MY HOST MAMA'S DANCE

My mama meets with a women's group, who are mostly teachers, once a month to go and visit the villages that they grew up in and bring presents to the parents and show their thanks for having such great parents. They vote on which village they are going to visit that month and get to meet each others families.

This month my mama asked if they could not go to the village and have it at her house because she wanted me and my friends to see what a traditional Kikamba ceremony was like as well as interact with teachers from Kenya. All the women agreed and were excited to meet us and we were so excited to meet them. My host family and I dance a lot, I think Ann who places us in our houses had to know how much I LOVE to dance because the minute my family wakes up in the morning they turn on the music and start to dance. Even my 5 year old brother has a jerking motion with his legs shaking that sort of goes along with the music. Which was why it was so nice to get to dance with my mama all day!

There are certain traditional dances and songs that they sing every time they visit each others families. They do special Kikamba (the name of the tribe in Machakos and the language that is spoken in the Machakos region) dances, to welcome in the women who are a part of the club, to talk about how thankful they are to have each other as friends, to thank their parents for being good parents, to thank god for giving them such good lives, families and being prosperous.

The dances are all done in a circle as one women sings out in Kikamba the other women respond singing the same line. At the beginning of the ceremony all the women stand in two lines singing welcome to each women as she enters the compound and they sing her name as she dances through the two lines of women dancing as they welcome her. After all the women are welcomed in, we all eat TONS of delicious food preparing us for the many hours of shaking it and singing. haha

All my deaf ed friends got to come and enjoy the festivities with me. The women gladly invited us up to dance and soon were saying how happy they were to have us as friends now. My friend Jay, who was deaf got to be one of the two men at the dance. Jay is deaf and I wasn't sure how my mama's group was going to react to having a deaf person in the group. Some Kenyans don't really know what to do if they meet a deaf person or the believe that they are cursed or they believe they are stupid. So I was excited to possibly open their minds to how well rounded deaf people and culture is! They women took to Jay so quickly. Anna, Mackenzie and I were interpreting the entire time and the women were constantly asking us if we got it and did Jay understand what they were saying. We were teaching them small amounts of KSL and it was so fun to have a multitude of cultural exchanges. And the dancing everyone loved!

It was such a wonderful day that I got to share with my mama and my friends. All the women were so welcoming and they kept saying how thankful they were that all the Peace Corps volunteers were integrating themselves and fitting in so well with Kenyan culture. My friends had a blast as well, everyone was up and dancing! It was so great to open up the deaf world to more hearing people who were all teachers and get to integrate further into the Kenyan life style!

Thanks for reading!

KENYA THANKSGIVING!

During HIV/AIDS week the Loituktuk crew came to Machakos. The Loituktuk people are learning how to teach Math and Science to hearing kids. IT was SOOOOOOOO great seeing them! We only got to hangout with them in Nairobi at the very beginning of this adventure for about 4 days in total but in that small amount of time we all got so close. We all stay in touch through text but it was great to just hangout and catch up.

Their sites will unfortunately be very very far away from my site but we already have ideas floating around of when we are going to visit each other during our breaks and staying in touch.

What was great was that we got to celebrate Thanksgiving as an entire unit. Thanks to my friend Ben who made good friends with chef at the hotel they were staying in, the hotel cooked us Thankgiving dinner.......Kenya style. Before we knew that the hotel was cooking us dinner we thought we were going to have to go find a turkey, kill it ourselves (I'm not joking), cook all of our food over a fire and figure out how to get the ingredients we wanted from Nairobi. Thanks for Ben's amazing bargaining skills, we got a turkey, cranberry soup (it was more soup then sauce), mashed sweet potatoes, ham, rolls, and other delicious food! It wasn't quite the feast that we are use to, no stuffing, pie, brussle sprouts or endless amounts of turkey or Thanksgiving sandwiches the next day. BUT IT WAS A SHOT AT THANKSGIVING! and we were with everyone and that was what mattered. I missed everyone at home but I'll have a lifetime of Thanksgivings in America.

It was great, all the Kenyan trainers joined us and got to experience their first Thanksgiving. We also had lots and lots of beer with dinner and so the party was a great time. By the end of the night we were all playing spin the bottle dance, so if the bottle faced you, you had to go in the middle and dance. The trainers brought their traditional dances and the Americans brought their 'get low' dancing. The two combined is the best dancing EVER! Who knew that some of our trainers, who are straight edge during the day could get down and dirty on the dance floor. It was such a great time sharing a holiday that was so important to all the of PCV's with our Kenyan friends.  

We got to stay at the hotel with the Loituktuk people which is  BIG DEAL because typically we have to be home by 6:30pm to our home stays and we can't leave the house. But on Thanksgiving we got to all hangout all night at the hotel catching up and having a wonderful Thanksgiving party. We also, had our friend Kris who is from Australia, a girl Anna from Germany and another girl Jessica who was from the Netherlands who joined in on our American holiday!

It was my second time having Thanksgiving outside of the United States and I have to say it was quite the success!

I'm thankful for all the new friends that I have made, this wonderful experience I'm in the middle of, the kids that will be my students, and my family and friends who have been so supportive while I've been abroad!

