Games! Games! Games!

I am presently at my in-service training but I wanted to write a post about last week and my adventures at Games! Last Tuesday at 7am 2 matatus rolled up to Sipili School for the Deaf onto which we loaded 30 kids and 5 teachers. We drove for a long time, stopping for 5 hours at a nearby school for the mentally handicapped where we had to wait for a school bus to pick us up and take us all the way there, but we made it to Kerugoya at 7ish pm. After a meeting with all of the teachers to discuss the next 3 days we were on our way to a hotel in town.

Day 1: Athletics (Track and Field) Day! Our day started out with all of the kids from the 7 Schools for the Deaf and maybe 5 Mentally Handicapped Schools in our region meeting up at a track just outside of town. We got all of the kids into a long line, some schools had banners with their school name on it, and we walked about 30 minutes through town to the high schools where we were competing. That was the last time we saw the kids from the M.H. Schools until the closing ceremony because they stayed at the Girls HS and our kids were at the Boys HS. We were trying to raise awareness for both of our schools by walking through town and it was really neat. When we arrived at school we had a short opening ceremony and then headed down to the track. They had all of the usual track events plus the 3 throwing events and the long jump. They also added speed walking, the 3K for the girls since only secondary boys ran the 5K.The other main addition was of the childrens events. There was a 100m and 50 m dash along with an obstacle course for kids under 10. The obstacle course consisted of running a 3-legged race for 30m then one kids untied the rope while the other had to fill a water bottle using the bucket and cup in front of them. Once the cap was tight, they ran 40m to a sack where they hopped in for a 40m sack race. Hilarious to watch! They were all so cute and so into it! Sadly my camera had run out of battery by the time they ran this race but it was great. Overall, it was just a great day! It felt so good to be a track meet, timing races and cheering on my kiddos! J They didn’t place too high but we had six 3^rd place kids and one girl who got 2^nd in the 3000 race, which was exciting to watch.

Day 2: Primary and Semi-final Ball Games. Thursday started bright and early with games. The girls played netball at the same time as the boys played volleyball and at the same time as the kids played 10 point. I kept time and recorded the score of the netball game so I missed the boys and kids but netball was a lot of fun. It was my first time watching an actual game. It’s similar to basketball and something else. I think it looked pretty intense but not my cup of tea because there was too much stopping and whistle blowing like an American football game or something. Our girls didn’t win the game but they tried really hard! The boys lost their volleyball game as well but said they had a good time. The kids under 10 play a game called 10 point. You have net similar to a badminton net and it’s 2 versus 2. They throw a hard circle Frisbee-esque disk across the net to the opposite person and it keeps going like that until it’s thrown out of bounds or it’s not caught. I never heard the results on that but I did hear one of our boys missed his turn because he was in the bathroom. Hahaha reminded me of when I missed my first XC meet because I was in the bathroom J Then later on in the day our girls played volleyball, best of 3 and we won the 1^st game but lost the next two. They played hard but didn’t make the cut. Lastly, our boys played Futbol. They got into position on the field and looks-wise it already looked like it might be a bit rough. We were in mismatched jerseys with some in sandals and some in flimsy shoes playing against a team in matching orange jerseys with shin-pads, socks and cleats. We also were a lot smaller in stature. The game started and we just couldn’t get it down to their side. They played a 15 minute first half and the score was 5-0. The second half was only 10 minutes long (I think the referee felt bad for my team) because the final score was 11-0. The worst part was when 5 minutes into the 2^nd half when they were up maybe 8-0 and the other coach yells to his team (not sarcastically) to his team to score 30 points. Thank goodness the ref cut the game early. It was a good day to watch and my kids did look like they had a lot of fun even if they didn’t win any of their games.

Day 3: Finals for Ball Games. Since today was finals and we didn’t make it past primaries, we kinda just hung out and watched other schools play all day. I rather enjoyed it. It was very relaxing and I met a lot of kids from other schools as well who would just come over to hang out with the kids from my school or they wanted to meet me. It was pretty awesome. In the afternoon I hung out a little bit with Jay who stopped in for the day to see his kids. He is a teacher at a Rev. Muhoro Secondary School for the Deaf. He could tell me signing had improved and it was one of the best compliments ever. Our day at Games ended with a closing ceremony in the rain. We got the 2^nd Most Competitive Team trophy. Hahaha my kids were excited, as was I, though I still haven’t figured out how we got awarded that seeing as we didn’t make it past primaries in any rounds.  After the ceremony all of the teachers went for a delicious feast served by the host school.

Overall, it was great experience but very tiring. I also got a lovely tan with my choco-type sandals, Capri spandex and a t-shirt every day. I loved talking with my kids and meeting so many cool kids from other Deaf schools as well. It was just awesome to be surrounded by so many people in Kenya and be able to talk to all of them! 

