Favorite Things of 2013

Howdy Ya’ll J

 I have now officially completed my first school year of teaching. Ever. It was challenging, tough, interesting, hilarious and chock full of crazy experiences! In thinking back on this year, it’s crazy how much happened in Kenya! It has been filled with so much action and I’m hoping things calm down in 2014. We started off the school year with the elections and all us PCVs were consolidated for 2ish weeks. In term 2 there was the 3ish weeklong teacher strike across the country and the Nairobi airport had a fire due to electrical issues. Then in Term 3 there was the awful terrorist attack at Westgate Mall. And now as the term ends, there have been a build-up of riots/unrest on the caost and in Maralal and PC is moving all of those volunteers! Whew! Now here we are in November with the holidays quickly approaching! This school year has taught me a lot and although it has had its fill of rough and tough times, it has also been incredible and awesome too. I want to share with you what I loved this past year-in the spirit of the upcoming holidays-I’m going Oprah on all of you minus the absurd gifts but plus bullet points with fun things hahaha J

So with “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, these are a few of my favorite things…”

Zabet’s Favorite Things from 2013

• Running every day with my kiddos and having one or both of my hands held by the little ones
• Kicking around the futbol with the older boys and seeing all their moves
• Occasionally hearing Elizabeth or mwalimu (teacher) called our while walking in town or getting a run in, instead of mizungu (while running 2 Sundays ago I had, for the 1^st time, 2 separate people call out ‘Hello Elizabeth’!! Dude, that rarely even happened to me in the States)
• Being able to go to market and eat fresh fruit and veggies every day
• Receiving snail mail! Thanks everyone, you guys are the best!!!!
• Treating myself to mac and cheese with hot chocolate for dinner
• Hanging out with MC and his family in Sipili on Sunday afternoons
• Chai twice/day and meat most Thursdays at school
• Experimenting with variations to the classic choco-chip recipe since I haven’t seen a choco-chip since leaving the States haha I add different fruits, oatmeal, spices and cocoa powder-yummm!
• Having Magdaline and the girls play with my hair endlessly and come up with new styles and ‘dos for me while constantly telling me how excited they are at how fast it is growing (I’m equally excited!)
• Seeing the kids play in front of the Africa Map and point out things to their friends that they know about the different places, usually it’s the country name &/or futbol team status
• Making fresh banana bread about once/week after the kids help me successfully light the jiko oven
• The awesome view I can get from almost anywhere in Sipili-makes my runs so amazing!
• Watching my kids dance and getting their groove on-I recently taught some of them the moves for the Macarena- so. so. so. great!
• The kindness in Kenyans. One small example, recently I bought potatoes and a lemon from the lady I go to once or twice a week on average and before I left she handed me a bag of 4-5 tomatoes and a large mango, just ‘cause J Made me smile so big!
• Being able to read a lot & successfully complete 2 puzzles on my own for the first time in my life
• Running with the little 4-6 yr old boys and then having them show me their muscles after maybe 3-5 min to show me how tough and strong they are and how impressed with themselves that they’ve already run so far J
• Hearing my fellow teachers stick up for the students when they go on an outing anywhere to make sure they have an interpreter and that they can all see the interpreter fully
• Experiencing Sipili (as well as other parts of Kenya) in all it’s glory with my sister Sarah and cousin Clarissa!
• Having all of the matatu guys in Sipili and most in Nyahururu know me
• My kids signing or spelling Batman and then asking me if I love him which then ends in fits of giggles
• Being asked if I or Americans in general eat snakes
• Hot bucket baths after making banana bread on my jiko ‘oven’- it’s a double win
• Catching up on enough sleep to hold me over til I’m retired and can get the same amount as I’m getting now! …pretty sure I go to bed earlier than my entire family back in the States….including my sisters who are in elementary school and my all of my grandparents! I’m talking between 8 & 9 is totally normal for me now! Hahahahaha yep.
• Drinking 2 mugs of baby porridge every morning with a fresh banana and making lots of homemade French fries for dinner
• Hearing laughter all the time!! My favorite is at night when the kids have finished dinner and are hanging out outside my kitchen window and the boys laughter floats through and fills my house.
• The support I have from all of my family & friends! I was able to rewatch the video some of you made for me right before I left a few days ago and I still love it! All the letters, packages, FB msgs, emails and little notes that I receive make me feel so blessed and thankful to have you all in my life!!!

To say this year was easy and always fun-filled with my favorite things would not be true. It has been tough and at times really hard to be so far away from family & friends and Americans in general. The things on this list helped me to see the sunny side of things when I was having a rough day. If all your days are great, well that’s awesome, but it makes it much harder to appreciate the little things-even things like a hot shower, a cube of cheap cheese or electricity so you don’t have to take a bucket bath with only a few candles-those things feel ahhhh-mazing when you get them! When I go to a big town once a month where I can meet up with some PCVs, eat cheese or bacon and take one hot shower it’s soo good. I am so incredibly thankful to have this opportunity of a lifetime and as hard as it can be, overall so far, it’s been an amazing experience and I’m head over heels for Sipili and all my students!!!!

