death, corruption, and bears

so it's been an eventful couple of weeks for me!

First i'll start off with my Grandpa. I think all of you know he passed away. It was bitter sweet because i really was needing a trip to oklahoma to calm some of my nerves.

The wake and funeral were very sad. Honestly the hardest part for me was watching my mother, aunts, uncles, and grandma hurting so much. I mean obviously i was very hurt too, but for them it must've been a lot worse. 7 of my grandma's 8 kids came to the funeral, it was the most of the family that has been together in a really really long time. I met some more of my family on my grandpa's side too that i'd never met before. It was a great visit to woodward and was really nice to get to see so much family. My niece is shooting up like a weed. She's saying a few words and walks around the house like she owns the place.

I went back to okc on monday so i could do a couple things and see some people! I went and bought a bunch of dogfood and took it over to beth's for boris. Happy to say he didn't forget who i was! haha i was honestly a little worried!

i spent about an hour over there playing with the pups, then i went out to eat lunch with aquanita. was really good to see her and get caught up on all the work drama/gossip. after that i left and headed to norman where i met up with Josh my gay friend. I wanted an oklahoma shirt so we went shopping. (i think i got the same one you have tracy) then at 5 i met blake delao, laura, jess, and clarence at the library!

We ate a lot and drank too, had a great time! After a bit, jess, blake and josh all had to leave so laura clarence and i went to the mont for a couple swirls! afterwards we went back to the house and laid in carolyns bed talking for a while before going to bed to catch my early flight!

All in all the trip was great. I'm sad for the reason that it happened but grateful to have the opportunity to visit.

ok now on to the elections. So once again, they were rigged. The guy who "won" the presidency is the son of the first ever president of kenya after their liberation. He is also awaiting trial with the international court for war crimes, things having to do with organizing a ton of the post-election violence that took place last election.

Well anyway his party won literally every election. meaning one party will run the entire government....

A lot of people are taking their opponents to court to try to get justice, but this is a very timely and very very expensive endeavor. Something we don't have the money, or time for that matter, to even attempt. So what this means is Meitamei will not be in parliament.

What's this mean for me? well basically we have to work really really hard now to have funds for me to continue working here for more than 3 more months. It's something that i'm optimistic about, but at the same time i need to be realistic. It's hard enough to get grants and raise enough money for just our projects. Adding my salary on top of that isn't going to be easy.

ok enough sad talk, fun talk time.

This past friday in Phoenix was the Bearracuda event! Something that happens once every 3 months. Just a big ole bear gathering! I went down early friday morning and worked out with bartender in the afternoon. We were going to go jock strap shopping for something to wear to the bar that night but instead bartender just told me i could wear one of his, so went to the store and cooked us a nice big lunch. That evening they invited over a bunch of guys to pre-party before going out. There were about 30 people there. It was a lot of fun. I drank a lot there, probably enough to last me the whole night haha. After some random making out there we left and went to the bar. It was a ton of fun. At some point in the night i didn't have my shirt on. I thought someone stole it but apparently it was tucked into my waistband on the back side of my shorts hahaha!

I danced a ton and made out a ton and had an all together great time there! We left there probably around 1am and went to charlies the western bar to do some more dancing! I don't think i've talked about it, but there is an amazing taco/mexican food truck that parks right outside charlie's and everyone eats there after. It's always the best tasting burrito of my life!

The next morning we all slept in till noon trying to sleep off the night before. Then bartender and i got up and went to the gym again to try to sweat some of it out. While we were lifting though i kept feeling like i was about to throw up, but i made it though! That evening we went to bartenders sisters house to help her and his brother move some big heavy things. He's not out to his family (his family is mormon) so i was "a friend of bf's" to his sister and other family there. Then his sister cooked some polynesian food for us to thank us and it was amazing! she's opening a catering business and wants to start a restaurant. After that we went home and watched a couple movies just relaxing.

Then sunday, st patty's day we woke up kind of late again and went to charlies because they have an amazing drink deal on sundays. We didn't get trashed or anything, just kinda relaxed drinking most of the afternoon. Then in the evening we ordered some pizza and got some frozen yogurt from a little place.

