Zany Zanzibar Trip: Part 2

Monday was a fully relaxing day on the beach. We took a walk and collected shells and just soaked in the sun. We also talked to guy about snorkeling the following day. And fun fact, that Monday was my 2.5 year anniversary with Nathaniel J Can’t hardly believe it!

Tuesday we met up with some other people at the beach at 8:30 ready to snorkel and relax on a boat all day. We had booked a day on the water, 8:30-3:30, boating out to an island to snorkel, eating lunch and returning to the beach. It was beautiful out and after a few stops along the coastline at other beaches; we had 20 tourists on the boat ready to roll. At 9:30 our luck ended that day. It started to rain and only let up for about 45 minutes the whole day until 5pm. And 2 of our girls were still pretty sick. As I said, luck was not on our side. We spent the first 2ish hours of rain on the top of the boat with only 2 tarps to cover us and the couple sitting near us. It was us against the elements hahaha. It rained pretty hard for maybe 30-45 min at one point and we were all convinced it was going to start hailing and we were only wearing bikinis, light tank tops and short shorts. Oy. We arrived near the island and everyone jumped off with our goggles and breathing thingies. It was my first time ever snorkeling and my experience only added to the laughter. I am blind as a bat without my glasses and I don’t have contacts with me here in Kenya so as I put the goggles on, I was fully relying on my friends to watch out for me. They were nice and did keep an eye on me but guess how many fish I saw in the one hour of snorkeling? Now before I tell you, I did hit a PR (personal record) since it was my first time and maybe I could convince you that I tried to see that many so that the next time I go, I’ll also get a PR…but the number I saw? A whopping TWO. Hahahaha oh the ridiculousness of sitting on a boat in the pouring rain all day to see two fish was not lost on us and we laughed about it the whole way home as we continued to get wet. We did enjoy a lovely lunch prepared by two of the Tanzanian men, of a large fresh fish, a vegetable salad type thing, oranges and rice-quite good! The night ended with a big game of Farkle that Deirdre had brought and cold showers since the hot water was out haha.

Wednesday Caitlin and I got up early to run on the beach and it was fun and good since we didn’t feel scandalous this time. However, beach running is still one of those things that always seems cool at first and then it fastly loses the appeal in my opinion….and I am definitely getting worse at English since arriving here. It took me about 5 minutes and a few rereads of that last sentence to figure out what was wrong and realize that the word ‘fastly’ does not exist haha. We hung around Stone town, got some souvenirs and ate ice cream. I also learned while roaming around town that Freddy Mercury once lived in Zanibar and now there is a restaurant named after him and plaque on the door of the house he used to live in. The ferry left at 3:30 and guess what movie they played-the fact that one was playing at all was crazy already-but they played ‘The Italian Job’! My brother loves that movie so much and because of his love for it, I have seen it a million times and love it as well. I was the only one who had seen it and so since the volume was turned completely down, I became the narrarator for my friends. Normally I try to only do that for my students but since the ferry felt like it was flying (we took the fast one back that only takes 1.5 hours instead of 3) and we were all sort of feeling a little bit seasick, it actually took our minds off of the ferry ride and we enjoyed the first half of the movie. That evening we had bad luck again. We had seen a discount thing in a magazine for the city on our way through town a few days before and all of us were excited for the deal. It said if you came in as a table of 4 ladies on a Wednesday night, you would each get a free glass of wine and 20% off if you got an entrée. We were hooked. It ended up being about 15 minutes outside of the city but we sat down at our table and asked our waiter about the deal. He asked the manager and it was a no-go. He claimed it should’ve been taken away from the magazine a few years ago and that it was originally made for their restaurant but they moved a few months ago and the deal doesn’t exist anymore. Same restaurant-just a different location-and it was in the most recent magazine and yet, nothing. We ate there anyways since we had gotten a taxi there and there weren’t really any other restaurants around. After paying we decided it didn’t matter, we were going to dance in a club or bar and have fun. We walked across the street a club that PC/Tanzania had suggested and there was only a large screen playing futbol. No dancing. No music. No nothing. We weren’t going to give up just yet. We found a taxi and asked him to take us to the best club in the city and after talking it through with a few of his taxi friends, they all suggested the same place. We arrive and the person at the door says there is an 8000Tsh cover charge (about 400Kenyan shillings or a little less than $5) but it was only  Wednesday night and after we looked in we saw maybe 10 people in there…with slow chill music playing! No dancing to be had. So we went back to our hotel and passed out.