Kisses Galore from Kenya,

Elizabeth

My Kenya by the Numbers

I’ve been thinking about this past year and I love stats and wanted to share some that I’ve thought of with you all…my Peace Corps Kenya experience thus far in numbers:

Number of…

• Names I’ve accumulated since arriving: 4 (Zabet, Mwende-my Kikamba name that my host family in Machakos gave me, Nwera-my Kikukyu name that my co-teachers game me and ‘color’ is my KSL name)
• Lindes who have visited Sipili: 2
• Different classes/subjects I’ve taught: 5
• Elephants I’ve seen: 1
• Longest time without using a restroom: 18 hours
• Times I’ve mopped: 3
• Longest amount of days I’ve gone without bathing: 8
• Letters I’ve sent: 223
• Average hours of sleep each night: 9
• Milkshakes I’ve tried: probably around 10 ….milkshakes that have tasted like the ones I grew up with: 0
• Times I’ve known what was happening at school before it happened: Very few
• Marriage proposals: Between 5 and 7 I think
• Most crickets caught within my little house: 5 in 90 min…now I don’t even bother, we’re friendly to each other now
• Pineapples carved like pumpkins: 2
• Cups of chai/day: 2-3 on average
• Longest ceremony attended: 4.5 hours
• Consecutive days that potatoes were my main meal: 7
• Days without seeing an American in person (and only skyping once): 45
• Most letters I’ve received on 1 day: 8
• Days I’ve shaved my legs: 0
• ‘Wedding’ rings I’ve bought to show that Nate & I are ‘truly’ married & I’m taken: 3…total cost? $8
• Weeks school was missed: 3.5 (strike) + 2 (elections/consolidation)
• Hot showers: less than I can count on my fingers and toes
• Choco-chip cookie variations I’ve made up: 14
• Terms of teaching I’ve completed: 3
• Kids I’ve had knock on my door between 6 & 6:30am to return a magazine, get triple antibiotic ointment for a cut I can barely see or to just say hi: countless!
• Students who’ve stolen my heart: 78 :)

Governor & Education Tidbits

Hello Friends and Family J

It’s nearing the end of October and I thought I ought to update you all. The biggest news at my school was the governor’s visit 2 weekends ago. It was all the teachers could talk about it seemed-about getting ready, doing the planning and what exactly would happen when he came. The kids had to help in the school beautification. This meant they moved a lot of rocks, and when I say a lot I mean more than a Kenyan elephant load worth of rocks. They outlined every path, and then the teachers thought the rocks weren’t big enough so bigger rocks were found to substitute. Though that wasn’t the end of it. They then had to rearrange the rocks and move them out to dig a narrow ditch so that the rocks were more in place. After this was all done and a few more paths were added, the rocks were good to go. It did look pretty good at the end and we got a nice ramp/stair set built leading to the staff room for visitors so it was good even if it seemed a bit ridiculous to me at the time. 

The First Governor of Laikpia County (Kenya only recently decided to have governors and such since the newest constitution came out in 2010) came on Sunday with an entourage of people and our school was nicely packed. He told us he’d arrive at 2 p.m after church but since this is Kenya and time is much more fluid, he arrived at 4. They got a tour of the school, officially opened the boys dormitory and planted an indigenous tree in front of it to begin the afternoon. After the tree planting, everyone moved to the big tent and our students provided the entertainment. 5 of the lower primary students signed ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, our Class 6 & 7 preformed a dance and song and the scouts did a march sort of performance. They did really well and it was fun to watch them in center stage! We received some money from the event and raised awareness of our school so I’d say overall, the event was great.

The event also helped us raise some money to improve the student’s meals and yesterday they saw the beginning of that with a special meal. It was decided we’d give them one special meal and then improve upon their lunches the rest of the term with a change of foods some days. They will now be eating lentils, rice and more cabbage I think to substitute with their beans, rice and ugali. Their special lunch was very exciting for them all. They ate potatoes, rice, goat, chapatti and I think cabbage and loved it! That was all they could focus on in the morning as the smells came into the classrooms and they knew it was coming! It was quite funny and so my KSL and English lessons that morning revolved around spelling food names and telling stories using food vocabulary J

Next, I want to share an article that was in the Daily Nation newspaper last Thursday. It sheds some light on education in Kenya. I think it’s pretty interesting and if you want to know more about the history of education in Kenya, it is a good place to start. You can read the article for the full story but here are just a few points that stood out to me:

• Kenya has the largest education system in East Africa with 28,000 primary schools, 7,000 secondary schools & 60 universities/colleges
• Enrolment in 1963 had 892,000 pupils in primary schools-now there are 9.5 million & in ’63 there were 30,000 pupils in secondary schools but now there are 1.8 million
• Free Primary Education (FPE) came into action in 2003
• There are still almost 2 million school-age students not in school and who can’t access basic education
• The quality of basic and even higher education is very low compared to other countries with the same or lower GDP per capita as Kenya. 
• The teacher-pupil ratio at primary school is about 1:80 instead of the required 1:40 in a developing country like Kenya
• Most teachers are demotivated and remain in the classrooms just because there is no better alternative

http://www.nation.co.ke/kenya50/education/-/2032870/2035180/-/cmnrnp/-/index.html

Speaking of school, I had a crazy realization this week as my kids asked about when they get to go home and realized that we only have a few more weeks of Term 3 left! As of today we have 3 weeks left because we end on 13^th December (Wednesday)! I can’t believe how fast time is flying by!!

And a fun fact to leave you all with…I recently learned that Kenya only had one radio station up until 2002! They could only tune into KBC (Kenya Broadcasting). Now they have stations galore!

I wish you all a very merry Halloween and hope to see some pictures of super awesome costumes! If any of you have punny/clever/outrageous costume ideas, please do tell J Hope you all get some delicious candy and are having a happy autumn!

Lots of kisses,

Lizabeth

Hodgepodge of News from September

Hello Friends J

 I realized it’s been about a month since I last wrote a blog and wanna fill you all in on the happenings of Sipili.