HIV/AIDS IN KENYA

We had HIV/AIDS week two weeks ago. Kenya has about 1,500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Every year the amount of people who have HIV gets lower and lower. Because its such a problem, Kenya tries to incorporate information and teaching kids how to protect themselves in most classes, TV shows and they started to have life skills in school. Such as in English some of the readings that they have are about HIV. The problem is that many people won't talk about if they have HIV/AIDS or tell their partners if they have it because there is such a bad stigma that goes along with having HIV/AIDS. Many people think if someone gets HIV then its an automatic death sentence. People also are scared to share anything with that person. We had teachers come in, who were HIV positive and share their stories of how it was to be HIV positive and a teacher. They are part of a big organization that tries to find HIV positive teachers who can share their experience, be support systems to each other and teach the children and others about being HIV positive.

They said when the other teachers found out that they were HIV positive, they didn't want to eat lunch with them anymore, they wouldn't share cups as they use to, the other teachers wouldn't talk to them. When you come out with your status it can become a tough life after because people are so fearful of the disease and they believe that they are going to die if they get it. Unfortunately it doesn't encourage people to protect themselves with condoms, get tested or talk about it. It shoves the issue into the dark and causes people get spread HIV/AIDs because they much rather be ignorant of their status then know it. Another women said that her husband left her with a little girl because both mother and child were HIV positive. He refused to get checked himself, unfortunately he most likely has it and now has another wife and children who he might have infected or he might have passed away because he wouldn't go and get tested.

Men typically don't get tested because they are to embarrassed. They tell their wives to go get tested and then see what the results are. Women also have more of an opportunity to go get tested secretly because they are the ones that take the children to the doctors appointments. But there are commercials that are going around Kenya, encouraging men to go get tested with their wives because it is men that spread it the most rapidly. Many men in Kenya have multiples wives and partners.

Now there are medications called ARV's that people can take, which helps them control the effects of HIV and allows them to live much longer lives and many times a complete life. I didn't know this but the United States actually gives money to Kenya so that treatment and medication for HIV positive patience are free. Also for TB and malaria, two other diseases that are big problems in Kenya. Don't worry I take my malaria pills everyday! Hospitals also test mothers before they gives birth. Both for the health of the mother and child and also for safety of the doctor who is coming into contact with the mothers blood. If the doctor finds out that the mother is HIV positive they will give the mother the option to find out if she is or not and if the mother decides she wants to know and she is HIV positive then they will put the child on the ARV's as soon as the baby is born preventing the child from receiving HIV. Which has decreased the amount of children with HIV/AIDS significantly!

The teachers said that when they told their students, the students didn't react poorly. They just said that the kids told them, 'well it doesn't change who you are, we still love you'. Which was really good to hear.

Now it is our job to teach our kids about HIV/AIDS in our life skills class and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Being a deaf ed PCV we had to spend time learning how to explain HIV/AIDS in sign language and learn the different signs because it can get really confusing if your not using English and its such a touchy topic its a little nerve racking because you don't want to be relaying the wrong information. But we learned a lot of fun activities we can do with the kids to teach them all about HIV/AIDS.

It was really an eye opening experience talking to teachers who are HIV positive and see how they not only live with the disease but teach others about it. Its going to be a tough subject to teach but such an important one. I look forward to trying and breaking down the negative stigma that follows those who are HIV/AIDS positive and also try to help my students grow and spread awareness and to teach them how to protect themselves or learn what actions to take if they do have HIV/AIDS.

LOOKING GOOD!

Once again, apologies for not writing about this experience sooner. This experience was an experience that immersed us much deeper into Kenyan culture and brought Mackenzie and I much much closer to the Kenyan people! That experience......was getting our hair braided.

Back home you might be thinking this was an insignificant experience and nothing to exciting but it is quite the process to get your hair braided and every women in Kenya goes and gets their hair done and so we were experiencing something every Kenyan women goes through.

Mackenzie and I were so excited for this experience but hadn't realized that it was going to take 3 HOURS to get our hair braided or how painful it was going to be. We sat in our chairs as two Kenyan women tackled our Mazungu hair. They worked from the bottom to the top. Sectioning off tiny tiny squares of hair and with swift fingers, braided tiny braids all over our head. I lucked out on having a women who braided tightly but didn't do it painfully. Mackenzie wasn't so lucky. Once the 3hrs were over, we were looking pretty fine and feeling like new women!

When we walked out of the salon, the reactions no longer consisted of people just yelling Muzungu but people actually stopping and staring. When we were standing outside of the salon, we had one grandmother literally just stop, stand and stare for quite a while! Until we waved at her, snapping her out of her trance. It was so nice to have our hair braided, we didn't have to wash our hair everyday, SCORE! Bucket showers can be a pain when you have long hair, we thought we looked pretty cool and maybe just maybe we would fit in better.

Unfortunately, my hair was to soft for the braids to stay in. They started to un-braid (I can't think of the word that is opposite of braided) the next day. They don't put hair bands on the end of the braids because typically their dealing with fake hair which doesn't un-braid but Muzungu hair is to soft to keep the braids in. Mackenzie was lucky and because here hair is thicker then mine the braids stayed in for a while. However, by the end of the first week her head was killing her and she had to take them out. Although our lives with braids was short lived, I was so happy we got to have that experience. I felt really cool for a short period of time! I'm sure I will have it done again and have hair ties put in so that they stay  but for the time being I will have to live with my typical hair and wait until the next time I muster up the patience to sit for 3 hrs and get my hair braided again.

Thanks for reading!

So THAT's what i'll be doing......

