Teaching (Part 1)

I’ve broken this blog into 2 parts…

Part 1(Teaching):

I’m sitting here drinking my porridge all cozy in my purple bed sheets and BIG checkered blue blanket and I’m wondering where to even begin. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a blog and a lot has happened here in Sipili.

School officially had started around the last time I blogged but I didn’t actually teach my first class until this past Monday! The Monday of the 3^rd week of school.  I’ve come to learn that things take more time over here and it takes a while for all of the students to come.

Two Tuesdays ago we finally had out staff meeting…which lasted from 10:30 until 3 (after sitting in the room from 8am on because I thought it was starting bright and early…suffice to say, I was wrong). Wednesday the time table of when each class would be taught was made and there was no school on Thursday or Friday because of primaries….I wasn’t informed of this but I just hung out with the kids both days and tried to learn names. At the staff meeting we divided classes and subjects and I got my schedule, here is what I’m teaching with the number of times/week that the students have those subjects:

4^th grade: Science (4) and KSL (5)

5^th grade: English (6)

6^th grade: Maths (6)

7^th grade: PE (3)

Also, I found out when the terms are (though they may change if there are problems with the elections and school gets cancelled for any reason) but as of now, they are as follows:

Term 1: 7. Jan to 10 April

Term 2: 8 May to 31 July

Term 3: 28 August to Mid November

My school is a boarding school and so the kids stay here until term ends and then as the next term begins, they trickle in once more.

I was pretty nervous about teaching all different subjects but now that I have one week under my belt, it’s not quite as nerve-wracking thankfully. It is a bit strange teaching the different subjects because thus far, I’m finding it easier to teach Maths and Science! And if you know me, I usually hate math and science so I was looking less forward to teaching those. But teaching KSL is tough because my KSL isn’t top notch yet. Then you have teaching English to kids who are deaf which is hard work because they know the signs really well but matching the signs to the English word can be tough.  Then they’ve got to make sentences with those words that they know the sign…but picking out which word belongs to which sign is rough. It is important they learn English seeing as every exam they take involves directions in English and lots of English word and learning about the outside world is all in English! In their big 8^th grade exam which determines which high school they go to if they pass, they are tested on: Maths, Science, English, Social Studies and KSL…and if I’m correct, the only way they really adapt the test for these kids is to give them slightly more time. So the kids know the answers but reading the questions and then writing a composition…which they have to do in both the English and KSL part of the exam is super hard…especially because for the English part they have to try to remember correct grammar and such things but then right after that they have to write a composition in KSL using totally different sentence structure and grammar! But that is a later task to jump so for now I just have to teach them what I can from their textbooks and hope some of it sticks.

Last Monday, my first day of teaching, I actually only taught 2-3 classes because a group of Italians showed up! We had been expecting them the Thursday before but with primaries going on, he didn’t come until Monday. Father Edward came with a group of 11 other Italians from his parish and parishes around his in Italy. He had lived in Sipili for a bit of time many years ago and now that he’s back in Italy, he sponsors our school. He also sponsors a few other schools in Kenya but he has a soft spot for ours since he lived in Sipili. The interesting part for me was the translating. Only 3 of the 12 Italians knew English and we’re at a Deaf School so the kids only know KSL. So the conversation would go from an Italian asking a question to being translated into English and then my Headmaster would translate it into KSL and then back again to English and then to Italian with the occasional Kikuyu/Kiswahili thrown in there to be translated as well! Craziness indeed!! I just wonder how much got lost in translation, oh well, the Italians were happy to see their money had gone to good use as the building I’m living in right now is what they most recently helped to fund! I didn’t know I’d have so many people looking in and taking pictures of my house but they were happy. My house is attached to what will be the new boys dormitory with the housemothers house on the opposite end-it’s only partitioned inside the building.

So what else? Well, the students are fantastic!! They are super excited I’m here teaching and excited that I’m living on the compound with them. I know most of their sign names and am just working on their actual names now but they love to quiz me on their names and everyone else around them.

The big news for the students right now is that they have their annual Games tournament sometime near the end of the semester and since I was given the title of ‘Assistant Games Master’ I get to help them prepare! I don’t know all the games that are involved but I do know that we compete in netball, volleyball and athletics. Two other teachers are helping them with the ball games and I run with the kids who can/want to every day!! There are few different paths we take and usually we run for maybe 25-35 minutes. They really range in speed with some super fast ones and then some of the girls that go at a more leisurely pace but have a great time with it. The little kids stay back and I’d say an average of 8-15 kids between 4^th and 7^th grade ran with me this past week! It’s been great because I’ve now run every day, I get to hang out with these kids, try to find new ways to motivate/encourage through sign and I have gotten to see more of Sipili which is a truly beautiful place. I’ve been really blessed and lucky to be placed here with these amazing kids and such a pretty environment!!

