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!