Thursday was my day to get sick. Thankfully no giardia but similar symptoms. We walked around the city for an hour as we waited for the Subway to open at 9am hahaha. We had our priorities. With Subway bags in our hands we climbed aboard yet another bus. It was 10:30am and we didn’t leave until 12:30…and didn’t stop for a restroom until 6:45pm. All I have to say is thank goodness for Pepto Bismol. We didn’t arrive in Arusha until midnight but our hotel reception was very thankfully awake and could let us in which was all we wanted and were worried about. We got a little less than 6 hours of sleep before waking up to get ready to ride another bus. This was the point where we split up. Deirdre and I went on a bus to Nairobi while Caitlin and Eva were going to Eastern Kenya so they opted for a different route. Smart move. Our bus left at 8 and was smooth sailing until we reached Nairobi. Even the border crossing was fine. We also rode the bus with a English guy who was in the midst of traveling from South Africa all the way up to Kenya/Uganda/Rwanda, pretty cool. Then we hit Nairobi. Freakin’ Nairobi. We sat in traffic for maybe an hour and a half-at 2pm-partly because there is ALWAYS traffic and partly because they are cracking down on foreigners and were doing random passport stops with everyone on certain roads. Nairobi is getting worse and the police are trying to crack down on things there. We got off the bus around 2:30ish, hopped in a taxi to take us to a matatu stage going towards Nakuru. We just couldn’t get enough of transportation this vacation ;) We hit traffic again going out to Nakuru which rarely happens and it ended up taking an hour longer to get there than usual.

Saturday was the last day of our travels. We got breakfast at one chain coffee house they have there and I treated myself for my Birthday that was in two days. I got a slice of warm apple pie, a mocha milkshake and a bagel with CREAM CHEESE! I don’t even think I ate cream cheese when I visited the USA last year for 2 weeks, which means it’s been over 1.5 years since I’ve eaten a bagel or cream cheese and it was amazing. Our waitress gave me a bit of a funny look bringing me pie and a milkshake at 9am but it was sooo worth it! We hit up the clothing piles next and Deirdre and I got some good deals/finds! She ended up with a bunch of cute dresses she can wear at school and I found a pair of hot pink corduroy trousers for only 500Bob ($5ish) as well as dark red trousers with black polka dots on them for the same price-whabam! And I’m not sure if my sisters know yet but recently I found one of my best finds yet-a pair of hot pink heels that are actually my size and were only 900Bob!! I’ve been on a search for these heels for years and I always think I’ve found them to bring them home and realize they are too small and I have to give them to my sisters. Well worry no more, they’ve been found J After shopping I left Nakuru and made it home at last. It felt so so so good to be back in Sipili.

That was one thing Deirdre and I talked about-how good it felt to back in Kenya. Yes, Tanzania and Kenya are neighboring countries and yes, they have many of the same tribes and speak Kiswahili, but they’re different and Kenya feels like home. It felt right.

That’s the end of my traveling story and here we are at the end of break. School officially starts on Wednesday, tomorrow, and the students will start slowly rolling back in. It is also the rainy season though it doesn’t feel like it as we are in deep need of rain. W have gotten two itsy bitsy sprinkles in the past 2 and a half weeks and we would really appreciate it if you guys would spread some of the rain love since according to Facebook pictures, it appears there is plenty on the east coast, USA right now. Thanks guys. The last thing is that this weekend I get to go to Nakuru where I will meet up with all of the Deaf Education volunteers and a counterpart from every school to start planning for Camp Uwezo. This will be my first year attending and I’m very excited to hear what it’s all about. All I know is that it is a Camp strictly for the Deaf and we will each bring 1-4 of our students to attend the Camp later in Term 2. It’s going to be great!