Then i came back to prescott to find this lovely surprise!!! 

thanks for the card laura! i know you sent it ages ago, but it just now got to me! might have been the zipcode confusion!

I think i have a lot of work i'll be doing this week so that will be nice to occupy a lot of my time. I'm sorry there aren't a ton of pictures in this blog but i guess we didn't take as many this time!

Love you guys!

phoenix fun and STD's

hey everyone! been a while so here's my life since last blog!

first of all, i thought i'd post this funny picture. this is from the first crazy weekend in phoenix, when we went to the second bar to play darts. Here's my teammate trying to distract the other team!

things are still going well for me. I've spent the past two more weekends in phoenix since my last blog, staying with bartender and bf both times. two weekends ago we went out a lot. one day i spent the whole day with BF so i got to know him better while bartender playing in his flag football league. I also got to meet some more of their friends and get to know the ones i'd already met a little better! We went to a hispanic gay bar that weekend too which was a ton of fun. Bartender really likes dancing and doesn't care what other people think, at the end of the night his shirt was drenched with sweat! made me feel better about myself after a night of dancing hahahaha. One morning we woke up and bartender said "what the hell happened to your nipple. I looked down and saw this: 

not really sure how i got it, but i have a couple guesses? i mean there can't be that many ways to get a bruise like this on your nipple! hahaha. We had some good brunch at a little place too which was nice. Here's us at brunch

(great picture of me right)

then after a night of drinks at the house i came back to prescott on monday.

the week in prescott was a little stressful. not knowing anyone here, i have a lot of time to myself to sit and think about things. I think this is sometimes a good thing but sometimes my crazy mind gets the best of itself and i start to worry about things. Well in two days time i had convinced myself that i was HIV+. My reasons are as follows-

One of the first times i ever had sex with a guy, i didn't use a condom (stupid i know, don't get me started on it. i will never do it again). About a week after this happened, i got the flu. If you didn't know, that's basically the only symptom you get when you contract HIV, flu-like symptoms about a week after you contract it. Well anyway i was of course super worried about it then. But i had also not come out to anyone yet and was very very ashamed and wasn't able to bring myself to talk about it to anyone, which of course made it worse. Anyways over 6 months later, i got my test done to make sure i was clean and praise the lord i was. The fear of actually being positive never has plagued me again, until a week ago, and for some reason i convinced myself that i was positive and that the test just had messed up or something. I had a couple horrible nights where i just laid in bed thinking of how my life was over, how i wouldn't be able to end up with who i wanted among many other things that super depressed me. Well i went and got tested the next day, and hooray negative! Thinking back i don't know why i went so crazy, but i did, but it's all over now and i'm fine. after i got my results back it was like a boulder was lifted off me and i've been able to be myself again and think clearly. 

so after that scare i worked some more, have been working on a newsletter to send out after the election and also working on a couple grant proposals, one for our beading co-op and one for education. basically the beading co-op is a group of women in the narok area who have joined together and are trying to sell their beadwork to tourists. currently most of the beadwork that is bought is made by men of other tribes who can afford small stands in prime locations. tourists often don't know this and will buy them, thinking they are getting the authentic stuff but in reality, they aren't. anyway it's a great group of women and they just need some help getting things off the ground, so hopefully we get the grant!

this weekend, as i said i went to phoenix again. had another great time. friday night we stayed in, invited a few people over, and had some drinks. then on saturday this weekend i went and watched bartender play flag football. he plays in a mixed (gay and straight) league so it was pretty fun to watch. There are the straight guys who are genuinely nice people and open to getting harassed by all the gays about grabbing their front flag when they try to tackle them. Then there are the gays who are over-compensating trying to be overly athletic and sports-like. And then there are the queens running around throwing the ball with both hands and doing their bast to catch the balls coming at them. I actually had a lot of fun and even got a little sun which is something i needed! too bad it's more of a farmers tan though haha.

