Slowly Finding My Home

These past couple of weeks have probably been the best at my site. What has made then much better are the students. For a couple of the days the teacher who heads up games everyday was not at school, or left early. So I got my Frisbee out and started to throw it with some of the girls. Afterwards some of the form 1’s (freshmen) started to ask me questions and where I’m from, how I like the food here. So just having some of the students start to open up to me was great. On a different day I was watching some of the girls practice volleyball when one of my students in my form 2 (sophomore) chemistry class started to talk to one of the other students about me. She said that she loves me and told the other girl that I’m here for two years and she doesn’t want me to leave after two years. I was so surprised when she said this, but it really felt good to hear. So the connections that I am forming with the students has helped me a great bit here.




Last weekend I traveled to Kisumu and met up with 5 other volunteers. It was so much fun and sooo great to see the others. We shared stories about sites and what has happened the past 2 months. There’s this shopping center in Kisumu that has a store called Nakumatt that is similar to walmart and the center also has a movie theater!!! So we all went to see the movie Valentine’s Day. It was crazy because the movie theater was nicer than some of the theaters in the US. There are some great restaurants in Kisumu also, so we all got a taste of american food with pizza and brownies. And 3 of us bought a liter of ice cream from the Nakumatt and split it. It was absolutely wonderful and delicious!



This weekend has been much more subdued. On Friday night, I went over to Lee’s house (he is the other volunteer at the primary school in Mumias) and we cooked dinner together. As I was walking over to his place, I was carrying a bunch of things for cooking. One of my students (the one who said she doesn’t want me to leave) saw me and asked if she could help me carry the things! It was so nice. But for dinner we made meatless meatloaf, potato salad AND a mango pie! The pie was by far the best part of the whole meal. but the potato salad was a close second for me, haha. We watched a movie on his laptop, then at 11pm when the movie was over I left to walk back to my house. Our two school compounds are connected by a gate so it was ok to walk back so late. But when I got to the gate on his compound, there was no guard around and the gate was locked. I started to look around, and I see a big dog walking around….. This is when my heart started to pound. I didn’t know if the dog was solely a guard dog or if it was somewhat friendly. I often hear a dog barking at night, so I was a bit frightened, lol. I called Lee and went back to his place and slept in his spare bedroom.

Yesterday I spent about two hours organizing the lab that the school has. My school is so lucky to actually have a lab with supplies and glassware, but the way they were storing the glassware was basically just putting it all in buckets together. So much of it has broken because of this. So I took to the time to organize it all, I’m curious to see how long it will last. I woke up early this morning to wash my clothes, which I have become used to doing. Though there are definitely times that I wish I could just toss it all into a machine.

With the term winding down… Only 3 days of classes left, then the students have exams for a week, its hard to believe I’ve nearly been here 3 months. But it has been a long 3 months at the same time. I feel that Mumias is slowly becoming home to me. I think that if the students continue to warm up to me like they have been, it will be a very wonderful home : )



Oh I have started to read a book called “Beyond the Sky and the Earth” about a woman who volunteered in Bhutan. It is crazy how just in the first couple of chapters so much of what she has written has at one point been my same thoughts or experiences, so if you want a book to read, check it out.