I’m sorry for this post being so long and I hope you are all off to a great start in May!!

Many kisses from Kenya,

Zabet

Ps. For any volunteers reading this past, present, future or if you want a glimpse in our lives, here is a funny link that is being spread around right now: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/26/signs-you-served-peace-corps_n_5023578.html

Mail Day

Today I got the mail. I know you all might be thinking, oh, hey, me too, but getting the mail is a bit different here. It’s an adventure in itself. During the school year the deputy principal checks the mailbox most Mondays and Thursdays. She’ll bring me the mail since she lives in Kinamba and it’s easy for her to check. However, during breaks, it’s up to me to go to Kinamba if I want mail during the month long break.

I woke up, checked my email, drank my 2 cups of hot delcious porridge and decided that I would check my mail today. It had been 15 days so I was hopeful there would be some to collect. At 9:30 in the morning I left my house and went to the matatu stage. Loud Kikuyu music was blasting from the matatu as I climbed in and sat next to an elderly lady on my right. I sat and waited on that matatu for one hour before we started to head out of town. We were already full but as we left town we kept stopping to pack more people in. I ended up with a 4 year little boy on my lap whose mother was 2 women to the left of me with her daughter on her lap. That is one thing I love about matatu rides here. If you have more than one child, you automatically just put them on whatever stranger has an available lap, no questions asked. We ride in bumpy silence for maybe two thirds of the way before the lady directly to my left looks at me and starts laughing. She apparently can’t hold it in any longer. She begins telling the mother that her boy is sitting on a mizungus lap and the mother starts laughing and tells her son. Her son we realized at that point, also hadn’t noticed he was on my lap yet because he had on one of those winter caps that has a pom pom on top, covers your ears and ties under your chin, thereby hindering his peripheral vision. He comically turns around very slowly and his eyes got very wide. He smiled with only his mouth and then slowly turned back around, unsure of what he wanted to do. He kept half turning back for the next 5 minutes to ever so slyly glance at me before he decided he was ok with sitting on my lap and went back to enjoying the ride. We arrive at Kinamba, only 8 kilometers away from Sipili, but 30 minutes later and tumble out like clowns stuffed in a Volkswagen. I walk to the Posta, only a 5-7min walk, and hear at least 15 ‘Hey mizungu!’s along the way. Thankfully when I got there postmaster Ann was able to retrieve my mail for me and hit me up with some stamps. She’s great; we’re on a name-to-name basis and she helps me out since I lost my mail key. So I’m happy with my mail and I head back to wait for another matatu. I am suddenly surrounded my men offering me a ride on their motorcycle (piki piki). I turn them all down, one because Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to ride them and two, because the boy who asked me the most looked to be only about 15 years old. Not someone I was willing to trust my life with just yet. Thankfully, I did’t have to wait too long at the stage. I had just finished telling them all my name and that I was from America as a matatu pulls up. Once again we are shoved in like sardines. It’s odd to think how normal this has become for me to have half my body squashed underneath the person sitting on either side of me like we’re pringles while someone else has their legs pushed in my back because I was stuck in the seat where there is no seat (aka the small open space that is where people walk to get to the back two rows but when the matatu is moving has a small wooden plank to sit on). I think one person got out at the Kinamba stop but 4 of us got in, including a man carrying a live chicken in a biscuit box. Yes, you read that right. Normally when people here carry chickens, they just have their legs tied together and then hold them on their laps or put them under the seat…which can cause much shock in a person when they move their legs and feel a flutter of feathers and a loud squawk in the middle of a journey. Nope, not this guy. He had this box that was a bit thinner and maybe an inch longer than your average shoebox, with twine tied around like a Christmas present and a little hole in the front where the chickens head poked out. Entertaining yet effective. We rode home with at least 5-6 people (1-2 kids were piled on top) in every row (of a normal, supposed to have 3 people in each row) van. We finally make it back to Sipili and after picking up some bananas, I was on my walk back home. I turn the corner where there is maybe 300 meters before I reach my school when this guy catches up with me. I thought he was one of the workers working on building the kitchen/dining hall when he started a conversation with me. He looked to be in high school but maybe he had just entered college and was on break? He asked my name, if I was American and if I worked at the school. Then he was out of questions. We make it to the school when he stops and I find out he isn’t a worker. He wants my contact info. I told him I didn’t have a phone. He says he wants us to be together. I tell him sorry, I’m married. He says he needs me. He wants me. Literally all I know about him is his first name. I tell him sorry. He looks at me and tells me that if I find any other white Americans who are looking for a husband to find him and he’ll be their guy. I nod and say ok. It’s now noon, I left my house 2.5 hours earlier and now one thing can be checked off for my day: get mail. J What a morning.