Saturday night we went to a bear event i guess you could call it, someone said it was gonna be fun, that's where i posted the pic on out facebook message thread at haha.

that's a volunteer on stage in the jock strap, the tied him up, whipped him, punched him in the gut, slapped him, and burned his back using a match and some mixture in a spray bottle lol. it kinda took us a little by surprise so we finished our drinks and went to charlies, bartenders western bar.

this is roomates face when we walked outside and saw what was happening :)

a little after we got there BF got tired so he went home and left us there. We watched a little bit of a drag show put on by the flag football league that bartender is in. It was all guys who play flag football so was funny to see them in drag after seeing them as a man first.

we danced a lot that night too, and had a great time! i have a new drink that i love which is really simple but never had it, just a tecate or with a shot of kettle (or other vodka) citrone in it. tastes great and packs a punch! Here are a couple pictures of the night

us on the dance floor, that's his roomate on the left in the picture

us in the bathroom, not sure what the guys behind us are doing.... hahaha

sunday we slept almost the entire day, really. we woke up at about 9am messed around some, then went back to sleep, we napped until about 5pm! hahaha but we didn't get home till about 5 so that makes it a little better! then we got up and went to the gym (all 4 of us) roomate and BF did cardio and bartender and i did arms. was really fun and nice, but made me sad i don't have someone to workout with in Prescott! After we got back bartender made us some spam fried rice

was my first time eating spam, but it was pretty good. way better than i thought it would be. Bartender is samoan, actually grew up in samoa, and they ate spam every day so he loves it haha

then that night his roommate wanted to go out, so roomate and BF went to a strip club, and then to charlies, bartender had homework he needed to do and told me to stay with him so i did. we ended up just cuddlin and watching water for elephants and a couple other shows all night though. was a nice relaxing night after another fun weekend! then i came home the next morning!

The elections in kenya just happened, but we still don't know anything, we have some speculation, but i'll write a whole blog about the outcome and stuff about it as soon as i know things for sure!

so for now i leave you with a picture of me in my triad.....(no i'm not really in a triad)

love you guys! miss you tons! 

hard work/slut time

i know i know, i should have had 10 blogs since my last one, but in my defense i've gone through emotional highs and lows that have literally exhausted me mentally and physically! so brace yourself because this is going to be a fucking long post i think!

Part one!

first i'll talk about the rest of my kenya trip now that i have some pictures i can put up!

I'll start off with some of the water project stuff

this is a picture of where the borehole will be dug, i know it looks super green but it's the short rain season right now so everything looks green but normally it is really really dry!

This is a picture of me with an elder from one of the villages that'll be effected by the water (great shot of me i know) 

Here's another great shot of me with the women from the same village. The women are the ones that this will have the most impact on, as they're the ones getting the water daily

Here's a woman and her daughter showing how they carry the 20kl canteens on their back

Just some kids from one of the villages

One of the schools that we're planning on putting a water tank at

A meeting at the borehole site where people from all over the area came to listen to me and my coworker in kenya speak about plans and to also give us their input on the project

Ok so that's enough pictures of that. I got a ton of work done and had a great time. I got to see some old friends and got to meet a lot of new ones. I'm really excited about the work there but also nervous! after meeting and seeing all the people that this will effect it puts a lot of pressure to get this all done. 

Another aspect of this trip was the campaign trail for Meitamei (my boss) I'm pretty sure most of you know but he is running for kenyan parliament. He ran for it in the last election also but that was the one that was rigged causing tons of violence to occur in kenya. He's currently leading in all of the polls and we think as long as there isn't any funny business he should win by quite a bit. And if he does win, we get tons more funding = i get to keep working here without having to try to find grants to pay myself hahaha. it also means we'll have funding for a lot of other projects we want to start and have countless opportunities to do the work we want!