November 12, 2012

Last week, all of us went to different parts of Kenay to meet up with current deaf education volunteers to see what its like in the life of a PCV. Mackenzie, Dierdra and I went to Kalifi since all of us are going to be the coast girls. Mackenzie, in Malindi up north, Dierdre in Kalifi in the middle and I will be in Shimoni down south. We shadowed Sara in Kalifi, she's a secondary deaf education PCV but she lives on the primary school compound. It's only a 2min walk from one another. It was wonderful having a break from training. At that point it was our 4th week of training and everyone was about to ring each others necks. The information were learning is good but it can be tough with miscommunications because even though we have a common language, English, there is still a lot that is lost in translation. Also, it's so much more fun actually practicing teaching then just hearing about it! Okay, I don't feel like writing anymore. I'm going to just list everything I saw....

- so happy to have a break from training, after a while it's so boring and you feel like your listening to same thing over and over and over again. It's was a wonderful break! And I got to drink my first Tusker. Party over here! It was delicious and the label  has an elephant on it so it's automatically a great drink. We also had oven baked pizza, ribs and great chicken curry. O WOW! is all I can say to how good that food was after eating ugali every night. Just imagine, dry, tasteless grits and you have ugali. Most of my friends like ugali, I haven't acquired the taste yet. But what a break from our training to be in a beautiful place, eat great food and meet lots of cool people and last but most of all not least we got to sign with kids, watch classes and get to know some of the secondary education kids!

-hard because there weren't teachers. In the primary school all the teachers were there for the most part but we would peer into a classroom and see the kids teaching each other. One of the boys from class 4 ran out and asked me to come and teach their class. I asked where is your teacher? they said they didn't know and she hadn't been in class for 3weeks. The secondary school was even worse! We would see the teachers in the teachers lounge doing their lesson plans and not actually teaching. Sara the PCV would be the only one hopping around from class to class teaching every subject she could and once again the students were teaching each other.

-the students in deaf schools are so well behaved! They don't run around or have side conversations. They want to be in the classroom and when asked to answer a question so many of them are ecstatic about answering. They show so much respect and the students were so patient when we didn't understand some of their signing. They would sit with us and try and try again to explain the signs and teach us! And once again they were teaching classes when there wasn't a teacher. In America the class would be chaos or we would just sit there waiting for instructions. The kids are phenomenal!

-primary school had great teachers except for the kindergarden teacher. The person that is such a crucial part of a Child's learning! We sat in on the class and the women literally sat and had the kids go through half of the alphabet and then had them sit down and write in their books. What she wanted them to do was re-write the ABC's but she didn't use enough sign language to tell the children/the children didn't understand sign language. After the kids sat down Mackenzie, Deirdre and I went around to look at what the kids were writing as the teacher just sat at her desk and twittled her thumbs. What we saw was horrible, they were writing letters backwards, one kid was just writing his name over and over again, one kid was just drawing doodles. None of them had a clue what they were doing and the teacher didn't care. So many deaf children have horribly literacy because it's hard to write and read English when your native language is Sign Language. Sign Language uses an entirely different grammar structure and many of these kids don't start school until they are 10 or 11 and if they have a horrible teacher like the one they had, then they have no bases for learning the needed basics to understand how to learn to write and read English or how to use Sign Language. It just made us that more motivated to get to our schools and teach the kiddies all the things they will need to know to become successful in school. Kindergarten teachers are one of the most important teachers!

- The kids in the secondary school protested and got their headmistress kicked out. Go team! It's a rare occasion for the kids to stand up for their rights in the first place and an even rarer occasion for their wants to be met. The head principle at the school was stealing money, didn't know sign language and was horrible to the kids. They are now getting a new headmistress but I wasn't there to see if the new one was going to be better.

- Kalifi is beautiful and odd mixture of wealth and poor. On one side of the bridge is the town. A cute town of palm trees and thatch huts, store shops and restaurants and the other side of the bridge, arching over the inlet from the ocean are these huge mansions. They look like they are from cribs the TV show.

- We had a great time meeting Sara's friends. Super nice people, most from the UK, Australia, a PCV who finished here two years and moved back to Kenya. All working for different NGO's. One women was teaching at a school for children with HIV/AIDS, the returned PCV was planting trees and doing other environment work, and the others were doing similar cool jobs.

- Sara and her children have a wonderful relationship! They love Sara and she's an amazing teacher. She is the kids, who are 17- 23 and in high school, only outlet for information. They ask her allllll sorts of questions and she guides them well. As well as shows them love and respect when most people in Kenya wouldn't give them the time of the day. I fell in love with her kids after hanging out with them for 3 days. I can only imagine what she is feeling leaving them, but everyone cross your fingers because Sara is trying to get a job in Kalifi to keep teaching at the school.

-  Every PCV in my group went to different parts of Africa to shadow volunteers. It was unfortunate and horrible to hear but every volunteer experiences, teachers not teaching, principles stealing money, teachers not knowing sign language, kids being treated like dirt. But we also all experienced phenomenal teachers who actually cared about the kids education! Having the hardships of deaf children in your face and then seeing how a teacher can be a great role model and direct these kids in the right way just made all of us so excited to get to our sites and get to know our kids. I know I am! I can't wait to have the kids teach me and ask me questions and work with them to know their strengths and weaknesses and just to love them and be loved! They are such wonderfully happy human beings!

- Can't wait for Shimoni!

