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!