It’s weird to think about how easy it is to get mail or even stamps in the U.S. If I want my mail here, I either have to travel to Kinamba or wait for my deputy to bring it. If I want to mail something, I have to remember to buy my stamps when I go to Nyahururu. I can give mail to my deputy to send but only if they’re pre-stamped because by the time she makes it back to Kinamba at night, the post is closed. The Kinamba Posta is open only Mondays-Fridays, 9-5 with a lunch break of an hour or hour and a half. So going during the school year is pretty much impossible. Then in Nyahururu I can buy stamps but the Posta is closed on Sundays as usual and on Saturdays they are only open from 9-12.

I’m not writing this for sympathy or to make you feel bad for having your mailbox so close or whatever, I just wanted to tell you about my mail day. I find it interesting how different little things can be sometimes between here and in America. The big things are easy to notice and hear about like the food, or transportation or the weather but it’s the little things and way of living that I find intriguing. If you would’ve told me before I came to Kenya that it would take me a good part of my morning to get the mail, I’d have told you, you’re crazy. And yeah, sometimes the ways things take time can feel bothersome but it’s what needs to happen and it’s the way things go so you just gotta roll with it J I wish you all a happy Tuesday and mail day! I’d also like to wish you a Happy (almost) Easter, a Happy (almost) Earth Day next Tuesday and a Happy (almost) World Malaria Awareness Day on the 25^th of April!

Many Kisses from Kenya,

Elizabeth

A Sheep, a Rat and an Umbrella

Hello Hello Everyone!

    It’s high time I filled you all in on the latest happenings here in Sipili and I hope that you are all doing fabulously this fine April day. Ok, so first off, I wanted to tell you all that the walk has been postponed. There were many things that came into making the decision but it was decided that it would be best to postpone it and now we are hoping to do it in May. And it really has to be done in May if I’m going to have enough time to fill out the grant so fingers crossed it all works out!! It’s good that we have the majority of the leg work done and we mainly just need to work on raising more awareness and fine tuning some details.

   School has officially ended for Term 1 and I am on break! On our last day, Wednesday, our headmaster bought a sheep to celebrate a great term. He brought in a little basket on the back of his motorcycle, how most animals here are carried long distances, and we ate it and it was great! He, along with a few of the students and the cook, did all of the slaughtering while all of the students watched. It was really neat at one point when all of the innards were out and he did a science lesson. I mean it was a bit more ‘practical’ than most anatomy lessons I’ve heard/seen but overall good. At one point he was blowing into the ventricle of the heart so the students could watch it rise and fall and then one of the students got a chance to do it too. It was still bloody, veryyyy fresh and not cleaned at all but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. They cooked it and we ate it with ugali for lunch. Then later that evening the boys housemother knocked on my door with some more sheep for me to try. I looked under the plate and basically saw the skull and then dropped my jaw. Hahaha nah but it was not what I was expecting when she asked if I wanted some more meat to eat. She then cut me off a piece of the tongue which was a fetching color of recent death but was surprisingly sweet. Then she cut me off a piece of the head which was pretty good considering I was eating it while staring at the head of an animal I’d just heard baa-ing a few hours earlier hahaha oh man. It was an interesting but tasty day.