The biggest news in Kenya right now is the terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall. Thankfully no PCVs were there that day and all are safe. It’s a true tragedy what happened and the police are still investigating though some suspects have been caught and some died in the attack. I don’t want to comment on the actual attack because I wasn’t there and don’t want to give false information. However, if you want more details on it there are plenty of articles online. If you want a Kenyan perspective you can check out the Daily Nation Paper website (nation.co.ke) which I prefer. The part I do want to comment on is to say how incredible it is hearing and seeing Kenyans have come together. They’ve been showing pictures on the news of Kenyans lined up in super long lines to donate blood all over in Nairobi particularly but also across Kenya. The Red Cross made a plea for blood with so many people injured and Kenyans reacted right away. More acts of kindness were shown with people who came out to offer free chai, lunch or snacks for the volunteers in the rescue missions. It really brought the people together. You can see ‘#WeAreOne’ just about everywhere and the Kenyan colors on everything. Everyone is and has helped out in whatever way they could. The President announced a 3 day mourning period after the attack stopped and the healing process has begun. We live in a crazy world where horrible things can happen but seeing what people do afterwards and during is the intriguing part. It is so cool to see all the Kenyans coming together, wearing their national colors and helping each other. Kenyans are one!

Speaking of coming together, school is back in session! I finished the Africa painting with a second coat on everything except for the title. I don’t particularly like ladders to begin with but being on the one at my school without the kids was not on my list of things I’d like to do. Thankfully I have a sweet boyfriend who is willing to do the second coat when he comes to visit and than it will officially be complete! Term 3 is maybe 3 weeks in by now and things are rocking and rolling. We lost 5 students to transferring but we gained 5 new students I believe. All of the new students are in the Classes 1 or 2 so I don’t have any of them but they’re all super cute! Only one of the little boys knows a little sign whereas the others mostly just mimic what you sign to them or nod and smile at whatever you say. They’re adorable and most are missing a few teeth which only adds more to their cuteness J

The most exciting thing so far for me this term actually happened with running. There is a boy named Moses but his nickname is Bean and he’s in Class 4. He is hearing but has other mental disabilities. He doesn’t write or sign much though he will respond to Kiswahili. He is always running around and has a fascination with doors and locks and has many a time locked me into my house. Thankfully there is a window by my door that I can stick my hand out of and open the door J He has an immense amount of energy and I wasn’t sure how I could best help him. Every day I run with the kids though now it’s a main group of about 5-8 girls from Class 2,4 & 5. Last Wednesday the girls took off and Bean started running off too. He’s done this before but normally we turn him around and he goes back but not Wednesday. He’d gotten about a minute into the run and we decided what the heck, let him come along and we’ll see how long he lasts. 3 of the girls in Class 5 ran with us and held is hand around turns to make sure he went the right way. It was awesome. The loop usually takes us 15-20 minutes to do and Bean ran the whole time! The girls wanted to do 2 loops so I took Bean back to school and told the other teacher there what he had done and after a high five he told me to take him again if I was going to do two loops anyways and see if he could do it. So we left the school again and went for lap two. Bean blew me away! He walked maybe a minute the whole two laps!! And he kept a pretty even pace, which is more than the girls I run with every day can say. I mean they’re all elementary school age so even pace is rarely found but he just laughed the whole way and kept on truckin’ J It was sooo amazing, made my day!

The big news from today is baptism! I went to church with my students, three of the other teachers as well as the two housemothers around 9:30 this morning. The service itself was long (10-1:30) but I was happy to see my headmaster and the sister interpreting this Sunday. We have a sister who comes every Tuesday to teach a class called PPI, which is basically teaching them about Catholicism since we are a Catholic-sponsored school even though we’re still a public school. Anyways, we had all but 5 students from Classes 5,6 & 7 as well as a vocational student and the our Deaf mother/workers baby get baptized. It was by far the largest group I’d ever seen and my first time seeing a Catholic baptism. It was really neat! 30 of my students got baptized in front of the church they go to every weekend while at school and it was awesome to witness. They had water poured on their heads, a necklace put on; oil anointed on their foreheads and the candle they were holding was lit. A cool experience and I’m so happy for my students!

On a totally different and not happy note, I wanted to share this article from the Daily Nation that I read this week about Uganda. It’s utterly outrageous. The gist of it is comments made while talking to youth from the Ugandan Youth Affairs Minister Ronald Kibule on rape. “Addressing youth in Kajara County, Ntungamo District on Saturday, Mr Kibule said the police should instead charge the victims with inviting the crime. The minister said the police must scrutinize each rape case reported to them to establish the dress code of the victim. He added once it is established that the victim was indecently dressed, the suspect should be set free.” Gah!! Don’t worry; he continues with his thought, it gets better. “When journalists called him Tuesday evening to verify these reports, the minister reiterated his position, noting that indecent dressing was “an open invite to rapists”. Say whatttt?! C’mon now! He stuck by his answer! I mean props I guess for sticking with what you said but of all the things to stick with, jeez louise!  He goes on to say that “Most women currently dress poorly especially the youth. If she is dressed poorly and is raped, no one should be arrested. Asked to define what amounted to indecent dressing, the minister listed mini-skirts, bikinis and tight jeans.” Well there’s the dress code for basically all the youth in America and what I’m imagining is quite a few youth in Uganda. Thankfully a female Prime Minister stepped up and said “I don’t support wearing of miniskirts but on the other hand a man who is normal cannot go and rape a woman because she is putting on a miniskirt. He should have self-control,” said Mbarara Woman MP Emma Boona. And another lady was quoted, Ms Rita Aciro, the executive director at Uganda Women’s Network who said “It is unfortunate that we have such leaders in this country. Does he know that there are laws in this country against rape?” she said. “He is obviously misleading many men by saying that it is okay for them to go ahead and rape women who put on short skirts. 
“Mr Kibule should come out and issue an apology to the people of this country. We live in a civil society that respects people’s rights”. You go girls! It’s hard for me to fathom someone-especially the Youth Minister-telling youth that if they’re raped and wearing clothes that might seem scandalous; the rape is their fault! What kind message is that?! I don’t understand one bit and I hope he makes a statement clearing things up in the very near future. That cannot be what the youth need to hear and I can’t see it helping anyone except the people getting away with rape. And if you want to read the whole article (though I’ll tell you I ended up copying most of it) it’s here: (http://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/-/1066/2006934/-/90jek4z/-/index.html)

