Happy May to all!
I wanted to update you on my first event I held in Sipili along with a little
bit on the 2 weeks before that J
Ok so after games
I came home Saturday night and then left on Monday morning for my in-service
training in Nairobi. We had 2 weeks packed full of sessions and activities. Now
that we’ve completed one term at school we know more about our sites and
communities, Peace Corps can now tell us more about starting secondary
projects, how to be a better teacher and other good stuff. We also had our
counterparts/headmasters there for 3 of the days to learn about teaching life
skills and writing grants. My headmaster was super pumped to be there and I
think it’s really good because hopefully he’ll be more open and willing to help
me with projects.
Another exciting
thing is that I was voted to be in VAC. VAC stands for Volunteer Advisory
Committee and there is one person from each group and my Deaf Ed group
nominated and voted me in! Basically we meet 3 times/year with the high up
Peace Corps Staff to discuss things brought up by volunteers like policies and
happenings around Kenya that concern us. The rest of the time we had a crash
course in Kiswahili, different teaching method sessions, a coping/talk about
our challenges session and we visited the International School of Kenya.
The school was
really interesting and a total opposite extreme to all of the schools we’re
working at. Presently 877 students attend the school but they have a 30%
turnover rate! There are kids from all over that attend this school-90
nationalities are represented! We all got the chance to observe 2 classrooms
and I was placed with Britni in a 2nd and 3rd grade.
These kids with their adorable accents were so sweet and well behaved. The 3rd
grade class asked us a lot of questions (last year when PC came to visit
they didn’t get the chance to ask questions and weren’t happy). We got asked
about our favorite ice cream, favorite tv show, how life is different here from
back home, how many countries we’ve lived in and more. When we said that we now
live in houses that don’t always have running water/electricity and no tv, some
of them were shocked. Two of the boys asked how we made it without Donald Duck
and Roadrunner?! Then we went to the 2nd grade where they were
working in small groups so we chatted with 3 girls who were discussing books
they’ve read like all of the Harry Potter books and many of the Roald Dahl
books-say what?! I was impressed. The rest of the day we had a few sessions and
talked about what we could take from the day. The whole experience was kind of
mind-blowing. I mean these kids have traveled so much and seen so much but at
the same time, some of them have only seen one side of things and as one of the
teachers said, some of them lack street smarts. The school does do a lot with
helping them broaden their cultural perspective though. They have to do a lot
of hours of service work and then every year they take a big trip. In 8th
grade they take a week to visit the Maasi tribe and live like them. Then in 9th
grade they climb Mt. Kenya. It’s a cool school but so different!
So then after in-service
I came back to Sipili on Saturday evening and have been hanging out at home
since then. Sunday was my birthday and it was pretty great! I got a midnight
call from my lovely boyfriend then woke up to find a newborn calf outside my
window! It really felt like spring and home at that moment J The rest of the day was pretty relaxing,
I got to plant some sunflowers that my family sent me so hopefully they come
up. I also got to talk to my family and hear Anna read a Clifford book! My day
ended eating fresh pineapple and watching one of the many Bring It On movies,
reminiscent of my last birthday when I saw the musical. I just had so many
people wishing me a happy birthday, it was so cool and I felt really loved!
Thanks to everyone!!!!
The last thing I
wanted to mention was about my World Malaria Day Event. Peace Corps partnered
with the organizations PSI and USAID to host these events all across Kenya. We’re
‘Kicking Malaria Out of Kenya!’ I don’t know how many volunteers hosted events
but out of the 115 volunteers it was more than 70 of us I think! Super cool!
Basically they gave us t-shirts, a few futbols and messenger bags to hand out
as prizes and we were to host an event as formal/informal as we wanted to bring
awareness about Malaria. World Malaria Day is on the 25th of April
and so I planned my event for the 30th since I was still at
in-service on the 25th. It was the first event I’ve ever really
planned and I wasn’t really around in Sipili before because of Games and
In-service so I wanted to keep it as informal as possible. I wouldn’t have been
able to do without MC, a teacher at the HS next my school, whom Jenny, the
previous volunteer, lived with on his family compound. He’s super awesome and
helpful! He contacted 4 schools, to compete in the futbol games and told them
about the 5K race I was planning. Tuesday morning I show up at the HS at 8:30
(it was supposed to start at 9) and there are no kids. But I’m getting better
at running on Kenyan time (if only I could run as fast as some Kenyans and get
their times haha J) and so
although I was a little worried at 9:15 when not one person had showed up, at
9:30 kids started to arrive and all was good. The event started at 10:45 when
we had a big enough group of kids J We had the 5K race at the HS then the futbol games moved to
the community field. Overall I was pleased with the turnout because school had
been out of session for 3 weeks and I didn’t know how many would remember and
be able to come. We had 17 girls show up to race and 11 boys with 8 schools
represented. I had mapped out a 2.5K course so everyone except the HS boys ran
two laps and they did three. It was fun to watch but a little weird cheering
them on since I had gotten so used to cheering on my kids with sign language
haha J After the race was finished MC and I
talked for a little bit about malaria prevention and took some pictures before
walking to the futbol games. He had talked to a few schools to have one HS boys
games, one HS girls game and one primary boys game. One of the girls teams
never showed up so they got an automatic win but it was probably good they didn’t
come because they then the day would’ve been much longer and probably have
gotten rained out. I had a lot of fun watching the guys play; it was super
intense and proved good practice for them. The whole day ended shortly before 4
with a little chat about Malaria prevention and the event as a whole. We were
also lucky to have 3 girls show up that MC had talked to 3 weeks ago at the end
of school about making a poem to read and they did great! I’m still waiting to
pick up the prizes because there was some miscommunication but I should be able
to get the stuff tomorrow and deliver it to the kids at their schools on
Monday! Everyone else starts school on Monday but we start on Wednesday! Term 2
here we come! J Best of
luck to everyone with end of school concerts, activities, tournaments and
finals!!