Here are a few pictures of the campaign trail. 

this is a roadside rally, these happened all the time on the long drives to the campaign rallies. there would be people just waiting along the side of the road because they heard Meitamei was going to be driving by, then we would always have to stop so he could give a little speech

Here's a pictures at one of the rallies, every single person always had to greet him, usually in a giant line like this one

here he is talking to some people and a small campaign rally

here are few other random pictures from the trip

my awful farmers tan i got!

some yummy goat fat and chapati haha

i took this picture to show laura how awful i looked one night and she told me to put it in my blog....

the trip home was god awful, i had a 12 hour layover in atlanta overnight and thought it would be a good idea to sleep at the airport

here's my bed

here's me exhausted trying to sleep. and in the middle of the night my coworker, tawny, called me because her water broke and no one else would answer their phones hahaha

Part 2!

I got back and it took me a while to get my sleep schedule back but i did, and got back going to the gym and all that junk. I had been thinking about Arkansas for a while, wondering what the point was, because neither of us wanted to move to the other so it was like, how long do you continue a long-distance relationship before you're like ok, thats enough. I thought it was probably better sooner than later to end it so ya, that's all done with. I was pretty sad about it all but in true brad tradition had my slutty weekend after a breakup that i always seem to do!

so there's a boy that i've been off and on kinda talking to for a few weeks, since the first time i went to phoenix. He wanted me to come down and see him this weekend so i said sure why not. well he works at a gay country bar in phoenix and found out he got called in to work this weekend so that kinda threw a kink in our plans. But i was going to arrive at phoenix about an hour before he had to leave for work so i went ahead an met him at his house! yada yada we messed around some and then he had to go to work. Here's his picture

not my typical bear but for some reason i think he's really cute

anyway then he went to work and i went to see my friend who lives in phoenix. i told him i'd go see him at work so a little later i went to the bar alone (i hate going to bars alone!) but had a good time. he gave me drink after drink and i got drunk hahaha. then i went back to my friends house to stay the night there.

the next day (sunday) i was planning on going to a beer bust at one of the bearish bars. A beer bust is something bars do on sunday where they have a great deal on beer. the one i was going to had $1 bud lights. on my way there that afternoon i talked to a guy on a gay app (surprise) and he said him and his boyfriend were going too. So i felt a little better knowing that i wouldn't just get to the bar and not know anyone there and stand there staring at everyone creepily. I got to the bar around 3 and they were already there. We started talking, both of them extremely nice and friendly. The beer was flowing and i got drunk once again (surprise) my friend from phoenix came with her boyfriend and they drank a ton with us. i was supposed to meet bartender that evening for dinner and a drink before he had to go to work but because i was having fun i told him that i'd just come see him at the bar again later. on a side note the couple that i met for the beer bust also knew bartender so they were gonna come with me to see him.

So we drank and drank and i turned into crazy brad. i was making out with the couple a lot and randomly other guys they knew and introduce me to also. one point in the evening i had my pants around my ankles walking around the bar in my underwear. but it was a ton of fun! and they couple introduced me to tons of other guys so i feel like it was a huge success on the people meeting front! Also they told me that pool party season is about a month away and everyone will want me to come to their pool parties too! 

So at i think around 10 we decided to leave and go see bartender at the bar. We went there and he started giving me lots of drinks again and i got even more drunk (surprise). after a couple hours there we decided to go (the bars don't close till 4 in phoenix). i went home with the couple and did the dirty with both of them haha. Here's a picture of them.

so the next morning they had to go to work around 1030 so they took me back to my car and went to work. I messaged bartender to see if he was up yet and to see if he wanted to grab breakfast before i left town for prescott. he told me that his bar was having a free brunch that morning and we should go there. I said sure and that i'd meet him in the parking lot. I get there and i see him pull up and he has someone else in his car. I walk to them and get introduced to his boyfriend! hahaha

so we go inside and eat and have a couple drinks, then a bunch more (8 or so) of his friends met us at the bar and the drinks and shots started coming one after the other! we drank all afternoon there, and then we went to another bar in the evening where we played some darts, drank some more, and ate some wings. Then one of them wanted us all to come to his house, so we went there and they grilled some hamburgers for us. At some point in the evening, i met bartender around the corner of the side of this house in the back yard and we started messing around. after a little bit of that a couple of his friends came running around the corner yelling busted or something like that at us. so we put our clothes back on and went back inside (his boyfriend was still inside). then one of them wanted to go back to the western bar so most of us did. Some went home to go to bed, including bartenders boyfriend.