Lastly, to end this blog on a happier note, I wanted to give a shout out to Lindenhof Farm! Dad recently got a call from a chef at LiveNation who said that Jack was doing a ‘greening tour’ and wanted only locally-sourced, sustainably-raised meats for dinner before his show in Philly. They talked and bought 25lbs of our chicken to make dinner for Jack freakin’ Johnson and his entourage! Just wanna throw it out there that you can enjoy the same kind of meat that Jack Johnson ate this Thanksgiving or any day you want, with a delicious turkey from Lindenhof Farm…just sayin’ J I mean I might be a little bias towards it but it’s pretty tasty stuff and after only cooking tofu at my house and occasionally eating meat that’s been hung without refrigeration, it’ll probably taste even better when I get back to the states!

Happy Almost October to everyone! Wanna know something nuts? In 4 days I will have been in Kenya for exactly one year-how crazy is that?!!!! SO COOL AND CRAZY!

Lots and lots of kisses from Kenya,

Zabet

Punch Bug Theory

I’ve figured it out! Took me a while but I finally cracked the code! I figured out whom I feel like a lot of times when I’m wandering around Sipili or other smaller towns in Kenya. Guess who? Punch bugs! Didja get the light bulb action like I did? If not, let me explain a little.

Punch bugs in small towns in America are like mizungus in small towns in Kenya for the following reasons:

• Children get excited to see you and hit whoever is next to them to point you out while simultaneously yelling out ‘mizungu/punch bug’.
• They both get stared at often by whomever they happen to be passing at the time
• There are usually only a few in each town-if they have them at all-so though people know you’re there and have seen you many times- they still stare a little when you pass
• Parents also can get excited and point/yell them out to their children so the children-if they were about to miss the opportunity-can yell at the moving punch bug/mizungu and then follow that up with hitting/punching their friend/sibling yelling out what they saw
• Parents also sometimes get into the game of seeing them first and it can become a competition between parent and child as well. They both come in multiple colors, different shapes and sizes, and may have been around for a while but they’ll always be part of the punch bug/mizungu game to the majority of people living there.
• Some people dream of owning them or marrying them even if they don’t know how to drive stick or if the only conversation they’ve had is ‘Hi, my name is ______. Will you marry me?’ because they look cool/different.
• The name ‘mizungu or punch bug’ is always called out to identify said thing to all surrounding people to let them know there has been a spotting
• If you go on vacation or travel a little bit and people don’t see you for a while-when you do come back-the excitement rises substantially. Same thing when children are on school break and playing outside and they see one-it becomes the most exciting thing in the world for a short while and that much more attention is thrown onto said thing.
• Lastly, and I’m only hypothesizing here since I cant read a VW Bugs mind, but I bet they also kinda play the game when they see foreign punch bugs in town the same way mizungus hit their friend to point out the new mizungu in town if they don’t recognize them and are intrigued J

That’s all I got but I think it’s a pretty substantial list and I’m sticking to my theory J  Hahaha just think about this next time you see a VW Bug driving around your town. Now you know how they might be feeling.

Linde Adventures

Hey Hey Hey J

I feel like a lot has happened since I last blogged but my memory is pretty awful and so I’m gonna give you the highlights in no particular order J

              As some of you probably know, I recently had 2 wonderful visitors in Sipili, my sister Sarah and cousin Clarissa! It was amazing and I’m so thankful they were both able to come to Kenya and explore things with me as well as see what my life is like here. When the 3 of us were in Kenya we traveled a good bit and got to see some more of Central/Rift Valley Kenya.

            During the last week of school when all of my kiddos were taking their exams Sarah and I wanted to make it a little bit more fun. One morning she cooked for 3+ hours making 2 mandaazi for every child and some for the staff members as well. Mandaazi are pastries that you fry and are kinda sweet and super delicious! They are often served as a breakfast food or snack at restaurants. The kids loooooved them! They were very impressed with her mad cooking skills. The other day before they left we painted all of the girls toenails with a bright pink. It was a lot of fun but Sarah and I both agreed afterwards we’re glad we don’t work at nail salons. They were happy to look so fancy and smart before going home to see their families. The only strange part was when a few of the male teachers came up to us afterwards and asked if he had painted the boys toes. We replied no and thought they were joking. They said it wasn’t fair to the boys if we didn’t paint their nails and we couldn’t get the point across to them that we didn’t think their families would like if they came home with pink nails along with the fact that life isn’t always fair. The boys got to play futbol with Sarah a few different days and only some of the girls played because it’s mostly seen as a boys sport at our school. The girls play netball and the boys futbol. It was an interesting conversation and I don’t think any of the boys really minded-they watched the whole time and kept laughing as they’d try to pose as a girl and fake us out. An entertaining afternoon for sure.

