'hey! we need that light back on!' I remember having that same sensation back in March too. It's that realization that you don't even realize how much you need something until the moment it's taken away from you.

After all the questions were fielded (and of course I had to ask them the big question: who was going to let me watch the Cup of Nations championship game at their home!), we distributed the contracts. A whole bunch of people took them home with them but even more stayed behind for over half an hour, reading and filling them out and discussing the lanterns some more. Meanwhile, I played with Lomojo's daughter, Alice, and taught her how to use my camera to take pictures of the other kids. Finally, I suggested that we all go to the dining hall, where the lanterns were, so that people who had finished their contracts could collect them and the others could finish them there.

I joined over 20 others, walking excitedly from the village down to the dining hall under a full moon.

I was the last one in the group to arrive in the dining hall and saw that people had already been down and waiting for us. I brought two boxes of lanterns over and everyone rushed to the table. I checked off names while Maggie distributed the lanterns. Lawrence's son, Mark, also helped us with the process.

Jackson proudly exclaimed that he was the FIRST to receive a lantern tonight! Everyone was polite but people still kept trying to skip the line to get their lanterns as soon as possible. Some would then take the lanterns to the dining tables and eagerly rip off the packaging to examine their new possession, while others patiently marked their boxes to make sure it didn't get misplaced. All in all, 21 of the 53 households in the village (and 23 households overall) purchased a lantern tonight. We are expecting more tomorrow and throughout the month. My favorite was Lesiri - he's an older man who works the overnight security shift so he's often walking me back from the library. He's never been to school (his 'signature' was a '#' sign) and only has one of those small homemade kerosene candles to provide light for him and his family. The smoke had been bothering them a lot and the candles barely produced any light but honestly, I was worried that he might not be able to afford the solar lanterns, despite the monthly payment plans. But he was right there with the rest of the group and while he wasn't the first in line, he was still in the first 10.

I just hope that these lanterns don't disappoint and that people are still using them when I return next year.