Here’s a short story for you all: So a few days ago I woke up and went into my kitchen and found things strewn about. My spice bottles were knocked over, a cup was on the ground, the plastic bags I buy my eggs in were everywhere-basically, it was not the way I left it the night before. I didn’t want to admit it but I knew it was one of three things: a lizard/gecko, an unusually giant bug or a mouse/rat. Seeing as I’ve only seen super sized bugs on the coast, I figured it probably wasn’t one of those (thankfully!) and it had been colder that day and I hadn’t seen many lizards so I’m doubting it was one of those. I start questioning where this mouse is…is it in my bed? Is it on my head? Is it on the chair? Did he come in as a dare? Oh man, I didn’t know. I knew how it had gotten in because there is a water pipe leading from the outside to my bathroom to my kitchen and then through my wall to the boys dormitory bathroom and they made the hole for the pipe a bit larger than it needed to be….big enough for a small mouse/rat to easily climb through. I needed a plan. I knew I wasn’t going to get a cat like some volunteers do when they have rat problems, because, well, then I’d have a cat problem seeing as I don’t like cats at all. So I scratched that idea. Then I decided to attempt to nail 3 pieces of cardboard to the wall. Well, my nailing skills are pretty awful and every time I’d think I had a piece up and start on the next one, the first one would fall down. I decided to just cram the cardboard into the hole. I’m pleased with myself at this point with my genius idea. I go sit down at my computer and start watching Friends when after an episode or two, I hear the sound of gnawing and cardboard being eaten. I look up and see the bug spray and start spraying the cardboard like it’s nobodys business. I feel like that’ll do it but I’m not as sure anymore since my first plan was such a bust. That’s when I came up with my last and final plan. I made maybe 8 trips out my door to find rocks and started piling them up in the corner to block the water pipe hole. I felt like a really bad architect because I ended up redoing the pile at least 4 or 5 times cause it kept falling down or it wouldn’t go high enough to actually serve a purpose. But I won in the end because the tower is built, the bug sprayed cardboard is still intact and there are rocks on either side so no little mouse can get into my house…at least through that entrance. Whabam! Peace Corped!

Speaking of buildings and how they’re built, kind of at least, there is a new being built on our school compound. The nice Italian man who sponsors our school in various ways with his church from back in Italy has sponsored our school to have a new kitchen and dining hall built. We don’t have a dining hall now and our kitchen is pretty old so this is fantastic. It’s also pretty cool for me to watch. I’ve seen plenty of buildings being built, but only when passing by. This is the first time I’m seeing a building start from scratch and I get to see the progress every single day. I just find it interesting to watch.

This break I’m very excited for my little vacation I’m taking with 2 friends. In a few weeks I’m heading down to Zanzibar with 2 girls from my group for the week. Well we’ll be on a bus for 16hours on two of those days plus an hour and a half long ferry ride to get there but I’m crossing my fingers for beautiful scenery along the way. I’m not really sure what we’re doing/where we’re going on the island but exploring and beach-going at the two main things. It’s going to be fabulous J While I’m not in traveling, I’ll be hanging around my town just doing whatever. I hope to do some arts and crafts, puzzles, hang out with MC and his family and read a lot. And speaking of arts and crafts, the other day I started and completed my first project. I bought an umbrella in Nyahururu and made a skirt! I cut off all of the fabric from the wiring. Then I spent maybe a half hour attempting to follow the direction I found on wikiHow on how to make an umbrella skirt but I couldn’t figure it out so I just cut up all the pieces and sewed them back together. There is a drawstring and a tiny button at the top and it goes to my knees. I’m excited because I’ve wanted to make one for a while now but never got around to it until now. And the cool part is that it doesn’t look like it used to be an umbrella, you can really only tell when you feel the fabric or hear it swish when I walk. I love it and I would suggest anyone of you trying it if you are looking for a fun pretty easy project or if you just want a new skirt. And the best part is that I only paid 300shillings for the umbrella and 25shillings for the thread, which equals about 4ish dollars for a skirt!! I got an umbrella-ella-ella-ey-ey-ey!