We stayed at that bar again for a while drinking until probably 2ish and then we took a cab home. i went home with bartender and when we got inside and went in his room, i turned the light on and his boyfriend sat up in the bed looking at us. bartender told me they had a no clothes policy for sleeping in their bed so i took my clothes off, got in bed, and proceeded to have my second threesome for the weekend! 

i got up the next morning, said my goodbye's to the boyfriend and then bartender took me back to my car on his way to school. i drove home still feeling a tad drunk and now i'm back! all together it was a really fun weekend and i think i was really successful in meeting new people. bartender and his friends invited me back down this coming weekend because they're cooking out a ton of ribs and having a get together. so that will be fun! and i just may go back to the same beer bust the sunday after!

so i think that's enough for now! don't judge me!

flies, tea, and water

Hey guys

so i'm in kenya! haha but y'all already knew that. I've been here for about a week and have about a week left to go. I've been having a great time so far!

So i guess i'll start with the trip here. I had to be on the shuttle at 2:30 am. So i just stayed up that night because i didn't want to sleep in and miss my flight!

I didn't have a lot of room to pack things because i had to bring over some speakers for the campaign.

These were my two bags! one was just the speakers and the other was almost filled by just the speakers.

The flights were good, on both international flights i had my row to myself so i could spread out some which was super nice!

I think i was delirious in that picture, not sad like i look haha

I of course also took advantage of the free wine/beer they offer on international flights!

When i had almost made it to Amsterdam, i looked out my window and saw Megans house!

Finally made it to kenya and made my way through the aiport and to the hotel in Nairobi

Things have been good since i've been here. I've gotten a lot of work done. I'm out in a smaller city called Narok which is near the site for the water borehole we're trying to dig. I've been going out daily to the area and learning about the different beneficiaries of the water project. There are about 10 schools who will use the water, then a couple bigger shopping center type places (not like a mall, more like 20 or so shacks that people hang out around) then a ton of villages, a couple orphanages, and finally a new medical clinic they're building.

It's been a lot of fun, the first day i went out to the site where the hole will be dug, there were about 40 people waiting there who had heard i was coming. They wanted to get to meet me and talk to me about the water project. It was really great getting to put a face with these people. It also made me really nervous that i don't want to let them down so i have to do my best!

Most of the pictures i've taken are on my other camera and i didn't bring my cable but i did take one at one of the schools of some of the kids outside. I know it's not great.

We also went to a lot of villages and talked to the local people. This means going into their home and drinking a cup of steaming hot tea while trying to combat the hundreds of flies going for your ear, nose, eyes, and mouth.

One of the women, whom we made a member of the local water board, made me a necklace! 

I've been needing to get a lot of "human interest" photos of dry land and kids with flies covering their face and stuff like that to make the rotary people sad so they'll give more money, but with my luck it has been raining almost every day i've been here and so everything is very very green. I'm trying my best though so hopefully i get a couple tear jerking photos to use.

It's taken me a little while to get back used the the whole "no clocks in africa thing" where we make a plan to meet at 10am to start the day and don't end up doing anything until 2pm if at all. 

And i didn't forget near as much swahili as i thought i had! I thought it was gonna be almost like starting over but it has been going pretty well in that area too.

overall everyone has been very very welcoming and i hope all of this goes as planned and we can get this water to all of these people.

no for the down side! I saved up like a weeks worth of Hulu shows because i knew i was going to have some downtime in the evenings or some days all together. I got here and on the second night tried to watch hulu and it isn't available in this country!!! ahaghghghg so i looked around and tried netflix....nope! then today i was like hey wait, maybe i can go to the station's website and watch these shows that way! NOPE! ugh oh well, i guess i'll just sit in front of my computer for 3 days straight when i get back home!

