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!