My Abode! (Part 2)

Part 2 (My House)

The other exciting news is that my house is almost completely finished! I have been living here for 3 weeks and it feels like home now. Last week I got my lights installed and the border on my ceiling finished so I could start actually unpacking because now I don’t have a lot of workers in here. I wont be able to post pictures until the first week of March when we have an ‘in-service training’ (assuming the internet is better quality wherever we’re placed) while schools are closed because of elections. Or I’ll be able to if I visit another volunteer and the internet signal is stronger there. I’m so happy I have the Internet but sadly the signal isn’t strong enough to skype or post pictures. Oh well, maybe the anticipation of seeing stuff will make it better? J

So let me try to paint you a rough picture of my humble abode here on the compound of Sipili School for the Deaf…

My house has 4 little rooms and is the perfect size for me to live in. My bedroom is painted a sky blue on the bottom 1/3 with a cream on top. My bed is covered in a mosquito net so it’s like im tucked into a little cave every night. I have a large wardrobe opposite of my bed and 3 shelves tacked to the wall. I have maybe 15 pictures of family/friends taped to my wall and random quotes scattered about that I cut out from magazines while living in my temporary house with not much to do. They include ‘love actually is all around’ and ‘reach for the stars’. My living room, painted with a teal color on the bottom third, is still waiting for my hammock to be put up but I have a coffee table and bookshelf in there now. Thanks to Jess and Jenny, the previous volunteers in Sipili, I have almost a full shelf of books to read! I also have painted an outline of Africa and written a phrase from the Shakira song ‘Waka Waka, it’s Time for Africa’ on the back wall of my living room…it’s probably my favorite ‘decoration’. Once again, I have a few more pictures and posters of quotes taped up as well including a drawing of an alien that Bethi sent me J My bathroom is, like all my other rooms, filled with quotes but they are bigger and overtake it! I have ‘cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag’ painted in green on one wall and ‘I feel good, I knew that I would’ on the other wall. I also have 2 posters that I wrote Roald Dahl quotes on and had laminated on my other two walls…now I just need my plumbing to work so I can actually use the toilet in my own bathroom. Lastly, my kitchen has an outrageous shade of yellow with hints of blue thrown in, on 3 of the 4 walls with my bedroom blue color on the back wall. Once again, thanks to Jess & Jenny, I have a loooot of spices and pots and pans from them that they left me! I also have 2 shelves on one wall and a counter top across the back. I use a little gas stove and it’s been fun, most nights, cooking for myself whatever I want. I painted ‘making banana pancakes’ above my shelves in red and taped the cut out letters of ‘D to the E to the LICIOUS’ on my other wall from that Fergie song ‘Fergilicious’ hahaha.

I think that about covers it and overall, things have been going well here, I’m getting more and more settled in by the day! Time to grill some cookies…todays batch: choco-chip with half a banana, raspberry-apple-raisin oatmeal and cinnamon! YUM! J

If you have any questions, just ask and I’ll try my best to answer!

Love to all, many kisses from Kenya,

LindeLoo

p.s. In the quarterly Peace Corps Magazine that all volunteers receive I read an article on a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and her husband who started a fair trade lingerie line. They both had done a bit of work in Africa, she served in Cameroon, and they knew they wanted to do something. They talked to some of the villages started a fair trade line of lingerie which I thought was pretty cool. Just thought I’d throw it out there if anyone was interested because it’s new and it is fair-trade. The website is: BeSexyBuyFair.com or cherieamie.com  à they both go to the same website J

Resolutions and First Day of School

Happpppy New Years to Everyone!!! I can’t believe that it is 2013 already-and I’m in KENYA-that’s totally wild!! I hope everyone had a great New Years and is sticking to their resolutions! My New Years Eve was pretty calm, I watched the movie ‘New Years Eve’ (it’s a combination of stories about people who are connected somehow and they all celebrate in New York) and then I brought in the New Year, here and in America-8 hours later-by talking to my lovely boyfriend! New York is where I spent it last year with Nate and Quevy and now I’m across the globe-watching people celebrate it talking to Nate on the phone. Oh how things change. If only Sipili had a Serendipity Store will Frozen Hot Chocolate ;) Hahaha

I want to share my resolutions in hopes that it might help you stick with yours even just a day longer and because it’s not a birthday wish and I’m allowed to tell J. 

