1st Term Break...An Update :)

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 2^nd and 3^rd grade. These kids with their adorable accents were so sweet and well behaved. The 3^rd 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 2^nd 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 8^th grade they take a week to visit the Maasi tribe and live like them. Then in 9^th 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 25^th of April and so I planned my event for the 30^th since I was still at in-service on the 25^th. 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!!