Thursday, February 13, 2014

A Field Trip and More!


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

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