My first resolution is to mail at least one letter to everyone I have the address for in my address book that I brought along. Earlier this week, since I had a looooot of spare time, I labeled each address to an envelope with my address on the back to make sure I wouldn’t miss one this year. Though if you don’t know if I have yours, feel free to facebook or email it to me and I’ll add ya to the list. I want to try and stay in contact with people even if it’s not that frequently-it’s still something. I’m pretty excited about this resolution because I love making cards and everyone loves snail mail! …I think I’m going to find out where and how to get to the Post Office near me by this weekend too so I can actually start sending mail again.

My second resolution is to perform more random acts of kindness. I want to do a few each month to keep myself accountable. I’m not sure how I’m going to go about this one yet but I also am pretty excited about this. And I just noticed on Facebook that other people are trying to do this too-that’s pretty sweet-Pay It Forward!!

My third resolution is to try living day by day as much as possible. This sounds cheesy or whatever, I realize that, but I also think it’s key. I need to expect the unexpected and roll with it. Planning in great extent might not be the best way since now I’m living on Kenyan time. Time to take things day by day, day by day J

Lastly, my fourth resolution, though it isn’t as deep or as thought provoking as the others, it might still prove difficult- (Never underestimate chocolate) -is to not eat anymore processed cookies/biscuits while in Kenya (unless offered by a Kenyan because to not take it would be rude). I am going to only eat cookies if they are homemade. I mean, homemade cookies are so much better anyways and then I can work on improving my recipes, yum! J

So either this weekend or sometime next week I will write about school since it officially started today, however, as usual, it’s running on Kenyan time. Also, hopefully next time I blog I will be sitting in my new house…which I’m still not in.

School starting today was a bit strange. I was not informed of when I should be anywhere or what was going on at all. I sat in my bed, in my temporary house, basically spying on the gate to see when students or teachers would come in. I ended reading an entire book on my kindle though so it wasn’t a wasted morning and I wasn’t totally creepy? Hahaha but either way, I sat there from maybe 7:30am until 11:30am when my headmaster finally showed up. Between that time I’d seen 2 teachers enter and then shortly thereafter, exit the compound and 2 students enter but then they went to the dormitory. So at 11:30 I walk outside, greeted my headmaster/supervisor/counterpart as well as some of the other teachers who had wandered in. There are 6 teachers plus the headmaster and the deputy-all but one of them was there. We go to the staff room because we are to have a staff meeting. Right. They say a prayer, welcome me and then introduce everyone. Maybe 5 minutes later there is no more talk of school topics and Kiswahili/Kikuyu is being thrown around a lot. They did translate some and have parts of their convos in English for me but it was mostly political and hard to follow. Mr. Gikunda, the headmaster, says we can’t decide which classes/subjects we’re teaching because one staff member was missing. Then he proceeds to say that actually we’re going to wait until Monday to pick which classes and subjects everyone is teaching because then most of the students will be there and we’ll know how many students we’re going to have. So now we have a staff meeting to assign classes & subjects to teachers AND classes are to begin. Now if I was teaching at Hogwarts and had Hermione’s special time watch and we could all be in 2 places at once, teaching and in the staff room, this might make sense, but alas, it doesn’t. Expect the unexpected; expect the unexpected, that’s what I gotta do. The staff ‘meeting’ ended an hour later, we all ate lunch together and then had chai and walked back to the school to sit around for a bit more before everyone went home. By late afternoon I’d met 6 students, the rest still have to arrive. It can be hard for the parents to get their children to school so they said it often takes up to a week or so for all of the students to arrive. This is why we can and will start teaching on Monday.

The few students I met were ages 4 and 7/8 and they signed sooo fast! They were filled with such excitement for everything! I am really excited to start teaching but also pretty scared. I need a lot of work on my signing and need to get up to their pace! The few kids I met today and all the kids I remember from shadowing are so sweet and funny! It’s going to alright. Thursday and Friday I think we’re just hanging out with the students anyways since we’re not teaching and just waiting for them to come….and I live on the school compound so I gotta meet my new neighbors right? ;)

Hope everyone is having fun back at school or enjoying the last few days before school starts….and I suppose there are people out there who aren’t teachers or students who read this so hope youre just living up 2013 J

Many kisses from Kenya!!