Lastly, I would like to give a HUGE shout out to Angie and the 8^th graders at Swift Middle School!!! In case any of you were unable to make it last Friday evening, there was a big poetry blow-out! I missed it sadly, but I heard there was poetry you could look at and walk by to read as well as a poetry concert where poetry was made into songs and read aloud. They raised money through donations and all of the money is going to help our school raise money for a bus!!!!! Once the grant is on the Peace Corps website then the money will go onto it as the grants money is raised strictly from overseas donations and so now we are a good chunk along the way! Thank you to everyone who was able to attend and donate and give their blessings!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that’s about all I can think of right now but I think you should all write me an update with what’s going on in your lives! I’ll even give you my address again in case some of you forgot J

Elizabeth Linde

Sipili School for the Deaf

Box 199

Kinamba-20320

KENYA babyyyyy!

Kisses from Kenya,

Zabet

Walk for a Bus Intro

Hello Friends and Family!

It’s been a while since I’ve written and I wanted to update you all on my latest project! For the past term a counterpart and I have been working on a fundraising idea for our school. We want to raise money to purchase a vehicle, yow-zah!!

We are planning to do a walk across the county to raise awareness of our school and raise money from individuals and companies across the way for a vehicle. Sipili School for the Deaf is the only school for the Deaf in Laikipia County and we want people to know who we are. We will be walking from the town of Nanyuki, 240 km, along the main highway to Sipili town. There will be 16 learners, 2-3 co-teachers and a few volunteers as well as myself. We will be walking between 35 and 40 km a day and sleeping at various schools along the way. It will be the experience of a lifetime to say the least! We are hoping to raise a fair amount of money locally so that we can apply for a Peace Corps Grant soon after the walk using the money we raised as our 25% community contribution. It is a large undertaking and I’m hoping it works out. I will definitely let you all know how the walk goes in a few weeks when we've completed it and gotten the contributions!

Our students are such visual learners but it can be so tough to take them places and see parts of Kenya. They have heard about lots of places and things but have hardly seen them. They often only see the school compound and their homes but rarely get the chance to see things outside of those two places. We are lucky to be heading to Games this April that will be taking place at Muranga School for the Deaf. The students have been working hard at practice and I think they are much better prepared for Games this year than last year.

We have one full week of school left although we will be busy getting things ready for the walk and Games. I can’t believe how fast time has been flying by. We have a week of school; a week for the walk and then on the 2^nd of April, school officially closes. The students who will proceed to Games will stay at school and then head to Nanyuki for counties before Regionals in Muranga. And then before we know it, it’ll be mid-April and break will be in full swing! Bring on relaxing summer days in the rainy season J

Hope everything is going well for all of you in the States!

Kisses from Kenya,

Zabet

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 4^th 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

Start of Term 1: 2014

Hey Hey Hey J

         It’s the middle of January and it’s as warm as a beautiful spring-almost summer day in Pennsylvania. A little odd perhaps but I’ve acclimated well and it is perfect weather in my book. School has begun and we are now halfway through week 3 already-I can’t believe it!

         I am teaching the same subjects that I taught last year but moving up with them to the next grade level. So that makes my classes as follows:

·      KSL: Class 4/5

·      Science: Class 4/5

·      English: Class 6

·      Maths: Class 7

·      PE: Class 8

I’m glad we decided to do it that way because I am happy with the classes I have. Also, I say ‘Class 4/5’ because we don’t have enough classrooms to have all of our classes individualized and so we combined Class 4 & 5 this year. We also had a committee decide which kids moved up to the next grade level and which had to repeat a year. Now the classes are pretty evened out and I think for the most part, students are in the classes they should be, give or take. We now have most of the students as around 6-7 arrived within the past few days. We had begun teaching after 5 days of school opening but we were only at about 60% with students. Then as of last week (week 2) we had all but about 10 students (keep in mind that we only have about 65-70 students each term) and now today we only have 3-4 left to come I think. We also gained 3 new little ones who are about 5-6 years old and one girl in Class 4.