A few days after school ended Clarissa flew in after getting delayed for 2 days because of the fire at the airport. We met her in Nakuru with the whoopie pies I’d made in hand. I had to substitute a few things and I grilled them like I make my cookies instead of baking them. Now I may be a bit bias and it has been a long time since I’ve had one of my Aunt Millies wonderful whoopie pies but I think they tasted pretty good! Flatter and more moist but very chocolately and sweet! J It was sooo good to see C and have 3 Lindes all in Kenya together! Made me so happy! That weekend we saw the Menegai Crater-pretty neat-and Hyrax Hill. Both were pretty cool with amazing views!!

A few days after Clarissa had gotten here we decided to go visit the Maasi Mara, which if you’ve ever looked up any touristy-park-trip-great hot air balloon site in Kenya then you’ve probably heard about the Maasi Mara. It’s a very large park chock full of wildlife and mizungus! Clarissa and Sarah had been in Nakuru that weekend (4ish hours from Sipili where I was) when the decision was made. They called with the suggestion and 2 hours later I was on the matatu moving slowly out of town to Nakuru to meet up with them. They had made an arrangement with a taxi driver they’d met to leave at 3am the following morning. Oy. Sarah of course, bursting with energy didn’t go to sleep until 1am unlike Clarissa and I who passed out around 10:30 or 11 and then once in the car at 3 we passed out again while Sarah was in and out talking to the driver a little bit. We arrived at the park around 8 after seeing giraffes & gazelles before even entering the gate. I tell you-seeing a few giraffes with the sun rising is a beautiful way to start a day. At the gate we got bombarded with vendors trying to sell us any sort of trinket or jewelry while we waited to pay what ended up being more than we’d anticipated but we made it in by 8:30! He drove us around until 12:30ish and we saw so many awesome animals-most of which I’d only ever seen at a zoo. We saw hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of wildebeest, a fair amount of zebras, gazelles and antelopes. My top 3 favorite animal sightings of the day were all ones that I had not ever seen in Kenya. In 3^rd place was seeing 2 warthogs cause I instantly thought of Pumbaa and it made me smile J Thank you Disney. In 2^nd place was seeing the ears and eyes of 2 lions laying the tall golden grass. Incredible! I did not think we’d be seeing any lions but lo and behold, there they were chilling in the sun. Now they were easier to see since there were at least 7-8 safari vans on the surrounding paths full of cameras, fanny packs and safari hats and so we knew something good was around. In 1^st place was the lone elephant!!! My first elephant! It was also Clarissa’s first elephant! Hahaha but not Sarahs…the one who’d been here for 6 weeks and not 10 months like me or 8 like Clarissa. We also got to see a lone ostrich, kudu, baboons, impalas, water buffalo, a cougar and a few waterbuck! A very solid morning! We left the park and got to the first major town of Narok and were in desperate need of gas. But after driving to at least 6-7 of the gas stations we still didn’t have any. They all kept telling us they were out….though our driver said they probably were just telling people that so they’d get more desperate and then the prices could be jacked. Our driver had to stay the night and he put us on a matatu headed to Nairobi so we could get to Machakos since I had my VAC meeting the next day. We finally arrived at my host family’s house and it was so so good to see them! She served us a wonderful super tasty dinner of chapatti and green grams with cabbage before we headed to bed. We calculated a total of 17 hours in some form of transportation that day. Now that’s a PR I think and not one I’d like to beat anytime soon.

We left Sarah in Machakos on the morning of the 15^th so she could hang out there for a while before heading to Nairobi to catch her flight and we headed back so we’d make it before dark in Sipili. The next 3 days with Clarissa in Sipili, we did a lot of relaxing which was awesome. We’d been traveling so much before that it was nice to rest a little especially for her since she had to travel back to Zambia on the 19^th/20^th. We saw Thompson Falls, visited MC and saw his garden and she helped me with my Africa painting! I started on the 2^nd coat of the countries doing purple and red and she painted the title on top ‘Africa’. It looks a lot better now and hopefully I can finish the 2^nd coat of everything within the next 2 weeks before the kids return for Term 3.

The other thing I wanted to blog briefly about was the exams every child in Kenya must take at the end of every term. The big one at the end of Term 3 for the 8^th graders and the 12^th graders is the one that everything comes down to but that’s a whole other blog post. I just wanted you to see a handful of the questions that all Class 5 students had on their English exam this past term. I am the class teacher for Class 5 and so I give them all of their exams and therefore miss seeing the exams for other classes but this is Standard 5 stuff. See how you would do on the exam J

Standard 5: Term 2: Year 2013: English Exam

Fill in the black spaces using the best choices given. (I’m putting the first half of the story only)

The idea of __1__ food made the dog salivate. He pleaded __2___ sheep to ___3__ him to the party. The sheep said he was not __4___ position to help ___5___. The dog begged and begged and sheep was __6___ to take to the party.

1. a. dericious                        b. delicious            c. delicios            d. delicious

2. a. to                                    b. at                        c. with            d. in

3. a. take                                    b. took            c. taken            d. taking

4. a. with                                    b. in                        c. at                        d. to

5. a. her                                    b. himself            c. herself            d. themselves

6. a. interested                        b. discouraged            c. commanded d. forced à these answers make sense but the last sentence is missing a word so it still might be confusing.