And remember to send me mail updating me on your lives!!!! Awesome news today speaking of-I got 5 letters!! Thanks everyone!!!! J

Love,

Zabet

Christmas on the Coast

My last blog post of 2012 (weirdddd!)…and it happens to be my 12^th blog (I think), love that J Well, tis the season to be jolly, fa la la J I am back in Sipili and wanted to tell you about my Christmas on the coast! I traveled 16 hours or so via matatu and bus to get to Kilifi where Deirdre, a deaf ed volunteer, lives now. A total of 6 of us, 5 deaf ed and one math/science volunteers met up for the holidays. On Christmas Eve we hung out at a friends house by the beach who Deirdre knows, some guy from England, and it was a lot of fun! Christmas Eve is also Mackenzie’s Birthday who lives in Malindi, a coastal town about 45 minutes away. We had great food, some drinks and just relaxed. I don’t think I could’ve done much more than that after the long day of traveling so it worked out well.

Christmas Day I had wanted to run but the coast is sooooo hot!! I have no idea what the temperature is but I’m sweating every day, all day if that helps a little. It’s just hot all the time-morning through the night and there is no air conditioner to retreat to haha.

We headed down to the beach early in the morning and met up with a Swedish family that comes to Kenya for a month every year. Their family started this tradition of swimming across a small segment of the Indian Ocean (they call it a creek but it is about 50 times larger than any creek I’ve encountered) and back about 7 years ago. The original swim was done to raise money for malaria and now they just do it every year because it wakes them up and feels great. I was not as amped to do this swim as I would’ve rather run to the other side but it was too hot and I didn’t know where to go haha. I am not a swimmer at all and although lots of my cousins and siblings are swimmers, I didn’t get that gene…however, I did the whole thing!! YOLO J (You Only Live Once!) I was swimming in total for about an hour and 15 minutes perhaps? The water was incredibly warm and I think that was probably at least 5 times the length of any distance I’ve ever swam consecutively and that was from way back when during elementary school swim lessons in the summer! I did do some aqua-jogging as well while reminiscing about our early JCXC morning swims but the water was def never that warm! 

After our swim we headed back, ate some spaghetti lunch (I think I’m going to hit a record of consecutive days eating spaghetti-I might be 7 for 8 days right now!), and then just relaxed for a bit. Around 4 we headed down to the dock where another one of Deirde’s new friends met us and he took us out on the water on his boat. It was so incredibly beautiful! We saw a lot of mangroves, awesome birds I don’t know the name of, tons and tons of white jellyfish and a sweet sunset over the water! It was pretty amazing!

My day ended on a great note because I got to skype with both my family and Nate! It was hard at some points during the day when we would be reminded that it was Christmas but when we were weren’t thinking about it, it wasn’t too bad because it didn’t feel anything like Christmas at all. I was sweating, getting tan, swimming, surrounded by lush greenery and I was thousands of miles from my family-the very opposite of every Christmas I’ve ever had. It was really good to chat with everyone and see faces though!! It made me really thankful to have the support I have been blessed with!!!! Thank you!!! J

The day after Christmas we decided to treat ourselves. We went to this resort place where you pay a flat rate to swim all day and eat a buffet lunch. It was sooooo surreal!! It didn’t feel like we were in Kenya…or in the Peace Corps! Haha it was a really nice getaway and time to hang out. We did the water aerobics class in the morning for half an hour and relaxed by the pool. We decided that going once or twice a year would be a wonderful way to indulge ourselves and have a break. I have only been to a few places like that before and it always feels a bit peculiar because it’s so unlike places I normally go to. It was a really nice way to relax and take a breather from the craziness of everything here and prepare ourselves to teach!

The whole break was a lot of fun and super good to talk and see the other volunteers!! I think that was the best part because we’d only been at our sites for one week but it felt like a long week. We’d gone from seeing each other for at least 9-10 hours every day and spending most of our waking moments surrounded by other volunteers and our host families to being totally on our own. It was great to talk with the 5 girls and know that we were all going through the same emotions. We talked about how it’s awesome to be on our own but there is so much we have to learn about our communities and since the students aren’t there for another week it can get kinda lonely at site now. We are trying to make friends but it is tough stuff. It’ll get easier though and once the students are back I’ll have my hands full.