Easter Weekend

Another holiday blog post….Happy Easter to all J I hope everyone had a fabulous day and enjoyed the weather!

My Easter was different than most Easters I’ve celebrated though more similar than Christmas or Halloween was. The weather feels exactly like spring at home, it rained yesterday so the ground is damp and the birds are singing loudly. The air is warm but with a slight chill that comes rustling through every so often and the sun is shining brightly. I even painted 3 eggs J The strange part was that I didn’t go to church this morning which felt very odd.

Last Sunday I went to church for the first time since arriving in Sipili. The kids had asked me to go a few times but they attend a Catholic Church weekly and I wasn’t sure how I felt about going. Last week I decided to attend since it was Palm Sunday and I thought it would be a good service. I left my house at 9:30 and went with the kids to wait outside the gate while we watched tons of people enter the gate to the hearing school next to ours. The service started differently in honor of Palm Sunday. The Catholic Parish had the 4 churches that make up the parish all meet at the school before going to church. At 10:00, they started praying and singing with palms up in the air and then at 10:30 we all started to walk to town. This was the coolest part for me. Everyone had come with palms or olive branches they had gotten from their gardens or off the side of the road and when we walked, everyone had them up in the air. Now I’m realllllly bad at estimating amounts of people but I’d say there were between 500 and 800 people all walking the 30 minutes to the church by way of the town with their branches raised high. Some people were singing and some just catching up with friends but it was really neat. It felt much more real than any Palm Service I’d attended since those all consisted of palms bought from a store and held in the air while standing in our pews. After we arrived the church around 11, the service started. It lasted 3 hours and was all in Kiswahili. The worst part was there was no interpreter! I don’t know how often they have one because I’ve heard the teachers talk about rotating each Sunday but I’m pretty sure it rarely happens. They had asked me to interpret for the service but there was no way that was possible. They wanted to whisper the English into my ear so that I could then interpret from that. Besides my signing not being strong enough to fully interpret in the first place, so much would be lost from that system and it would be exhausting to do for 3 hours. I couldn’t believe there was no one there for the kids; it would’ve been helpful for me too since I can understand KSL but not Kiswahili. I just found it ridiculous.

A few days later I find out that Wednesday there are no classes because they kids go to church for an end of term service with maybe 6-7 other primary schools, all hearing. This was a school day and other teachers showed up at school before we left for church. We left at 10 but only the two housemothers, me and one other teacher actually went. I thought the other teacher would interpret, silly me. We got there and listened to a Kiswahili sermon for 45 minutes, then waited for 10-15 for the priest to show up only so we could have a 2 hour and 15 min church service…with no interpreter! The teachers say they don’t want to interpret because they aren’t Catholic. When I told them I’m not Catholic but I went they said ‘oh, but it was a good experience for you, huh?’ and when I told them there was no interpreter, they said ‘Oh. Really? That’s too bad’ and then went back to reading the paper. That’s 6 hours sitting in a church not understanding anything all within 2 days. So long story short, going to church has only pressed my buttons and I haven’t gotten anything out of it since I cant understand a single word so my Sundays are now for long runs and self-reflection on those runs J

Other than that, things are going well. I worked on an art project with my kids on Saturday which was a little crazy but fun for all! My headmaster had given me a paper about this project called ‘MASK Art Prize’ that any Kenyan kid could enter. He asked me to work with the kids on it. The theme of the drawing/painting was supposed to be on ‘What Makes You Proud of Kenya?’ and so I helped them talk about out what they loved about Kenya and made them proud and then tried to a rough copy out of the ones who were interested. I got about 12 rough copies and so on Saturday I wanted them to work on the final piece. I called the 12 kids out and naturally, all of them wanted a part in it so after they showed me a rough copy, they were allowed to do their own. I think in the end I got 25 papers. Some just looked at their friends papers and did what they did-I got a lot of churches drawn which I found a little ironic since they usually don’t have an interpreter. However, they do have 4 Christian classes each week and on Tuesdays a sister comes in and teaches them about the Catholic Church for an hour and a half. I think overall they just liked being able to draw with markers, colored pencils and paint, which I love too so it all worked out! I now will pick the best ones to send pictures of to the contest and then hopefully all of them will be hung up somewhere in our school. I plan on posting pictures on facebook during my in-service training in mid-April so you can see some of them.

The election news is that the petitions were denied and Kenyatta will be president. Swearing in for him is on 9^th April I believe.

Lastly, exams are this week, starting tomorrow and then Games start the following week. I’m really excited to see how my kids do and what exactly happens at these Games. It should be a lot of fun I hope!

And I wanted to say a BIG CONGRATS to my cousin Rachel who was recently nominated for El Salvador doing Economic Community Development!!!!!!

Kisses from Kenya J

p.s. if anyone fooled anyone/was fooled by someone really good yesterday, please share!