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 8th 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
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