I hope everyone had grrrreat holidays and continue to do so!!!

Merrrrry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!!! J

Kisses from Kenya,

Lizbeth

p.s. I took lots of pictures but I wont be able to post any until I have my first break or go somewhere with my computer where I have faster internet, here in Sipili I can upload one or two but it takes a little bit. Hakuna Matata

From Machakos to Sipili...I'm an Official Volunteer!!!

Wow! So this time last week I was in Machakos sitting around with my host family pondering what site would be like and super excited for the new adventure. On Wednesday we left Machakos after a fun host family appreciation luncheon and headed for Nairobi. In Nairobi we were with the Math/Science group once again and had a fabulous time! We had sessions all day on Thursday going over stuff that our supervisors and stuff that we needed to know before we headed out into the real peace corps life. They also gave us a little bit of free time each evening to go to the mall area…mind blown. We visited the Westgate Mall, which has sooo many stores it was like America. It was packed with so many foreigners along with Kenyans and so many things that we hadn’t seen in 10 weeks! I ate a sub: amazing!, chocolate gelato: expensive but worth it if I only have it once/twice every year and then at the Nakumatt (basically their version of Walmart) I saw so much stuff I hadn’t seen in a long time! Nakumatt is part of the mall and packed with stuff. Now granted we are now living on Peace Corps stipend which means not very much at all and since most ‘Americanized’ items available are very expensive, you have to choose wisely when special trips to Nairobi or other large cities are made. I invested in some quality face wash, laughing cow cheese and the gelato. Wednesday when I went with some of the other Deaf Ed volunteers it was very funny thinking about our experience in retrospect because we walked around for one hour before we had to head back and the entire time our jaws were dropped and we were walking sooooooo slowly! We just hadn’t seen anything like it in 2 months and I at least didn’t think I would see something like that for the 27 months I was in Kenya. Eye opening for sure.

Friday was swearing in-such a fun day!!!  We drove to the USA Embassy with our supervisors and had a nice ceremony followed by a picnic sort of lunch-fantastic! They had arranged for a dance group of about 6 ladies and 2-3 drummers to come and play/dance for us and they were awesome and got everyone involved at some point. It just felt very surreal to actually be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I’m no longer a trainee! Say whatttt?! Post swearing-in we all headed back to AFRALTI, our hotel place and I got my head shaved as a buzz cut! I’d been thinking about it before leaving saying that I wanted dreadlocks for a year and then I’d shave them off so I could experience that and what a shaved head was like all while being away from America. Sadly there is a negative connotation associated with dreadlocks in my community so I just went for the shaved head look now. Another girl in the Math/Science group also wanted to do it and Jocelyn, Deaf Ed, later decided to that evening. I was kinda nervous beforehand but pretty ready for it and now I love it. It’s sooooo easy to wash/not mess with in the morning/run with and not have to worry if I don’t have a hair band! The only thing I’m worried about now is what it’ll look like when it grows out because I don’t have any sort of barber who has dealt with ‘mizungu’ hair before. Oh well, I’ll get to that when my hair is long enough. After my hair was shaved I headed out to the mall with Jocelyn and Mackenzie because they both wanted ear piercings and I was on the fence it but went along anyways. I soon found out it wouldn’t cost very much at all and I was feeling pretty bold at this point since I was a new volunteer with a newly shaved head, so why not make the trifecta? I now have an ear piercing at the top of my left ear! Friday was full of highs with the finale just being everyone hanging out and trying to soak in all the volunteer time they could before we’d all become separated from one another.

Saturday was a different story. I woke up after not much sleep pretty early to start saying good byes as everyone left at different times. My matatu left at about 8 stuffed to the brim with my stuff, Vince’s stuff, Vince, our 2 supervisors and me. His supervisor called ahead about a matatu to pick us up at the hotel but didn’t think about all of our stuff and so there wasn’t enough room for him to come in the same matatu as us. He caught the next one and met us in Nyahururu 45 minutes after we arrived. After my stuff was taken from the matatu and put onto a cart that some man pulled for us to the next matatu stage we boarded the 2^nd matatu of the day to head to Sipili. Vince and his supervisor left us there as they boarded a different matatu to Marlal. It was during this ride that I started to fully realize that I was on my own now. I didn’t know of any volunteers sharing my banking town and I knew there wasn’t another volunteer in Sipili since the Math/Science volunteer didn’t get replaced. I started to get really nervous after we got to Sipili and allllll of my stuff was put on the back of a piki piki (motorcycle) to be driven while we walked to my school compound, my new home and I saw the tons and tons of people everywhere since it was market day! Eeeeek!!! Thankfully lunch calmed me down.