Moving to Shimoni

October 27, 2012

I found out my site a week ago and I couldn't be more excited to move! The area is called Shimoni  and i'll be teaching at a unit called Kichakamkwaju, yeah I know the Peace Corps gave me the easiest school to pronounce :0) I have 8 students in my entire school, since it's a unit not a government funded school. I'll have students from kindergarten to 8th grade all in one classroom teaching them all at once. From what the current volunteer said to me, what's going to happen is that I will have 1 or 2 kindergarteners in my room,  then 1 or 2 2nd graders, 1 8th grader or whichever students and i'll have to teach a little of the lesson that day to the older kids and then set them to do work and then teach the younger kids whatever lesson and then check on the older kids to make sure they don't have questions, are confused, need more work etc. and hop back and forth between students! It's going to be a crazy day of teaching but so great at the same time. I'm going to get to know my kids so well since there are only 8 of them and I can really understand where they are in levels of learning and how fast they learn so that I can make the curriculum specifically for them.

Shimoni is on the coast of Kenya, near the Tanzania boarder. It is known for being a tourist town because there is great fishing, snorkeling and you can watch dolphins off one of the islands. It is a Muslim community, which is going to be so interesting to see how I fit in with the community! I hear it's brutally hot and very dusty but an unbelievably beautiful spot! Also, one of the poorest parts of the coast.

I'll be living in a large room that acts as my living/bed room and doing all my clothes washing and cooking outside. Which is fine since it's so hot, it's not a big deal. Although, I'm not sure what I'm going to do during the rainy season for cooking but cleaning my clothes will be easier since I can just use the rain water instead of fetching water! I have to figure out my water situation because I can only get salt water from the wells and we only catch enough rain water to drink it. But I would like a freshwater shower every once in while!

I'll be living in structure that is kind of like a stone court yard with rooms surrounding it. Supposedly I'll be living with mostly men and the teachers from the hearing school that is attached to my deaf unit.

I haven't done a ton of research, I've only been asking around because I don't want to get any expectations. Also, the little amount of research that I did do was for tourists and I definitely not be living the highlife of nice hotels and fun explorations all the time due to the Peace Corps budget I'm on. So I'm ready to get there and figure out my life as a Peace Corps volunteer and how I fit in and what fun things I can afford that is also what the locals do or what places to eat or what places to go for my food.

Vicky who is the volunteer now, is leaving me a list of which vegetable and fruit mama's to go to and how much everything is. And places she likes and every. Mama's are the women who look after everyone and knows everyone! Pretty much all the women who are older. Many Mama's in Kenya who you can turn to for help!

Please take a look at any website about Shimoni and if you find out something cool definitely pass it along. Even though I say I don't want any expectations it's still nice to hear about cool things that I might miss when I'm living there or researching it myself!

Thanks for reading!

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!

October 24, 2012

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD:

This is going to be a random list of happenings that makes me want to sing....What A Wonderful World By:

•    I was feeling sick one night and went into my room early. My Host Mama knocked on my door and asked me if I was alright. I was feeling so homesick and my head/stomach hurt and it was just not a good night. She asked me what hurt, so I told her that my head hurt and she launched into this wonderful speech about how stress can cause stomach aches, head aches and make you miss home! And that I was very far from home but I had a goal and a dream and that was to be here and teach children who are deaf! She said I know that you miss your family but your our family now and we will be here. She told me I had to keep thinking about my goal to be a teacher and even though it was hard I have to follow through with my dream. Before that moment I wasn't sure how my family felt about me staying with them. There had been a few times when I didn't think they truly wanted me there but after host mama's speech, I felt liberated, rejuvenated and so welcomed into their home. It was just the remedy I needed for a bad case of the homesickness.

• Hearing from everyone back in America. I know it's tough for my Mom and Dad to have me living half way across the world but they have expressed so much encouragement and every time I talk to them it makes me that much more excited about what I'm doing. It is the same for when I talk to my sister, brother and Chris as well as Neal and all my friends. You guys inspire me to keep realizing what an amazing journey I'm going through and how excited I am to get into that classroom and teach those kiddies!

•      We went to Machakos School for the Deaf and I finally had enough KSL (Kenyan Sign Language) to have conversations with the kids!!!!! They were so excited to see a bunch of foreigners able to communicate with them. It makes me think of what our trainers have been drilling into us as we learn how to become teachers in a deaf school. They keep saying many of these kids come from hearing communities where no one knows sign language, including their parents. Many of them don't know how to read or write, cutting them off from any communication to the outside world. When they finally get to a deaf school it's wonderful because they have one another and some of the teachers who take the time to get to know them and know how to sign. But that can sometimes be the extent of their world because not many people learn how to sign. When I can communicate with these kids well and know that I can teach them how to read and write, it makes me realize how much bigger their worlds can get if they can become literate. They can go to the market and buy food by themselves because they can write, or talk with their parents through writing until the parents can get sign language, they can read books about the world, Kenya or famous deaf people to make them realize that being deaf is not an inability!

•      Elizabeth, Carla and I went for a 3hr hike the other day up one of the many mt's surrounding Machakos. It was one of those It's A Wonderful World moments but i'll do a post about that another time. But a great moment that stuck out was when we were coming down the steep slope. We were all slipping because the tread in our shoes wasn't enough and the incline was steep enough for us to feel like we were skiing down rather then walking down. As Elizabeth is sliding down almost doing a split she yells back to me...."I feel like Elf. You know when he tries to get onto an elevator."  (look at picture above) I laughed so hard while trying to keep from rolling down the hill. There are so many moments with Elizabeth and Carla. My walking partners, who walk the 45min to and from school everyday. On our walks, I listen and share about my own life back in America, we talk about what was exciting that day, we practice our small amounts of Kiswahili and our KSL, we laugh a whole lot, everyone in my group has a great sense of humor. I guess you do when you place your self in a foreign place for 2years and know that you will be living with minimal amenities. But it was just another moment that I think about and makes me enjoy my time here in Kenya more.

