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 9th 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!
Alyssa stole the right shoe for all of Nick Deebel's pairs of shoes, and it was pretty amusing. She gave them back when he asked, so no one got grumpy. :)
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