I am currently staying in a small house in the compound but across from the actual house I’ll be living in. It still needs to be painted and some other stuff is still being worked on as well. The hope is that I can move in once I get back from my small trip for Christmas. Fingers crossed!

Sunday was a dream come true/an odd day. All of the stores were closed and we’d gotten to Sipili around maybe 4:30 on Saturday, eaten lunch and then I just relaxed-didn’t buy anything. I got a nice 30 min run in and then with the exception of walking around/exploring the town to see if anything was open, I stayed in my house literally just watching movies on my laptop and eating the chocolate my parents had sent me that I’d wanted to save until I got to site. WIN!

These past few days have been good. I’ve gotten a lot of relaxing in, read a book, watched some movies and am trying to learn my way around town. I explored my banking town, Nyahururu, a 2 hour matatu ride away, for the first time today. I was pretty scared because it’s sooo much bigger than Sipili and I didn’t know if I was ready to go or not. I don’t go to cities in America very often and after being with 8 other Americans and told not to go anywhere by ourselves in Machakos I was a little nervous. Hakuna matata, I made it safely through my journey and got everything I wanted: food, money (the main reason I had to go since I have to pay for all of my furniture but I didn’t have any money to order/buy it), a sweeeet mask I’m excited about and paint so I can spruce up my house with a little color once I’m allowed to move in!!

Overall, things in Sipili are going well. This weekend I’m traveling with a fellow volunteer, Britni, down to the coast to stay with Deirdre and 2 other volunteers who live on the coast to celebrate Christmas! It is going to be a loooooong travel day since the average it takes me to get to Nairobi is 5-6 hours and then after I meet up with Britni and we take a bus together that they say averages at least 10 hours…yay? But its totally going to be worth the time and money because it means I wont be alone on Christmas. It’s going to be really strange I have a feeling but it’ll be nice to see familiar faces, watch Christmas movies with other Americans, eat delicious food and spend time together before the school year starts!

I’m sending all of you lots and lots of love and Merry Christmas’s!!!!!

Love and kisses,

Zabet

(not sure if I wrote about this in a blog yet but this is my new nickname here, pronounced ‘Zah-bet’) J

One More Week of Training!

Week 9 of training is completed and I have one week to go! The big news from this past week was that we had our language final on Monday. I kind of nervous since our test was on KSL and they told us that if we used ASL it might take down our score a little bit. We had been taught KSL for the past 8 weeks but during model school we didn’t get much language practice and a lot of the students there use a big mixture of ASL with KSL. However, all worked out in the end and all nine of us passed with an Intermediate score or higher. Intermediate was what we needed to pass and that was what I got-I’m happy! If we didn’t pass then we wouldn’t be sent home but we would be put on probation I believe and would have to get tutoring hours while at site. Now I just gotta learn the village sign and the ASL that my students use J

My only other news is that I got my first dress made for me and now I have something a bit fancier to wear besides the 7 outfits I’ve been wearing for the past 9 weeks for our swearing in ceremony! It’s got a zebra print and it’s a pale yellow with black stripes/zebras….hard to explain but I’ll post pictures at some point of swearing in and then you’ll see it J

Other than that, most of our sessions this week were fine. Everyone is ready to be done with lectures and go to site. Next week we leave our host families on Tuesday, have our host family appreciation lunch with all the families in Machakos on Wednesday and then we head out for Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon. I’m sad to be leaving my family but glad to know that I can come visit them on my breaks. They said anyone that comes to visit me is more than welcome to visit Machakos so they can meet you! We will then meet up with our supervisors once in Nairobi and have some sessions on last minute details we might need to know for the next day and a half. The big day is Friday when we will be sworn in as volunteers!!!!!!! Can’t even believe it!! Then Saturday we all head out in the morning for our sites…on matatus…with alllllll of our stuff…just us and our supervisors-who we’ve just met…for potentially loooong trips…to our new homes for the next 2 years! WHOA!! Let the craziness ensue!