Those are just a few of my What A Wonderful World moments! I have a lot that brighten my day and help me through the tough days.

Thanks for reading!

My Life With Chickens

October 23, 2012

MY LIFE WITH CHICKENS:

You would think having chickens as an animal in your backyard might be slightly different then what your use to but nothing drastic if. You might think, GREAT! We get fresh eggs all the time or, if your a person that doesn't get attached to chickens easily, wonderful fresh Chicken meat for dinner! My experience living with chickens thus far has been very! different then what I expected.

My first surprising experience was walking outside in the morning and finding a chicken standing on top of another chicken, pecking away at the bottom chicken's head. Appalled, I ran back into the house to find my host Mama because I was a little worried that we were going to find a dead chicken soon and ran her outside. She looked at the action going on at our feet and said, "o they are just mating, don't worry". I personally don't think there was much love going on between the two chickens but I just nodded my head and said okay. If you are at all worried about the chickens, I want to reassure you we have no dead chickens.

The second incident I had, was more of an unwanted interaction I had with a chicken. At times if the door to the kitchen is open, the chickens will wonder in and all you have to do is wave your hands and chase them out. Very easy, very straight forward and the chickens seam to understand they aren't wanted in the kitchen but should be outside. So one morning, I'm alone in the house and the chickens started wondering into the kitchen. I do as I normally would and I start chasing them out of the kitchen but this morning one chicken got very confused as to where to go. Instead of running outdoors he/she runs into the living room. I start chasing this chicken around the living room and then the tv room trying to get it back into the kitchen to chase it out the door. It kept turning around and flapping and squawking at me which in turns terrifies me because that beak looks tough enough to break through skin. After much running around and away, I find a broom because the chicken keeps finding shelter under he table. After a good 10min of this cat and mouse chasing, I get the chicken back into the kitchen and out the door. I personally am okay if that never happens again.

My final experience with the chickens is actually turning from a hmm not sure how I feel about that to a, I really like having them around. What I'm talking about is we cohabit our kitchen with chickens. We have a mama chicken and her chicks living in our kitchen with us. They wonder around the kitchen while we're preparing food or hanging out. They have a big bag of food that they feed from and they sleep between our trash and some pots that we don't use. Our chickens are so warmly welcomed into our home because something was eating the chicks when they lived in their pen. At first I was a little taken back by the chickens in the kitchen but now I rather enjoy them there and all the tweeting of the chicks. Now I'm happy to say we have another mama chicken in our kitchen. She has a little spot with a basket where she's trying to hatch her eggs. Hopefully the chicks we have now will be big enough to leave the kitchen when the new chicks hatch. It might get a little cramped in the kitchen if we have all the chicks at once!

CALL ME MAYBE!

October 18, 2012

This Sunday started off with me waking up to Call Me Maybe playing on the sound system in my house! Yes, as crazy as it sounds we do have a flat screen TV and surround sound. It was a great way to start my day! My family loves to play music ALLLL day which I also love and my host brother John, who is 17 loves American music. I have tried to explain to him that rap music videos DON'T reflect the typical lives of Americans. I still think he believes that everyday we pop champagne and guys have girls shaking their booties all day erry day. I'll keep working on changing his mindset.

Sunday, was another successful day in learning how to live in Kenya. I'm a little ashamed to say.......it was my first time washing all my clothes by hand.  I have washed shirts or skirts before by hand but never without running water. Without running water, washing ANYTHING is extremely different and more laborious as you can imagine. Like washing dishes. I have to get use to the idea that everything might just be a little dirtier while I'm living in Kenya but that's totally okay! I'm really learning what it means to work for my clean clothes, my food, and to live. I'm also learning how soft my non labored hands are. As Catherine and I were washing clothes, she kept correcting me on my scrubbing technique. I was scrubbing in ALL the WRONG places. When it comes to trousers, you scrub where the end of the pant leg is, for shirts where the armpit place is, for socks you take either end of the sock and scrub together. These places seem quite obvious but I thought you gotta scrub everywhere to get the clothes clean but she told me it was a waste of time, I would be spending hours trying to scrub every area of all my clothes. Rule of the day: Only scrub where it's needed! By the end of my load, I was tired, my legs hurt from squatting and my hands were as red as hands would be when all they have had to do in the past was throw clothes into a washing machine. But despite all that, I felt so accomplished! I just worked hard to have clean clothes. I realized at that moment after all was done, how spoiled I have been and how fortunate American's are to have washers and driers. I think it's a good thing to wash your own clothes without running water at least a few times. Realize the effort it takes millions of people around the world who don't have the luxury to buy a washer and dryer to have clean clothes. I challenge anyone who reads this, for one week try to wash your clothes without running water. Or at least fill up your buckets with the running water because I don't think there are going to be many wells or rivers you can get your water from haha and then wash your clothes by hand and hang them to dry. You will appreciate how easy it is to throw a load into the washer even more then you do now and save a lot of money on the water bill!