Fill in the gaps using the best choice: (these were my favorite 3 from this section)

16. The boy jumped ____ the river

a. into                        b. in                                    c. by                        d. on

17. The teacher has ____ the naughty girl

a. beat                        b. beaten                        c. bitten            d. bit

24. Herd is to cattle as ____ is to eggs.

a. bunch            b. pack                                    c. tuft                        d. clutch

Read the story below and answer questions 26-38. (I found this story an interesting pick)

After a time I saw a little old man making signs to me to carry him on my back over the brook. Having pity on his age I did so, but when I would have put him down on the other side he twisted his legs so tightly round my neck that I fell to the ground half chocked.

            Although he saw how weak I was he refused to get off me. He opened his legs a little to let me breathe better. He put his legs into my stomach to make me rise and carry him further. Day after day, and night after night he clung to me. By good luck I threw him away and ran as fast as a hare.

36. By good luck means ______.

a. the old man was lucky

b. the writer fell down

c. the old man fell down

d. the writer was lucky

And for any of you who took the test and want to see if you’re smarter than a 5^th grader, here are the answers to the questions I pulled:

1. D à I realize B & D are both spelled correctly but if the teacher didn’t look at the exam and the child marked B-then they’re wrong

2. C

3, A

4. B

5. A

6. D

16. B

17, A

24. D

36. D

The English composition prompt?

‘Write an interesting story about market day’.

There ya have it. I will be on break until 4 September when Term 3 will begin and go until mid November. It’s nice to relax in my house and experience life without having door knocked on every 10-15 min with some child needing a bandaid/magazine/wanting to chat/asking for whatever they can smell coming from my kitchen J Ohhh I love ‘em but a few weeks break is not bad. I’m getting lots of reading in and painting a lot as well.

Hope you all had a glorious summer full of fun and are ready for school to start or for those of you not in Education, hope you got some sunshine somehow J

Sending lots of kisses from Kenya,

Bissy

Iten Adventures (part 1)

These past 6 weeks have been pretty incredible—the first 3 were spent in Kwale, living with some incredibly passionate and generous Kenyans who have hearts of gold, serving their community well, and spending the past 3 with Elizabeth Marie, my darling and hard-working younger sister who is volunteering with the Peace Corps at a Deaf School in Sipili, Kenya. She’s allowing me to be her first “guest blogger” – so here goes.

Visiting Kenya is JUST like Disney World, but a million times better. Take a look:

1. It’s kind of like living the Lion King. Simba means “lion” in Swahili, Rafiki means “friend” and the sunrises are 1000 times more gorgeous than the movie portrays. Everytime someone says “Asante!” (thank you), I start singing “asanta sana squash banana” J Sometimes it’s in my head…sometimes not.
2. They have these sweet minibuses you can ride—and on dirt roads after a heavy rain they can totally feel like a rollercoaster!
3. Instead of just 7 dwarfs, we have 20 little boys who share a wall with us, giggling the whole night through. Also, they love to take out our compost. They actually fight over this chore.
4. Luckily, we don’t have any “Mickey’s” hiding in our house—just a few bats and birds staked out in the roof. They love to sing to us in code as we fall asleep at night, although we have yet to find creatures who like to clean the house!
5. A spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down. Literally…that’s how Bis takes her malaria pills.
6. We eat porridge every day-just like Beauty and the Beast! Ours is made with sugar, and any combination of the following milled grains: millet, amaranth, sorghum and wheat. Oh, and sugar.
7. They don’t have spaghetti, so eating Lady and the Tramp style is difficult, BUT they do have kale and it is grown in every single garden. Therefore, everyone has a love affair with it – it’s basically served at every single meal. I’m not complaining J
8. Elizabeth is a bit like Gus, the mouse from Cinderella, because she loves cheese. We went to a cheese factory this weekend—now she’s satisfied!
9. My sign language “name” ( a sign given to everyone in the community so one doesn’t have to spell out every single letter every single time) is the sign language symbol for “princess” and Elizabeth’s sign name is the one for “color!”
10.  We have crazed tea parties every day in the teachers lounge. Sometimes they get super crazy and we get a banana.
11.  We have “Nights in Shining Armor!” Each night we fall asleep snuggled up next to him, he protects us from the bad guys, and is always there to comfort us. Thank you, oh mosquito net!
12. We live on the Bare Necessities J

This weekend was probably the most exciting weekend we’ve had together in Kenya. It started with us planning a simple weekend to Iten, the running capital of the world, to see a 10K race. Little did we know how exciting it would get…

We left Friday afternoon with the headmaster’s blessing, as he let us leave at 10, since it would take until 7ish to get to Eldoret, the last stop before Iten.

Leg 1: uneventful, although we had to wait 1 hour before the matatu left Sipili. We had to wait for it to fill up. “fill up” means 16 people in an 11 passenger van.

Leg 2: We rode the matatu alongside a VERY drunk man. Mind you, it was 1:00 pm. He had to get out 2 times to pee, fell over while doing so, and probably apologized “pole, pole” a gazillion times. He had a great sense of humor, so it was pretty entertaining matatu ride.

Leg 3: Our matatu broke down about 45 minutes in. Luckily it was in a town, so we were able to find some French fries and Peptang, Bis’s favorite ketchup. Two hours later, we were on the road again.