Also, this means I have a new address which I updated on the side if you want to send me mail J

Model School

Model school was last week! Whooop Whooop! Model School meaning that Peace Corps was trying to help stimulate a real-life school setting for us for one week. Peace Corps asked Machakos School for the Deaf if some of their students would be willing to stay at school for one additional week of school so we could practice teaching them and make it as real as possible. They just finished school but the headmaster picked 10 students from grades 4,5 & 6 along with 15 9^th & 10^th graders for the guys in our group who will be teaching at a secondary school. We had 2 volunteers who have completed one year of service and 2 who are about to finish their service who agreed to help out the whole week as well as 4 Kenyan teachers who normally teach the classes we were teaching.

Monday we observed the volunteers and Kenyan teachers and made our lesson plans. We then taught a total of 7 classes (35 min/class) over the next 3 days on various topics/subjects. We taught science, math, English or social studies. It went better than I thought it would since I still don’t feel like I have a wide range of KSL vocabulary and seeing as it was my first time ever teaching a class! The students at Machakos School are so incredibly smart and since we were doing lessons on topics they had just covered that year it also made it easier. I know I’m going to have my work cut out for me when I go to site to start teaching but this stimulation definitely helped. I’m going to have lessons go really well sometimes and also have lesson plans that I feel good about but then go horribly wrong. It’s a learning process and I’m getting more excited about teaching each day.

On a different note,, two weekends ago I went to my first Kenyan wedding…reception. It was about 10:30 am on a Saturday when I get a knock on my door from Whiney (Moosami’s mom, my Mamas one daughter who lives with us). She asked me what plans I had for the day and I didn’t have much except purifying my water and washing my clothes…I know, my weekends are craaaaaazy here! She invited me a wedding she was attending….in 1.5 hours. Haha no biggie. I tell her I don’t know what to wear and end up in jeans and blouse since she told me I could and I don’t have any real special occasion clothing, plus I figured I’m going to stand out either way. We left 2.5 hours later (Kenyan time as usual) and were driven about 15 minutes to a theological college where the wedding was being held. The wedding ceremony was supposed to start at 9 I think but she guessed that it started at least an hour later. Whiney had decided that we would miss the actual ceremony because they were usually pretty boring and since it was just the 2 of us plus her son who is 4 and Mumbi who is 11, it wasn’t worth it I guess.

We arrived about 10 minutes before the ceremony finished and got to see everyone taking pictures galore! There was a wide range of fancy dress and it was fun to see. After pictures everyone filed into 3 tents that were set up with chairs in maybe 4-5 rows-no tables except one for the bridal party. We started by eating a good meal of 1 chapatti, stew, one banana, pilau and a coleslaw type salad. We ate while the bride and groom took more pictures. When they came back everyone stood up and started dancing behind them and following them into the reception area. It was high energy and a lot of fun to watch. There was a little more dancing to follow while the bride and groom ate their lunch. A few speeches were given then it was time to cut the cake. This was crazy to me how many people got fed in this process…..ok so the bride fed the groom and vice versa. Then the bride fed the maid of honor and then the groom fed his best man. Next the bride & groom walked over to her parents and fed them and then they did the same for his parents. After that they walked back and cut more so that the groomsmen could walk around and give bite size (about quarter-size) pieces to every guest. The first 2 rows got a piece actually cut from the cakes on the table and then the 4 rows behind that got a piece that was in a little baggie with a ribbon tied around it. It looked like so much work! After all the guests were fed the bridesmaids and groomsmen each got a piece as well. The last thing was the presentation of gifts from the parents and maybe grandparents, I couldn’t quite tell. Everyone else put their gifts on a table but the parents each came forward with their wrapped gift and handed it to the bride and groom while a picture was taken with everyone’s hand on it. It was funny because after the first gift Whiney leaned over and said that back in the day it was crazy because some parents would buy mattresses and bed frames and have them carried in but they don’t do that any more….all of a sudden what’s brought in? A queen or king size mattress and all the pieces to make a bed frame…Hahaha we laughed and deiced maybe it does still happen.

The reception was pretty much over after that and people cleared out pretty fast. I found out that it was a smaller wedding than most though it looked like a medium/big wedding to me. Also, in towns crashing weddings, like I was doing, is pretty common but not that many people do it whereas in villages it is very common and they have to plan for tons of extra people who weren’t invited. The last interesting tidbit is who the bride and groom are…now I still don’t know their names, I tried to ask but got no answer, but I found out that they are both members of the Navigators Club…which I think is the same one my brother is in at Penn State!! The one director of the club was there and he said he had connections at Penn State and that there are a lot of Navigator groups based all throughout Kenya and Africa! I just thought that was pretty cool J