 A 

After washing clothes outside and might I add with the chickens running all around us and my little host brother Brian, who is five and doesn't speak English, staring at me while I washed my clothes. Probably thinking, what is this fool doing?!? haha It was time to clean the house and my duties were to clean my room. I used a Kifagio a picture-->

 I believe everyone has seen one, it's a bunch of sticks held together by rope. It is a great cleaning tool and can be used for all sorts of cleaning. First I watched my Mama and Baba, meaning Mom and Dad, sweep the entire house with the Kifagio. Then they used the same broom to wash the floors with. They threw water on the ground and swept out the water with the same broom. In America you need like 5 different brooms to do all that work. Another pertinent technique to my successful living in Kenya, was the get low technique. When you sweep with this broom there is no up right standing. You have to bend those knees, get closer to the ground, really have a sweeping arm lol You hold the broom more vertically then horizontal like were use to. I got the technique down and my floor is spick and span!

Even though my Saturday and Sunday doesn't sound all that thrilling to most, to me they were phenomenal because I have learned so many things in just two days. I'm slowly learning how to navigate my way through a drastically different life style and culture. I'm remembering what it is like to truly truly appreciate all the things I have back in America. I'm living, not just reading what it takes for families to live in a 3rd world country. I'm getting to know, in my mind the strange concept of having a flat screen TV but no running water. I'm getting back to some basic ways of living for my own standards.

And what's funny is that this is just everyday life for my host family.

This standard of living is middle class in Kenya. There are many people who would think this life style is luxurious but we all have our lifestyles and I think what is most important is that we appreciate what we do have.

JUST ONE SATURDAY

October 15, 2012

         This past weekend was my first weekend in Machakos. It's a significant event because I am use to having my days filled with my daily routine but this weekend was going to be the first weekend I spent with my host family. As Peace Corps volunteers quickly learn and are told often, don't have any expectations! for ANYTHING! So I believed that this weekend was going to be a boring weekend, where I stayed in the house and kept my self busy with letter writing, Kiswahili/KSL studying, blogging, listening to music, random arts and crafts, whatever! To my surprise this past weekend was wonderful!

            On Saturday my host sister, Catherine, who is also 23 took me to the market. I had a list of things I needed to get. My VERY exciting list consisted of: a big basin to wash my clothes in, an umbrella for the upcoming torrential downpour months of Nov and Dec and the few sprinkles that happen in Oct, a clear bucket for purifying my water, and bleach. Catherine's list was sweet potatoes. haha We walked into Machakos town first stopping at the market. What I mean by market is that you go through these gates and into twisty and turny rows of small venders that sell everything from used clothes, shoes, sarongs, kitchen appliances, bags, umbrellas, thermoses, toys, and things I have no name for. All these venders stalls were made out of planks of wood with a stone roof. The roof that covered where the costumer walked was hundreds of square tarps tied together so that the rain wouldn't get everyone and everything wet. It looked a little like a scene from Aladdin. It was AMAZING! I absolutely loved it! Catherine, who knew every turn in this wonderful, snaking bazaar was my guide. I absently followed her as I stared at all the things that passed us by as we walked through the hundreds of merchants. I would have easily gotten lost had she not been leading the way.

            We had to visit most of the venders to try and haggle our way to a good price for the few things on my list, due to this notion that all mazungus (I might be spelling it horribly wrong) or a European/American person has tons of money and so they try to sell everything to a muzungu at tripple the price. We like to call it Foreign Tax. Thankfully I had Catherine with me who just said "let me do all the talking". After negotiating for long periods of time, then walking away, then negotiating for long periods of time, we or more Catherine finally got what I needed. Catherine did all of the negotiating in her native tongue, which is Kicumba. Most people in Kenya speak up to 5 languages fluently, some even speak 10. I would love to say that I could speak at least 2 languages fluently! They are amazing when it comes to languages! After supplies we needed to get food.

On our way to the food market, there was a truck that was playing music and had an MC. They were advocating for children's rights. It was really cool to see how they use dancing, a big part of Kenyan culture to market their cause. They had these guys dressed up as clowns, great music playing and were having dance offs so that people could win T-shirts that had the org's name on it. All at the same time, people were going around surveying the crowd and talking to them about children's rights. I wish I knew Kiswahili better because I didn't really understand what was being said and Catherine couldn't translate everything that was going on. It was wonderful to see people making an effort for such a great cause!

The food market was pretty wonderful as well. It was a big area that was made out of stone, with a stone roof which had to be 20ft high and there were hundreds of women and men sitting with their produce surrounding them. Each person had pretty much the same thing to sell. Avocados, spinach, bananas, tomatoes, onions, beans, sweet potatoes, watermelon, melons and other goodies. I still don't understand how you chose which seller to go to for your produce because all the produce looked pretty great to me but I'm sure the Kenyans have a great technique down that I just haven't figured out yet. I personally love food and like the idea of going out and buying fresh produce from an outdoor market everyday

Once all things were bought on both of our lists it was time to go home. It had been raining all day and so we decided to take a Tuk Tuk home, which is the same as an auto rickshaw in India or a three wheeled small car. An interesting cultural exchange I had, which I wasn't expecting was all about hair. Every time it started to pour everyone would take cover under an awning or roof. When the rain would subside for a little, I would ask Catherine if it was okay if we kept walking. I personally love to walk in the rain but what was interesting was that Catherine was so worried about me keeping my hood up! She kept asking, what will happen to my hair if it gets wet!?! If you don't know, African women if their hair gets wet it will poof up or get really really curly, I think. They are very good at keeping their hair from not getting wet, so I have never seen the result of their hair getting wet. Kenyan women get their hair done often and so it would cost them a lot of money to keep getting their hair redone every time it rained and it rains a lot! I have had so many people ask me questions about my hair and people wanting to touch it. I knew I was going to get attention but I never thought it would be due to my hair. However, at the end of the day it was nice to know my host sister was looking out for me and my hair!