Sadly, we also had a quite unfortunate occurrence happen to one of our students who passed away over the holiday break. She was only in Class 5 and a really bright, sweet girl. It was hard and the students asked a lot of questions but we made it through the week and now things are settling back to normal. Please keep our students and her family in your prayers and thoughts J

         In other news, I ran a race 2 weekends ago and it was something else. I had only heard about less than 24 hours before it began from my fellow teachers. The day before I only knew a few things: it was to start at 9, anyone could join, it would happen directly next door and it would cost 100Ksh. I was nervous but knew I couldn’t pass up such a great opportunity. I mean, the race was at the primary school next to ours with whom we share a fence, it cost about 85 cents and I had absolutely nothing else planned for the day-perfect conditions. So I went and brought one of my Class 7 girls to run who is very athletic (along with most of the kids who were at school-about 30-so they could watch). I ate my breakfast at 7am with a stomach already full of butterflies and headed over to the school with Evelyn at about 8:30. I assumed it would start a bit late and Evelyn was still eating her porridge at 8:20 but we left around 8:30 and when we showed up we were a bit surprised when we saw a total of 4 other runners. Oh goodness gracious. There were 2 men carrying up the registration table at about 8:50 with 6 of us there to register-at the exact time the race was supposed to start. So we moseyed on over, signed up, received our cotton bib numbers and went to sit and wait under a nearby tree. I kept hoping other runners would show up soon because we looked like absolute misfits compared to these professional type runners. We found out they had come from Nyahururu (1.5hrs away) for the race and they dressed the part (as well as ran the part we later watched). The girls had on the same kind of uniform I wore in my XC races back in the day with warm-ups on over top under right before the race started…even though we were sweating in our short sleeves and Capri spandex/shorts. At about 9:30 they started to do a warm up lap so Evelyn and I decided, what the heck, we wanna look legit too, so we ran for maybe 10 min before sitting back under the tree. We waited some more. Finally around 10:15ish, other runners started ambling their way across the course to the registration table. By the time the races began there were 50 runners competing. We were split into 4 categories: 1. Womens junior race (6km) 2. Womens senior race (8km) 3. Mens junior race (8km) 4. Mens senior race (12km). They decided to run the women’s junior race (12^th grade and under) at 11am. Evelyn was in this race and she was the only primary age girl there. We found out listening to the race start up speech that it was basically a try out race. They were trying out for the top 6 positions/category in the XC race for all of Laikipia. We are in Laikipia West county but there is also a north and east Laikipia and that race takes place in a week or so and it continues to build up to Nationals. There was no money or prizes to win at this race-only a chance to further your racing chances. So we knew going into it, neither Evelyn or I could advance at all but we both had fun.

The race began with Evelyn, 14 HS aged girls and the one HS aged girl from Nyahururu. That girl was so far ahead of everyone else she was in her own league. Now picture this: a group of ladies all dressed in solid color t-shirts (it’s the HS gym uniform), decently tall, hair pulled back, most of them had shoes on-all running kinda fast-at least the first lap. Then in that group picture little Evelyn with her play clothes on of a pink patterned dress, purple biker spandex beneath, and a different patterned pajama long sleeved shirt on under her dress, shaved head and bare feet. It was great to watch. She even ended up surprisingly the official there. 8 of the 16 girls dropped out before 3km was even over but Evelyn persevered. She made it 4.5-almost 5km-before falling down with a cut on her foot-but she was in 4^th place when she fell! The official talked to me at the end of the race saying she had a lot of potential and he might sponsor her for a pair of sneakers! It was very exciting news!! (And no worries, the cut was small and we cleaned her up and she was good as new soon after). The next 3 categories were combined so that it wouldn’t take all day. That meant it was junior and senior men with us senior women. I ended up finishing the race in second place and was very pleased. My only goal was to finish since so many other girls couldn’t and I did! Oh, let me describe this very cross-country course to you. It was a one kilometer loop that zigzagged back and forth maybe 4 times and then once at the bottom, you ran up to the top to start it all over again-in other words-not really cross country except for the long grass and rocky ground and not a very fun course either. And for any of you interested in times, I attempted to clock the top runners in the race I ran (basically I got all but the 6k girl). Remember, this was at elevation and a hot day. The top 8k junior man ran a 25:30 (5:08min/mi), the top 8k girl ran a 28:45 (5:47min/mi) and the top 12k guy ran a 38:25 (5:09min/mi). Pretty impressive I say!

