Happy Valentines
Day Eve to All my Friends and Family J
I hope everyone
is doing well and chowing down on chocolate and sweets for me! A fair amount
has happened in the past little bit since I last blogged that I wanted to share but it is all
pretty random so get ready.
Let me start with
the field trip I went on two Thursdays ago. In one word it was: surreal. I was
lucky and got to go on the trip with all of Classes 7 & 8 as well as 2
other teachers because of a last minute change with another teacher who
couldn’t make it. I was told at 7:15 that morning…they had told me they were
hoping to leave at 7 when I’d talked to them the day before. I changed in a
hurry and we left an hour and half later. J We arrived at
Mugie Ranch in the bus that had picked us up and started seeing animals! We
started our morning seeing a herd of impalas, graceful animals! We also saw a
few giraffes far off in the distance and then we saw an animal that made me
ecstatic! We drove pretty close to maybe 10 elephants including a baby!! It was
fantastic! I can now say I saw elephants-plural! Whoop whoop! We kept traveling
on and lucked out hardcore. Our guide tracked the lions to a dead buffalo,
which we learned the lions had killed the night before. We drove around the
area for maybe 20 min since they knew the lions would be close and we were
lucky because we got to see lions!!! Before that I had only seen a lions ears
at the Maasi Mara but on the field trip, the kiddos and I got to see a mama and
papa lion. It felt so crazy to be so close, not be in a zoo, just checking out
the king of the jungle! The guide told us there were actually 14 lions (2
males, 6 females & 6 cubs). They killed the buffalo the night before and
were relaxing-they rest and don’t eat for 20 hours before going back for
seconds. My mom told me this is the newest diet fad in the USA-I don’t know how
people or lions do it. After that we saw some buffalos that were alive, a
zebra, more impalas, some cool birds and waterbuck. After seeing the animals,
we sat down for our packed lunch before moving on to visit the tracking dogs.
They have quite a few dogs at the Ranch who have been trained to track poachers
and they’re really good at it. They showed us how the dogs do it and had one of
our girls hide somewhere a bit off the beaten road and pretty quickly, the dog
found her. The students were very impressed and had a great time there. Lastly,
we visited the farm on the ranch where they grow miraa. It’s a large debate
right now whether miraa is a drug or a medicine but they let our students taste
a little bit. Yep, this was definitely not an American field trip. It was a fun
day and the kids had a great time and learned a lot. They were looking out the
windows the entire time and practicing the signs of all the animals, it was
fabulous! J
So funny story,
the next day we got rain for the first time in probably a month or so. It was a
bit cooler-perfect running weather-I’d venture to guess high 60s or maybe low
70s. I was out on my run, turned the bend and saw a 7 year old decked out in
a…wait for it…snow suit!!! Hahahaha it cracked me up. He had the zipper pulled
up and boots on and everything. I instantly thought of you all in ‘Merica
living in below 30 degree weather all winter and constant snow-especially this
year-and yet, Kenyans and Americans alike are dressed in snow suits…even with
the 50-60-70 degree difference J
And speaking of
the crazy weather in America, I saw a lot of people’s statuses on FB about
power outages recently. I am sorry to hear about them-particularly for those
with who it affects their heat-that just sounds awful! I cant fathom the snow
and cold right now and not having heat during it does sound pretty bad-hats off
to those who survived without the heat. But it was interesting hearing about it
on my computer while my electricity flickered on and off and had been
completely off the night before. I am one of the lucky ones here who has
electricity but even with it, it still goes out at least once/week-sometimes
more. And there are volunteers living along with many Kenyans without any
electricity at all or running water. I don’t know, before I came here I very
easily could’ve posted the same status but after living here with random
electricity, running water that sometimes doesn’t run and no refrigerator or
any other kitchen appliances except a gas stove, it makes me rethink things.
Ok another note,
happy Olympics to everyone! So far in the Kenyan paper, there has been 2
articles about it. One was about the conditions in Sochi without any mention
about the actual athletic events. The second one appeared today about Shaun
White getting 4th and it being a big shock. Funny. Usually all I
read about in the Sports section is about futbol, rugby, maybe golf and
athletics. Kenyans are getting ready for the big XC meet in Kampala, Uganda
next month and it has been all the talk.
Last
Monday-Wednesday I was in Nairobi for a routine medical check up that we all
have to get halfway through service-all is good, no worries. And it was fun
because I got to hang out with 2 other Deaf Ed girls and I will get to see them
as well as the rest of the Deaf Education people this weekend! We haven’t all
been together since last April for training. There are only 7 of us left in
Deaf Ed but I’m very excited!
It was crazy when
I came back to school on Wednesday afternoon and found out there were 2 new
changes. We had gained a new little girl and a new teacher! Say what?! I had
met her 1 week ago but it sounded like she wouldn’t be back to start for a
month, alas, she started teaching today. She is going to teach the littlest
munchkins because there are now probably around 15 in the one class so now
they’ll be able to split it into two classes -much more manageable since all of
those kids are at such different levels! I think it will be a good thing for
our school to add another teachers. We are now more balanced with female/male
teachers at 4 and 5 respectively and she taught at a school for the Deaf
somewhere else in Kenya for a while before coming here. I’m excited to get to
know her. It makes me laugh at the speed of things here. I think they go at one
of two speeds. Things happen at either the leisurely speed that Kenyans
walk-a.k.a.-‘Kenyan Time’ or they happen at the speed of Kenyan athletes a.k.a.
‘World Record Pace’. Developments in town like a new building or a new teacher
can happen so fast but then sometimes just opening an account or mailing a
letter can take days upon days. It’s peculiar.
Today we had
exciting news. We had visitors from the Kenya Power branch in Nyahururu (1
hr&30 min away) come to our school today. They talked to our headmaster for
a while and then the older students performed a song then dance for them. The
cool part was that they donated quite a few new mattresses, maybe between 60 and
75 I’d guess, as well as mosquito nets and some blankets! It was like Christmas
come early for our kids. They were very excited!!
And two short
things that you may have read before if you have FB and saw my statuses but I
find them funny and wanted to share them again J
A week or two
ago, after much giggling, I found out that the question some of my Class 6
& 7 girls were wondering was if my poop is yellow or white cause theirs is
brown. Tis a good question. I love living and working with primary school kids J
Today I was told
I pronounce Pennsylvania wrong. By a Kenyan counterpart…who has never been to
the United States of America.
Hope you enjoyed
the post and I hope you feel extra loved tomorrow J
Sending lots of
pink kisses from Kenya!
Elizabeth