All about my life haha

October 11,2012

Heller USA!

So out of 28volunteers in my group there are 10 Deaf Ed. volunteers. The 18 that aren't Deaf Ed. are Math and Science teachers in Secondary School (HS) and teaching in regular schools. The 18 are in a place called Loituktuk (pronounced lo-tuke tuke) which is much much more rural then Machakos. I have yet to go to Loituktuk but from what I have herd there are giraffes and elephants in Loituktuk and it's a Masaii vilage. A prominent tribe in Kenya, at least to tourists because they are the only tribe that is still following their traditional customs. I was told that they are the only people that can carry machetes in town because the machetes are used to eat and not to hurt others. They don't use modern tools like other Kenyas, such as a jeeko, which is a small stove where you use coal to keep the fire. A form of cooking I will have to use once I'm onsite (onsite is the place that my school is located and where I will live for 2 years, I will find out my onsite in 3 weeks) They still hunt and gather. I will be traveling to Loituktuk soon to have our HIV/AIDS awareness training with the rest of our group aka: my peace corps family :0) I miss everyone in Loituktuk. I'm also very excited to see a new type of environment in Kenya so extremely different to the one I have seen in Machakos and possibly very similar to where our onsite location's environment. Although, the Peace Corps favorite line is: You won't find out until you get to your site. So most questions can't be answered until you get to your site. Which is what you sign up for when you join the Peace Corps. Nothing is certain.

Our trainers are all Kenyan except for one of the medical staff and  they are AMAZING trainers. They are so knowledgably, understanding, and can answer as many questions as possible, if it doesn't have anything to do with our site lol They are great teachers and majority of them know KSL. Next week we start our KSL classes and all voices are off! So NO TALKING during the day!

(Machakos is a small city. Here is a link to facts about Machakos: http://kenya.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/profiles/Machakos%20County%2023%20Jan%202012.pdf)

 

My address is:

Jocelyn Young-Hyman

C/o Peace Corps Kenya

698-00621 Village Market

Nairobi, Kenya

If anyone would like to exchange letters!

DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOCELYN THE P.C. VOLUNTEER:

October 10,2012

DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOCELYN THE P.C. VOLUNTEER:
6:00am: I wake up, a little confused because i'm sleeping on the bottom part of a bunk bed and my masquito net or masqwito net as the Kenyans call them, is a little blue cave around me. After I wake up, check my floor for any bugs like cockroaches and find my way out of my blue cage, it's time for my bucket shower. I put my bucket and shower stuff in a small cement room with a little window where everyone in my house takes a shower. I get hot water and pour it into my bucket and then put some cold water into my bucket and vawala! I'm ready for my shower. After my refreshing bucket shower I get dressed and help get the chickens out of the coup, get the goats untied from inside the coup so they can eat and we let the puppy out. Although, the puppy usually stays in the crate all day and they only let him out at night to guard the house. They also only feed him only once so that he will become fierce and not sleep all the time. I think that has been one of the hardest parts of living with this family. The puppy cries for food and to be let out. They won't let him out or feed him until night time, so that he will not be to comfortable around humans and be a tough puppy. ALL I WANT TO DO IS PET AND PLAY WITH HIM! This is all part of getting use to cultural changes!

October 9,2012

8am-5pm: We have Kiswahili class for an hr. After Kiswahili class we go through one of the many cultural, health, educational classes we have. At 11 we have Chai, samosas, and this sweet bread called mndazi. After Chai a few more classes then lunch at 12 then a few more classes and were finished at 5pm.

Fun Fact: Swahili is a tribe and Kiswahili is their language. There are 42 tribes and they chose Kiswahili as the national language because it was the easiest language out of the 42 languages.

5-7:30pm: Carla, Elizabeth and I walk the half hr to our houses that are close to oneanother. The other 7 Deaf Ed volunteers who are in Machakos live close to each other but not us. I go home and help out feeding the chickens, goats and sometimes help water the garden. I then help with dinner. Which consists of me being told what to do, doing it and then being corrected on how to do it. haha It's wonderful because I'm learning the true Kenyan way to cook. I made ugali, which is just maze flower and water. It's a staple food in a Kenyan diet. It's like hardened porridge but doesn't have much taste.

7:30-8:30/9pm: my family tries and let me repeat, TRIIIIESS to help me learn Kiswahili while I do my hw. I'm a slow learner when it comes to languages. We also have either the TV on or the news. Clean up dinner. The little five year old I live with, we like to play a game where I peak around corners and try to run after him and tickle him. He doesn't speak English and I don't speak Kiswahili so we have our own language of staring, making funny faces, me pointing at something and saying the English word and him screaming back YESSS! And then him talking Kiswahili to me and me asking my other family members what he said.

Around 8:00/9:00pm: I head to my room to write, read, listen to music, write blog enteries.

Machakos....home for 10 weeks

October 9, 2012

Asabuhi yanu (how are you all)!

I'm drinking chai, not masala Chai I had in India but black tea, milk and sugar and with my tea I'm eating samosas and mandazi.  Mandazi is a puffy sweet pastry. Both are great with the tea! My family asked me what foods I love, to help me learn how to cook them. Last night I learned how to make a steak stew. The meat here taste soo very different when it's not pumped with chemicals. Much more natural! I also learned how to make a cook a cabbage, carrot, Kenyan dish and then they asked me if I knew how to cook rice hahaha I responded that is one thing I'm almost competent in!!!! I'm making the rice for dinner tonight. I hope to learn how to make chipati, a staple food in Kenyan's diet and samosa's. There is also this chick pea dish called, Endangu, which I would like to try.