That’s about all that I can think of at the moment. I’m halfway through my first ever James Bond movie and I’m intrigued to see what will happen next. Hope you are all enjoying the snowy weather I’ve heard so much about back in the States and you’re drinking lots of hot chocolate for me! J And a Happy belated Birthday to my favorite brother and a happy early birthday to my favorite oldest of the younger three, BekBekBekBek!!

Lots of Kisses from Kenya!!

Lizbeth

The Holidays (Part 1: Zambia)

Hello Hello Hello Friends and Family!

I know it’s been for-ev-er since I’ve written but so much has been going on and I haven’t stopped to write to you all. Since the last time I’ve update my blog I have traveled to Zambia, America and then back here to Kenya with my boyfriend so I’m going to break this up into 3 sections.

Zambia: I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit Zambia where my cousin Clarissa was a teacher (and will be again next year I just found out) at the Village of Hope. I love that my family loves to travel and we have become a bit international. I originally thought Clarissa would only be there for one year and so I wanted to make sure I visited her before the year was up since we are in almost neighboring countries. She visited me in August when my sister Sarah was here and now it was my turn. I left a week after my school ended and flew down to be with her for about 4 days. She lives in the Western province in a town called Mongu. I caught a ride with one of the missionaries who happened to be in the capital and we made it to Mongu around 9pm (I left my hotel for the airport at about 5am that day). We had about an 8 hour car ride together, lots of bonding haha and we ended up seeing a large pack of wild dogs! I had no idea that they were so rare to see-especially in bigger packs-but there they were-not even that skittish-sooo cool! I went to school with Clarissa the next day, Friday, and met all of the kids. They were practicing for the Christmas play and listening to their lines and songs was adorable! Their school is still in the building process, they add another grade every year and currently they have up to the 5^th grade. It’s a wonderful school. In the afternoon we visited an agricultural place that hosted a field day that morning. When we arrived they decided to give us our own personal field day tour! It was great. We walked around and checked out cabbages, tomatoes, potatoes and lots of other vegetables along with variety demonstrations they planted to show different ways to increase quality and quantity of things. The tour ended with a ride on a New Holland tractor to check out the rice fields. I didn’t see that one coming! It was crazy to be on a tractor that was made so close to my home in PA! Over the weekend we relaxed, walked around town, checked out the market and went to church. It was very interesting and awesome to go to a church where I recognized one of the songs and the whole thing was in English. Mind blown. My last full day on Monday I went to school again and sat in on Clarissas class and then went back to bake and do laundry before leaving while she had some errands to run. It was a short trip but a good one for sure! It was soo cool to see her school and listen to her experiences. For sure there are differences between Kenya and Zambia but there are more similarities than Kenya and the US. It was nice to be able to talk to each other about cultural differences and understand what the other was talking about pretty completely. It also proved a good transition for me to America. She has an oven, a hot shower, a stove top and microwave, it was crazy! Her two roommates and her kept chuckling, as I would notice something else that I didn’t have in my house or hadn’t seen in a while and was surprised. It was a lot of fun. She lives in a beautiful place where the view is endless and the kids are endlessly cute.