The other bad part this trip was the jet lag. It wasn't that bad but i usually don't have any problem with it at all. i got here and slept completely through the first night, which is actually better than i usually do. But then that evening i got sleepy and fell asleep at about 630pm which means i woke up around 2am and was wide awake ready for the day! Wasn't too fun but i randomly got on skype and found a couple hoodlums that i could skype with!

sorry you couldn't see me or megan, callie but it was great to get to see both of you!

Anyways, this is getting a little lengthy so i'll end it here. I miss you guys tons and you all have to come visit me sometime in kenya!

"Everybody's Hometown"

Hey

so here's my update since the last blog, brace yourself, it's kinda long!

I've been trying out a bunch of the local places. I have a couple that i like the most right now.

The first i'll talk about it the Raven.

It's a great local place with tons of beer with an amazing happy hour from 4-6 and 10-close! Like anything you could want. And a few of the bartenders that work here brew their own beer and it's sold here too!

they also have great food here. all organic and anything they can buy local they do. i probably come here for lunch at least 3 times a week.

They also have bands play every weekend but i haven't been to watch any of those yet. Hopefully soon!

Another place i like going is called Wild Iris. 

It's just a small little coffee shop where i go and get some work done. I snuck a couple pictures of the inside for you guys!

I think i've told some of you but also i've been going to spin classes like crazy. 

Five times last week and now three times this week. I think it's going to work out really well in my health scheme! At first it was tough but i feel like i'm starting to get the feel for it now and am enjoying myself in there. The only thing is i get annoyed with all the people who don't do what the instructor says. They'll just sit there doing their own thing and i'm like if you want to do that, go out on an exercise bike on your own! You're ruining the vibe!

I drove to phoenix this past weekend to see my friend Melissa whom i met in Kenya about 4 years ago. I had an amazing time. We sat around all day drinking wine and catching up. Something i picked up on about an hour into the conversation was that she lives with a pot dealer hahaha. Her roommate Reann was really nice though. But about every hour someone would come by, they would go in the back yard, smoke some and then they would leave and she would come in with more money hahaha. And she had a giant canister full of the big pot bud things. 

But ya i had a great time. After we talked all day they cooked dinner and then we got ready and went out to a few gay bars in phoenix. Apparently there are a ton there. They said that they have the most out of any city in the US. i'm not sure if it's true or not because they make up a lot of facts. Anyway, we went to the first one and drank a ton, i barely remember leaving to go to the second one (we had been drinking all day, remember)! I remember some at the second one like telling a go-go dancer he looked like he was 12, then i don't remember anything about the 3rd one! i do remember trying to get the cab driver to take his pants off once we got back home though! Then the next morning i woke up and i was laying the in middle of the living room floor! hahaha all in all it was a great night! I didn't take any pictures out at the bars, just of the drive there and back. Lots of mountains and cacti!

In other news, Arkansas (jerome) and i are i guess attempting this thing long-distance. Neither of us really know what to expect but like each other a lot and want to try. He's a pretty great guy so we'll see! But right now all we can really do is Skype, which we do pretty much every night for 2-3 hours haha. After i get back from kenya he's thinking about flying out here to see me. If not though in march he's going to vegas with his mom and aunt and so i'll be able to drive over there and spend a weekend with him.

Work stuff is going well. We've raised about $500 with the election facebook site alone! We have a few other fundraisers coming up after i get back from kenya too that should bring in a pretty big lump. I'm starting to get really excited because i'm leaving in a few days! I'll only be there a couple weeks though, coming back on i think Feb 10th or something. I have to get back so i can meet with the north carolina rotary club to give them all the information i get on this trip and start trying to raise the $100k with them that this water project is going to take! 

I still haven't really met anyone from prescott but that's ok. I'm having a great time with what i'm doing for work and my personal life. I think this change upgraded my life by about 100%.

Anyway i know this is getting super long but i just wanted to say thanks to everyone for blogging! I really do appreciate it! I miss everyone of you guys tons and think about you everyday i'm here!

Love you all!

B-rad

PS. incase you're wondering, "everybody's hometown" is prescott's motto! hahaha