Leg 4: We got into Eldoret around 8, met E’s fellow Deaf Ed Peace Corps member, Jennifer, and we headed to stay at her place in Iten…

We got up super early Saturday morning to watch the 10k race…because there wasn’t a time advertised anywhere. Shocker. There were about 1500 men and women participating in the race—all Kenyan, we were told. E and I were sitting on a hill prior to the race near the finish line, when a man named Robert Kiptanui approached us and took us down the hill to take a picture with him. We talked with him for a long time and he introduced us to anyone he knew (which was about 75% of the people there!) Olympians, marathoner and trainer Gilbert Koech, (check out http://www.examiner.com/article/koech-pushkareva-win-the-rock-n-roll-san-antonio-marathon) who also happens to be Edna Kiplagat’s husband. She’s kind of a good runner…you know, ran in the London Olympics, 3^rd in the London Marathon…) I talked to him for a very long time—he watched the race with me and told me who was who as the racers were finishing. He told me about his training and it turns out he trained in Valley Forge for 2 or 3 years and now trains in Iten and Magnolia, Colorado. He’s coming to Philly in September to run the Rock’N’Roll half marathon!

p.s. The top time for a 10K at 2,500 meters altitude? 29:39. It was a “hard course” say the locals.

Iten Adventures (part 2)

Throughout our time in Iten, many runners approached us to chat...simply wanting to know why we were visiting and wish us well on our travels. They smiled, joked with us, and wanted to know about America. It was so incredible to witness their modesty and genuine character. I mean, we were in the city where almost every runner runs a sub 2:15 marathon, and they weren’t the least bit interested in broadcasting their accomplishments. So refreshing!

p.s. We met and chatted extensively with Henry Sugat, a 2:06:58 marathoner and winner of the Vienna Marathon—twice. He didn’t mention any of that while in conversation…

Back to Robert:

I asked him what his marathon time is, and he exclaimed “it’s SO slow!!!....2:17!! His half-marathon time? 62 minutes. That’s 13.1 miles at roughly a 5:10/mile pace. So naturally, my next question was: “Hey, want to take us for a run in the morning?!”

We met Robert at 6:50am and ran a good 56 minutes with him. He told us “I’ll go your pace.” Thanks, Robert. If you want us to go more than 100 feet, you’d better go our pace J He’s a 28 year old who has been running competitively since 10^th grade. Such a sweetheart. He took us back to his “training center” after his run. A one room house with a bed, 3 or 4 outfits, a charcoal jiko stove, a few pots, dishes, & a gorgeous garden out back. He wanted to make us tea as a recovery from the run, so he ran to his Guernsey cow and fetched some fresh milk. It took about 45 minutes until the tea was ready, because the jiko took forever to catch fire. He has a degree to be a chaplain, but is focusing on professional running at the moment. He’s been at it for 3 years, and his days consist of eating, sleeping, and running. REPEAT. After he walked us back to where we were staying, he was off to run another 30K with his friends. No big deal.

Yesterday we joined 14 of E’s students at the National Music Competition, held in Nakuru. It’s similar to our national music competitions, in that you have to go to counties, districts and regionals before you can go to nationals, but unlike the US system, the students go in groups from their schools. It is a 10-day event, where each school performs in many different categories. You can sit in some of the sessions, so E and I saw many deaf schools performing local tribal dances. It was super impressive to see how well they were choreographed, considering their hearing is impaired.

We took a matatu home with 20 people crammed into the matatu, including a large man who pretty much sat on E’s lap. We arrived home after dark with no power, so unlocking the room was a challenge…especially since the kiddos had stuck a stick into our lock, making it impossible to unlock. Thank goodness for safety pins—after about 20 minutes, we were safely inside.

Clarissa comes to visit from Zambia on Thursday! We’re taking 7 days to travel around Kenya, since E is sort of on break. She won’t be with C and I for the whole trip, but she’ll join us when she can. It works out beautifully that she has to be back in Machakos for her VAC meeting so we can meet and stay with her host family from PC training!

Tonight is dinner with MC and his family---MC has the most impressive garden collection of fruits and vegetables I’ve ever seen. No wonder---their growing season is 12 months long! Dad, don’t worry—I took lots of pictures J Dinner is always collected from his organic and sustainable garden, so I’m beyond excited. Plus, his wife, Mama Reidy, is teaching me how to make Green Grams and ugali tonight.

A funny sign on the road to Eldoret: “Clean toilets make life fun.”

Love you – see you soon! 

Strike Ended and FGM Information (part 1)

(I split this blog into 2 parts cause I realized it was too long. Here is part 1)

Sasa?! Or rather, wazzup? J Time for an update and some information of FGM…

Update on Sarah here and future happenings:

Sipili is grand and things are going well. The school term is finishing up and we have one more full week before exams. I cant believe term 2 is so close to finishing up! Sarah and I hung out in Sipili this weekend and got a lot of relaxing in. We went for a long walk around town, visited the market, did some laundry and watched some chick flicks while eating fudge. I must admit, it was very nice and I’m ready for class now!

Next, a strike update: The strike ended at the end of last week however, it was not without confusion. The strike ended an hour after the government said all public primary schools were closed indefinitely. So, on Thursday and Friday some teachers went to school and the students stayed home and in other places, it was in reverse with students in school but no teachers. Friday they officially reopened the schools and on Monday everything was supposed to return back to normal. The government also decided to extend this term by one week and term three by one week to make up for 2 of the 3.5 weeks missed. The other 1.5 weeks teachers are supposed to just make-up by teaching more efficiently. So we’ll see if that happens. The poor Class 8 kids who have to take their big national exam which will say if they get to go to secondary school and if they score high enough-which school they can attend-that’s a lot of missed class time for them! Now at Sipili School for the Deaf, since our kiddos were here during the whole strike we’re only extending until Friday, the 9th (since we normally end on Wednesdays). We’ll start up again in 3-4 weeks after close. We only have 2 more full weeks left-so strange!