Today we're at Tea Tot the hotel we stayed in for the first night we were in Machakos,  and today is hubday! A wonderful day of free food for all of us! Otherwise we have to buy our lunches everyday on the stipend that Peace Corps gives us, as well as any supplies that we need.

All the Kenyans I have met are sooo very nice! Kenyans also dress very nicely. All men where dress shoes, pants and button down shirts. The girls wear skirts, dress pants, button ups and heels. EVEN on the roads, which are dirt roads with Matatu's driving everywhere. Good thing I went to India before because Africa's traffic is calm in comparison to India's.

We are now in our 10 week training in Machakos. All of our training happens in Tea Tot hotel. It's a very nice, "modern" hotel. We still get the fun experience of sqautty potties though, which is good because we have to get use to them since it's rare for anyone to have a western toilet. During our training we have had Kisswahili classes every day for an hour at one of our houses. We have had medical classes where we have learned how to prick our own finger to test for malaria, sanitize our water with a nice 3 step process, safety precautions in case of worse case scenarios. A class that terrified me but was luckily was concluded by saying that rarely do these horrible things happen to Peace Corps volunteers. My PCMO, Peace Corps Medical Officer. I think that's what it stands for, also ended the talk with, if you ever need a hug i'll be there for you! I was much relieved after hearing that.

We had a class on the Education system. Grades 1-8 are called Standard 1-8 and High School 9-12 is called Forms 9-12. I will be teaching primary education at a school for the deaf. I'm not sure which subjects I'll be teaching but I hope I don't get 6-8th grade. I like to play games and do arts and crafts, so the babies are good for me! We'll be starting KSL (Kenyan Sign Language) classes next week. It's pretty different then ASL (American Sign Language) so I really have to get ASL out of my head.

Kiswahili has been going alright. It's a pretty easy language but it's so much easier to read then listen to or converse in. Unfortunately, we only have 1 week of Kiswahili because the rest of the time we will have KSL class for 4hrs everyday. I'm much better at sign and it gets me gitty when I think about becoming fluent in sign and being able to communicate with my kiddies in sign! Our days are packed and long but I'm happy they are packed because it makes me not think of all the people and everything I miss back home.

                              Stand Tall, Stay Strong and Look Forward To The Positive

                                              Rather Then Fixate On The Negative!

(Someone told me that and it's been a little mantra of mine ever since)

First Days of Kenya.....

These are my personal opinions and do not reflect those of the Peace Corps. 

And on behalf of myself! Sorry for any grammar, bad spelling or incomprehensible thoughts. I'm no genius when it comes to writing but I do love sharing my international experiences with those I love! Thanks for reading!

                                                 

TID BIT ABOUT ME: I'm living in Kenya as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I will be teaching primary education at a school for the deaf as well as HIV/AIDS awareness. I don't know what subject I am teaching yet but it will vary from Math, Kenyan Sign Language, English, Geography, Health Class, etc. I also have no clue what grade I'll be teaching. I'll update this when I find out my site and details in the next few weeks!

October 4, 2012

Jahmbo!

            Wow, only four days have gone by and I can't even tell you what we have done. It's as if I'm in a dream, probably because I'm still jet lagged from our wake up at 2am in Philly, 2 hour bus ride to NYC, 5 hour wait at JFK, then our 15hour flight to Johannesburg and FINALLY our 4 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya! It was a long trip but because of the amazing people who are also doing Peace Corps Kenya, it was a painless process to get here. It's amazing, the Peace Corps really does select similar people for this job. Everyone is interesting, intelligent, loves to explore, curious, excited to work their hardest to make a difference, and what is even more amazing is that from day one before we even knew each other we were acting like a team/family. Our entire group went out for beers and burgers, an obvious outing the night before we go to a country with no really good beers or burgers, womp womp womp. It was an amazing site. 28 of us scarfing down our final meal in America all at one table, chatting away about what we thought Kenya was going to be like, what we left behind in America, what we were nervous about, and goofing around to make all the nerves go away.

(Just a side note: 10 of us are going to be Deaf Educators and 18 are going to be Math and Science teachers, all in Kenya)

            Everyone in my group is from an amazing assortment of backgrounds. We come from all over America. Some from cities, some from farms. One of the guys with us, Jay, is deaf and it's been amazing having him around. He is so patient with all of us and is a wonderful teacher. I'm rusty on my American Sign Language and every time I apologize for not understanding or being slow, he sincerely replies it's fine, it's fine. He is also amazingly funny and easy going, so it makes it easy for all of us to interact with him despite our lack of ASL. I asked him if it was hard being deaf in a hearing group and he jokingly replied yes, but the second we all get to our sites where the rest of us are the hearing in a deaf world, the tides will change! hahaha 

            The ages in our group range from 23-60. Some have left family. Some have left boyfriends and girlfriends. There's a married couple who joined together. There are some who left husbands in America. Some come from teaching background, some haven't. Some have had many years of sign, some haven't. And we all have different backgrounds. It truly is the most diverse group of people and yet we all have one goal. To put ourselves into a situation and a country that is incomprehensible at times, challenging, beautiful, interesting, life changing and put ourselves into a country that is willing to let us in to try and make strong relationships with Kenyans and help in the school system.

I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of people to go on this crazy adventure with!