The topic I wanted to mainly discuss was about was an article I read in the paper a few days ago on an awful practice still done in many places in Africa and the Middle East: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). I did some more research after reading the short article and I want to share what I learned. It’s a serious issue still going on in many countries and I feel that people need to be aware of what’s going on. This is some information I found on it…

A brief background/understanding of FGM that I gathered from Wikipedia, the Daily Nation newspaper, a National Geographic article, a BBC article and information I found on the UNICEF website.

FGM is practiced mainly in 28 countries across Africa, particularly Egypt and Ethiopia, and in parts of Asia and the Middle East. The WHO estimates that 140 million women and girls around the world have experienced it, including 101 million in Africa. FGM is typically carried out between four years old and puberty, although it may be conducted on younger infants and adults. It may take place in a hospital, but is usually performed without anesthesia by a traditional circumciser using a knife, razor or scissors. In communities that practice it, both women and men typically support it.

Miriam Martinelli and Jaume Enric Ollé-Goig write that reasons for the practice can be divided into five categories:

• Hygienic and aesthetic. The external female genitalia are considered dirty and "unsightly" and should be flat, rigid and dry
• Sociological. Identification with the cultural traditions, as a rite of passage of girls into womanhood, and for the maintenance of social cohesion
• Psychological. Reduction of sensitive tissue and thus to curb sexual pleasure in order to maintain chastity and virginity, to guarantee women's fidelity, and even to increase male sexual pleasure

• Myths and false beliefs. To enhance fertility and promote child survival

• Religious. FGM/C has been practiced in a range of communities with different religions: Christian, Muslim and animist. Muslim communities often have the false belief that FGM/C is related to teachings of the Islamic law. 

Strike Ended and FGM Information (part 2)

(I had to split it into 2 parts and I’m putting part 2 first-so read the part above this before J)

Kenyan History on FGM:

In Kenya in the 1920s and 1930s there was a lot of controversy on the issue. Top colonial folks tried to stop FGM however they only stirred things up and created a lot of anger within the people. Christian missionaries, according to Wikipedia, forbade people from practicing it for two reasons. Number one because of medical concerns and number two because they saw it as ‘highly sexualized’. The Kikuyu (the main ethnic group) did not appreciate it to say the least. One missionary woman was murdered in 1930 after speaking out against it. In Kenyan history, 1929-1931, this period is known as the female circumcision controversy. It is interesting to look at it from the Kenyan perspective. Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya’s 1^st Prime Minister) wrote in 1930 that “ The real argument lies not in the defense of the general surgical operation or its details, but in the understanding of a very important fact in the tribal psychology of the Kikuyu – namely, that this operation is still regarded as the essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral and religious implications, quite apart from the operation itself. For the present it is impossible for a member of the tribe to imagine an initiation without clitoridoctomy. Therefore the ... abolition of the surgical element in this custom means ... the abolition of the whole institution” (wikipedia). Support was also coming from the women themselves. A missionary in Meru, Kenya said it was an entirely female affair where the women’s council saw the girls become women. They saw it as a necessary tradition in the rite of passage to becoming a woman.

In 1956, under pressure from the British, a council of male elders in Meru, Kenya, announced a ban on clitoridectomies. This was followed by more than 2,000 girls charged over the next 3 years with carrying out the procedure on each other with razor blades. This was done in defiance and in protest against the interference with women’s decisions for their own rituals. Since 1994, several countries have enacted legislation against FGM. President Moi of Kenya issued a decree against it in December of 2001.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated in ’97 that 168,000 girls living there had undergone FGM or were at risk. Something I found really interesting was “Fauziya Kasinga, a 19-year-old member of the Tchamba-Kunsuntu tribe of Togo, was granted asylum in 1996 after leaving an arranged marriage to escape FGM; this set a precedent in US immigration law because it was the first time FGM was accepted as a form of persecution. Performing the procedure on anyone under the age of 18 became illegal the following year with the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act. The Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act was passed in January 2013 and prohibits knowingly transporting a girl out of the country for the purpose of undergoing FGM. Khalid Adem, who had moved to Atlanta, Georgia, from Ethiopia, became the first person to be convicted in the US in an FGM case; he was sentenced to ten years in 2006 for having severed his two-year-old daughter's clitoris” (Wikipedia).

Here are some statistics on FGM and an update that I read in the Kenyan paper, The Daily Nation:

UNICEF said there was a dramatic reduction in cases of FGM in the 29 surveyed countries. Among the 29 surveyed countries, Kenya and Central African Republic have the steepest decline. It is now rare among the Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Meru tribes but at the same time, 95+% of Somali and Kisii girls are still being cut. “Practice is becoming less common in slightly more than half of the 29 countries studied” UNICEF reported. In Kenya and Tanzania, for example, women aged 45-49 are approximately three times more likely to have been cut than girls aged 15-19. They said the prevalence has dropped by about half in Benin, CAR, Iraq, Liberia and Nigeria but then there are countries where there is no discernible decline such as Gambia, Mali, Senegal, Sudan or Yemen. Somalia has the highest percentage in the world at 98%.

Since 2003 the United Nations has sponsored an International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, held every 6 February.

If you want to read more on it, here are 3 good articles I found:

• National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130726-female-genital-mutilation-united-nations-unicef-report/
• BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22186436
• Lastly, one from UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58002.html

It’s school time for me in 30 minutes in fact; I wish you all a very happy end of July and I leave you with a quote sent to me by another PCV that I really enjoy:

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a time. Sometimes it makes planning my day difficult” –EB White

Kisses from Kenya,

Zabet